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Episode 147 - New Pastures and Deep Roots

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 28m·analyzed·Aug 8, 2021
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TL;DR

Dennis returns to tournaments; Steve Ritchie joins JJP from Stern, sparking debate on production strategy.

Summary

Dennis and Tony discuss their return to competitive pinball after over a year away, sharing first-tournament impressions of recent games (Led Zeppelin, Guns N' Roses, Avengers) with generally critical takes. The major news: Steve Ritchie has left Stern Pinball to join Jersey Jack Pinball—a surprising move both hosts analyze in depth, questioning JJP's production rationale and speculating on Ritchie's motivations regarding design constraints and toy budget.

Key Claims

  • Steve Ritchie has left Stern Pinball and joined Jersey Jack Pinball

    high confidence · Dennis references a Facebook announcement from JJP with photos of Steve, Jack Guarnieri, and Pat Lawlor; formally confirmed

  • GNR production run is expected to conclude in summer of next year (2024)

    high confidence · Dennis cites this when discussing JJP's production capacity and replacement playfield availability

  • JJP currently ships machines with USB dongles for Wi-Fi, requiring unplugging for software updates

    high confidence · Email from listener Ian reporting his experience with JJP GNR; directly addresses a prior podcast discussion

  • Dennis's first location pinball tournament play since March 2020; placed tied 9th out of 25 players at 403 Club

    high confidence · Dennis directly recounts his tournament experience and results

  • Black Knight Sword of Rage was not a good seller for Stern

    medium confidence · Tony states 'my sources indicate' this; unverified but attributed to insider knowledge

  • AC/DC and Star Trek were Steve Ritchie last two universally popular games at Stern

    medium confidence · Tony's opinion based on community sentiment, not independently verified

  • Stern has three primary in-house designers: John Borg, Brian Eddy, and Keith Elwin

    high confidence · Tony lists current Stern design roster; aligns with known industry structure

  • JJP's production schedule is over a year between games, making a third designer seem unnecessary

    high confidence · Tony's analysis of JJP's historical release pace and current capacity

Notable Quotes

  • “It just feels like a rebake of a few other things. If you want flow, it will give it to you, but there are so many better flow games.”

    Dennis @ ~22:00 — Summarizes Dennis's criticism of Led Zeppelin Pro as derivative and lacking differentiation despite adequate flow

  • “I think that this gives JJP a chance to maybe actually hit their game release goal.”

    Tony @ ~51:00 — Suggests JJP's primary motivation for hiring Ritchie is accelerating production, not just quality improvement

  • “I don't think Stern is going to be too horribly hurt... The big question to me will be just how out there the games get with the higher bill of materials and the larger amount of toys.”

    Tony @ ~49:00 — Highlights the key differentiator between the two manufacturers—JJP's larger toy/mechanical budget—as Ritchie's likely draw

  • “Unlike pinball, they will actually fix it. They don't give you the, well, that was the breaks. Have fun with it.”

    Dennis @ ~42:00 — Critique of pinball industry's warranty practices compared to the watch industry, highlighting systemic service gaps

  • “I just don't understand this move at all if they want to up their production capabilities... why would we need to bring on a third designer when you can't even put out two games a year to keep your two designers busy?”

    Tony @ ~57:00 — Core skepticism about JJP's rationale for hiring Ritchie; questions fundamental production strategy

  • “I wouldn't understand... are you going to really broaden your market? I mean, Steve's a big name, but why wouldn't you want a new designer, like a fresh designer?”

    Tony @ ~59:00 — Suggests JJP may be prioritizing star power/marketing over genuine production needs or design innovation

  • “I've been feeling like I like to do flow but with Stern I can't have any toys basically.”

    [name withheld pending review] @ ~54:00 — Identifies the likely creative constraint driving Ritchie's departure—toy/budget limitations at Stern

Entities

Steve RitchiepersonJersey Jack PinballcompanyStern PinballcompanyPat LawlorpersonJack GuarnieripersonDennispersonTonyperson

Signals

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Steve Ritchie, legendary Stern designer, leaves Stern Pinball to join Jersey Jack Pinball. First major designer defection from Stern in recent memory.

    high · Official JJP Facebook announcement with photo confirmation; Tony and Dennis both confirm validity

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Dennis speculates Ritchie left Stern due to toy/mechanical budget limitations. Suggests JJP's higher BOM per game is the attraction, allowing more elaborate playfield toys.

    medium · Dennis: 'I like to do flow but with Stern I can't have any toys basically'; comparison of Stern's sparse toy designs (Black Knight toy, Star Trek ship) vs. JJP's elaborate machines

  • ?

    product_concern: Dennis critiques pinball manufacturers' warranty practices as fundamentally broken. Using unpopulated playfield swap as primary solution; no on-site repair support like other industries.

    high · Extended rant comparing to automotive/watch industry standards; contrasts with watch manufacturer's proactive recall and repair service

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Tony reports cooling sentiment around Steve Ritchie's recent Stern designs post-AC/DC/Star Trek. Black Knight Sword of Rage and Led Zeppelin underperformed; Game of Thrones mixed reception.

    medium · Tony: 'Not been particularly impressed with his recent games... sales indicate BKSOR was not a good seller'; cites unnamed sources on sales data

  • ?

    business_signal: Tony questions JJP's hiring of third designer when current design team (Lawler, Minier) insufficient to justify annual output. Suggests production bottleneck not design bottleneck.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.265

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, August 8th. This is episode 147. I'm Tony. I'm Dennis. we have quite a bit to cover. Nothing has happened. There has been nothing that's happened, but there are still things that we must discuss. There's nothing to talk about. No. We're going to spend the whole thing talking about skateboarding. Yes, which I don't do. But what I do do is ask you about what happened since the last episode. So what's been happening? Well, I have actually returned Was it returned? Your Final Fantasy XIV. Well, no. To Babbage's, where you bought it. No, I'm still playing Babbage's. Oh, man.
1:00
That's a throwback. No, I've actually started listening to podcasts again. Just because I picked up a new one. It's the Fitzall Podcast, which is a podcast from a couple that's done by three YouTube maker slash tool restoration guys that I watch. And I'm like, well, heck, I'm already watching all their videos. I might as well listen to their podcast as well.
1:27
Makes sense. And I went last night to a poker night. And I didn't win. But I didn't lose much money either.
1:41
The last time I played poker with this group, I doubled my money. And this time I went home and I'd only lost $3. So I'm still net up playing poker. But they still want to take you down because you are like the villain. You're the John Malkovich of the story. No, I'm not. I'm the unassuming guy in the corner that just kind of breaks even and nobody notices. No, they remember the doubling. That's what they refer to as. I didn't even win the time I doubled my money. Oh. I wasn't even the number one finisher the time I doubled my money. We just called it because it was down to two of us out of the original, like, nine.

  • “Oh, you got a bad transmission here. Here's all the gears and stuff. Just pull your old ones out and reassemble it inside. It's kind of like a puzzle.”

    Dennis @ ~40:00 — Scathing analogy mocking pinball manufacturers' practice of shipping unpopulated playfields for warranty work

    • John Borg
    person
    Brian Eddyperson
    Keith Elwinperson
    George Gomezperson
    Eric Meunierperson
    Tanyo Klyceperson
    Ianperson
    Dylanperson
    Markperson
    403 Clubvenue
    Guns N' Rosesgame
    Led Zeppelingame
    The Avengersgame
    Eclectic Gamers Podcastorganization
    IFPAorganization

    high · Tony: 'over a year between games... why would we need a third designer when you can't even put out two games a year'; implies Lawler/Minier underutilized

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Dennis reports negative experience with Guns N' Roses Pro: spongy flipper feel, center scoop entraps player unintentionally, risk/reward mechanics overly marathon-like, shots lack satisfying flow.

    high · Dennis detailed playtest: 'shots weren't fun... there's a lot of center scoop... doesn't feel like a flow game either'; lost tournament matches on GNR

  • ?

    product_concern: GNR machine at 403 Club developed score exploit: player two accruing points in shooter lane when player one played. Game subsequently removed from tournament after malfunction discovered.

    medium · Dennis: 'getting points... 20, 40... huge points afterwards'; machine turned off after discovery; suspected stuck switches

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Dennis criticizes Led Zeppelin Pro for sparse playfield design and poor flow. Compared unfavorably to Star Trek despite same designer (Ritchie). Minimal toy integration despite music theme.

    high · Dennis: 'shoots like an inferior Star Trek... so barren... there's no love in that form... no love in that form if I were to steal a line from Kroll'

  • ?

    technology_signal: JJP ships Wi-Fi-enabled machines with USB dongle rather than integrated hardware. Dongle must be unplugged for software updates via USB connection.

    high · Listener Ian email: 'currently shipping Wi-Fi enabled pinball machines use a USB dongle... unplug it when I want to update software via USB on my JJP GNR'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Dennis returns to competitive play after 16+ month hiatus; immediately places tied 9th in 25-player field. Notes skill preservation through home collection play; newer machines unfamiliar.

    high · Dennis tournament recap: 'first I have played location pinball since March of 2020... I've not bought any new games since pandemic started'; 2-2 record in tournament

  • $

    market_signal: JJP GNR production run expected to conclude summer 2024. Replacement playfields will be available at end of run, suggesting capacity planning around current project completion.

    high · Dennis: 'GNR run is expected to conclude in summer of next year so their production capabilities are what they are'; mentioned in context of replacement playfield program

  • ?

    industry_signal: Stern maintains deep roster of designers (Borg, Eddy, Elwin, Gomez available) suggesting overspecialization or protracted design cycles. Loss of Ritchie unlikely to impact output.

    high · Tony: 'three cornerstones a year... three primary designers... they have plenty of designers... code is the bottleneck'; Stern has capacity to absorb Ritchie's departure

    • 2:24
    Well, you got some Casino Royale-sized groups there, nine. It was a lot of fun, though. I always enjoy the chance to get together with friends and not lose very much money. Yes. It was cheaper than playing pinball. Was it? $3 is cheaper than playing pinball. Well, you could maybe play three games of pinball. Or for $3, you might get four plays. I think that's kind of the rule.
    2:54
    So what have you been up to? Well, as you sort of referenced, I went. There was pinball. The tournament schedule is pretty much resumed at this point, and IFPA is now sanctioning again. So I have emerged from my slumber after over a year and did my first pinball tournament. You stretched your wings. I stretched my wings. and reached out your sharpened practice talents. And I assumed I would go and do a two and out because it had been so long. Well, I have played some of my own games over this whole time period. I don't know a lot of the new ones, and a lot of the stuff at the 403 Club is newer games. But I did okay. I won two and, of course, lost two because it's a two and out scenario. So though I was sent to losers by Dylan who Ended up taking third and I was sent Home by Mark who took second So I Lost to some of our and Tony The listeners don't know the names Tony knows the names And they're Some of the top players so Anyway yeah that was fun And I had to buy the first round as well So I think I ended we had 25 Players I think I ended up tied at ninth So yeah you know kind of where I belong where I feel I belong Right in the higher middle part of the pack. Right, right. Basically a little above average. I like the new people to be a little scared. Right. But all the A-tier players are just like, oh, yeah, it's Dennis. Okay, well, we'll probably get three points. Let's just hope he doesn't send us to Walking Dead because he owns that one, which I kept doing. We kept drawing Walking Dead. I kept losing as well. No, I lost two and I won one. That's how it works out. That's how it works sometimes. At least you didn't pull the thing that happens to me sometimes where I lose, and then the guy I lost to loses, and then the guy he lost to loses, and then the guy he lost to loses. So you end up just being the biggest loser. Yeah. Goodbye. So while I was there, because I have not played, that is the first I have played location pinball since March of 2020. So, and I've not bought any new games since the pandemic started. So given that, I've had this whole huge bunch of games that I haven't had a chance to experience. And there were four of them at 403 Club. I did not get an opportunity to play Hot Wheels or trying to remember what the other new game was. Mando? Yes, thank you. Mandalorian. because people were on them the whole time before the tournament started, and then I never drew them for the tournament. But I was able to play Led Zeppelin. I was able to play Guns N' Roses, and I was able to play Avengers. So my quick takeaways, the game I had the least amount of time on was Avengers. I think I only got two games in on it. It shot really fun. I don't get the rules. I need to brush up on it because I'm told there's a lot of good combination possibilities with the Infinity Stones and the characters that you get to play the modes on. And so I didn't know what I was doing, but I was following the shoot the shots and the flashy lights and stuff. And a little magnet ball lock to go up the Avengers Tower, whatever it's supposed to be. That's kind of cool. It's kind of cool looking. So overall, I liked that one with what little time I had on it. Led Zeppelin, which maybe I think I had three games on, I did not care for. it shoots like an inferior Star Trek is the best way and this is a pro so when you use the upper flipper shot it doesn't it hits a stand up and it comes out of there and I just it's okay when you look at it it's so barren so I mean Star Trek doesn't feel barren like that but this just felt so barren to me shot pretty well rules seemed okay but I just there's no love in that form if I were to steal a line from Kroll. It just feels like a rebake of a few other things. If you want flow, it will give it to you, but there are so many better flow games. Do you think it would have been better in the premium version?
    7:14
    I think the upper shot would feel better, but I wasn't spending a lot of my time trying to access that shot anyway. Mostly on the lower two flippers, shooting ramps, and as usual, they're fairly accessible ramps. You know, Steve Ritchie flow style. There's nothing about it other than the cool music that really resonated with me. It's okay. It's okay, but it would be a game I would never buy. And then I got, I think I was able to play Guns N' Roses four times. I drew it twice in tournament and I played it twice before. So yeah.
    7:46
    Oh my gosh. Hated it. Oh my, oh no, no, no, no. I just, other than again, I like the sound system and the music, The lights were cool. Other than that. And actually, the first time I played it was so brutal for me. I didn't even get a multiball. And I thought that game made sure you had multiballs. The rest of the time, I got to experience all the multiballness that is multiball. I'd say the two things that stood out to me that I didn't care for is the shots still.
    8:23
    There's just like a nothing. Like you hit an orbit, it comes around. You hit the ramps. They feed back. It's just – but it doesn't feel like a flow game either. And so I just – the shots just weren't fun for me. There's a lot of center scoop that you might inadvertently go into a lot. That was probably a lot of it was just I'm getting in this scoop over and over, and I don't mean to. I'm trying to find my shots. And then when you're in a song, you have the multiballs going, and you're trying to build up the song jackpot. And it's risk or reward, but like a marathon risk or reward. To me, it's really odd. I like risk or reward. That's what I like about Walking Dead. This is a very risk or reward game. It's also a very short game. With this, like I was on one of the tournament games, I was losing to Dylan. He was up over like 1.1 million ahead of me. And I started a song. And so I just kept shooting ramps. And I'd go into the scoop when I was down to one ball and be like, Do you want to add a ball or do you want to cash out your jackpot? What's my jackpot? $200,000? We're going to add a ball because I got to play the risk. I'm on ball three. I got to catch up to Dylan. I didn't. But it's just like, who does risk reward for? I've been playing for like four minutes on that one ball because Dylan came up after. He's like, I thought you were going to have a lot higher score than this, Dennis, because you were playing forever. I was like, well, I kept letting it ride. Let it ride. and as near as I can tell, that's the strategy on that game. So, well, there's some stuff with the shots that I didn't love. I didn't hate the shots either. It's the rules I don't like. It's the rules I don't like and they have it set up. You could make every shot in that game. The flippers still feel bad. Like, spongy would be how I'd describe it. But how they have it set up at 403 is right. I have no problem making any ramps. I just don't like how it feels. It just doesn't feel... I think when you try it, Tony, I think you will despise it. That is my take. Based off of your other reaction to games, I actually liked more than you did from them. I've just, it's no dialed in. It's no Wonka. Wow. And, you know, I would agree with Steve H, who I was speaking with, that those are probably Jersey Jack's best games. And I think the difference is the rules on those games is probably part of it. Yeah. I just kept exploiting the left ramp when I, in my second tournament game, which I won by a lot. And I just, once I figured out, okay, here are my safe shots. I'll start a song and I'll just do the shape because it seems like everything's lit. So let's just do it. And then when I have enough balls in play, I'll do the riskier shots, but nothing felt particularly risky. Though, full credit, that center scoop was not a center drain. I don't think I ever had a center drain out of that scoop. So it was well positioned. Well, that's good. Yeah. But I just, I didn't care for the game. I don't know why they're going for so much. here comes the hate mail. It's already on the way. We haven't even published it and it's already on the way. I mean, visually it's alright.
    11:31
    It looks better on camera. The lights and stuff. I've found that true with watches doing like loom photos and stuff. Like the loom looks way brighter with the camera set. Same with the lights. Which is good because if they were brighter I'd probably have been blinded. I wasn't blinded by the game. Another thing I will say in favor of GNR. Some of the other JJP games I've been really frustrated because they have a tendency to just make everything go dark and I'd lose track of the ball. Didn't have that problem on GNR. I hate it when they do the whole, ha ha ha, it's a dark table. Good luck. And then it broke. Actually, when I was playing the game I won, there was a point, I think on ball two, where the player two was stepping up and it seemed like he was getting points in the shooter lane. But I wasn't right over him. It was a small amount. Really small amount. Million. Well, I'm low-scoring J.J.P. It was like 20, 40. And I thought, is this supposed to happen? Is it giving him stuff based off of what I did? I don't know what's going on. I don't know the rules to these things.
    12:31
    But I didn't say anything because I was winning anyway, and I didn't want to redo anything if I was indeed to be concerned. Apparently, the next people that went and played the game, it was giving huge points. Some switches must have got stuck or something. They already turned it off. And it was out of the tournament after that point.
    12:50
    I'm just sitting here. I'm going to go ahead and play. I haven't even started ball one, and I've already got a million points. So I did that. Oh, I got more stuff. But these are thematically tied to our topic, so I feel okay. So video games, I've made a little bit more progress in Gears 5. I basically have played it twice since our last episode, like Sunday of last week and yesterday. So I've made a little more progress. Overwatch has been having a summer event. and so I went ahead and I've been playing that and I actually went ahead and did some competitive by myself just to earn me some gold gun points. I was like, oh, I'll go ahead and do that. On the console side, they've introduced the text chat mode. They introduced that a few months ago. It hadn't been something that consoles had. I don't know if that's good or bad because people will send helpful tips sometimes or ask something. Someone might say, hey, would you be willing to play blank or something? It's like, yeah, whatever. now I did have someone who called me who said my mercy play was and they spelled it this way A dollar sign dollar sign and they wanted me to be Moira and I thought that's kind of toxic I went ahead and switched to Moira because I'm like okay if you feel like I got upvoted at the end for because I had one of the top four cards as my mercy I'll tell you what it was a D.Va player who kept turning around a corner overextending then dying and wanted to be healed and I suppose thought my Moira orb might work better than the fact that I wouldn't pocket him. But, you know, we got to have some limits. I can't be pocketing it. I can't be pocketing divas that overextend. I don't pocket divas at all if I've got a real main tank with me. And we had an Orisa. This wasn't a dive comp. So, anyway. So there's that.
    14:31
    And I had a few other weird, funny text chat things. I'm just not used to it. Because the other team just got smoked. And the person afterwards goes, our Rein is seven. I laughed and I thought Are they being insulting like a Reinhardt Is the place like a seven year old Or was it the Reinhardt very well literally Could have been seven and so they're like I'm wrong with seven what do you What can you do what can you do when you're Reinhardt seven you can die Well now that you've got text chat You get to see the When you win Whatever winning side it is Players on the winning team dropping the GG easy because that's what Oh, yeah. We saw the GG easy. I've seen the losing team say that, too. It was weird. It's like, GG easy.
    15:17
    And I don't know. I had one. I used it at one point where someone on our team had asked, I'm assuming they meant our Orisa on offense on Volskaya, if they would consider, and said it politely, too, if they would consider switching to Rein. Because we're trying to push in and the Orisa shield was getting melted. I was playing Hog. I was the other tank. Yeah. And I went ahead and switched to Rein and we took the point. So on the way out afterwards, I said, I'm going to stay as Ryan unless you really want Hog. And no one said anything. So I assume they were happy and we full held. And then there was another one later where someone did not. They threw the old good old fashioned way of sending harassing Xbox messages. I had played Symmetra and we full held them. And they called me a boot, which I had to look up, which means noob in military speak. And then they had first blocked a message. Xbox said we think this message may be harassment And it blocked it so I said show it to me And they were They were mad at Isometra And I'm like I don't blame them when a bronze runs up against Something like that I don't know what they were ranked I'm going to guess they were bronze and they don't know how to get past it I pity them I do It was a cheese move of me To use against them But I don't regret it because that's what they do In Overwatch League too So I've been playing that And then in terms of my other hobby Just real quick I have now Disassembled four watches And have not yet successfully got any of them working I've been working on two Got the, I was telling Tony I got the replacement movements With the new escape wheels It was a bad escape wheel on both Both of the new escape wheels are broken One I think from the mechanics of the watch Sort of shredded it apart when I was trying to remove it The other one because apparently one of the prior breaks was occupying the hole it rests in so when i tried to snap it in it went couldn't go in all the way pop the post right off of it and these are real thin so ebay is my new friend and people are i'm learning everything in vintage watches is 20 bucks like 20 to 30 this is like movements parts whatever this all ends up that amount so so still working on that and then i had actually purchased a new watch which tony knows about it arrived the hour hand does not align properly in comparison to the minute hand. That actually got shipped back yesterday. Oh, it did finally get shipped back? They recall, apparently they've had enough of them, they recall their watchmakers from holiday in Switzerland and they gave me a label and told me how to package it and it's off to Switzerland for repair. They won't give me an estimate though on when it will be back because they don't know exactly what's caused the problem yet, but clearly it's widespread. Yeah. So I shot some footage and gave them links. I said, hey. Oh, yeah. It was super obvious. Yeah, I have. And I have. So, I mean, I put out a YouTube video of it, but I have standalone, like no commentary versions of that footage. And I sent that off to them and said, hey, if it helps your watchmakers diagnose, here's a time lapse showing the hour hand stopping and starting again. And here's a video of me trying to set the time. So if that helps with the diet, I'm thinking the time lapse might be because most of the people are noticing when they're trying to set the watch. or doing like the GMT hand movement.
    18:35
    So anyway, it's odd, but as expensive as the watch is, a lot of people are really frustrated. Most of the upset is not actually the people who bought the watch because there are only 200 of these watches.
    18:47
    The model that this watch is, there's a different design that was actually on sale before this watch that's coming out later this year and early next year, and there's over 1,000 of those. Those are the people that are scared. because they're afraid since it's got the same that it's not going to work right because they've seen this batch of two because this was a collaboration watch with another company and the collaboration aspects though were really only about the design the movement's the same so that's why they're worried and I don't blame them I do, I blame them I don't blame the people being upset and for me both companies in the collaboration have been great with their communication very polite, very supportive, you know, right on top of answering any questions I have. One of them, one of the company's founder on social media initially had a post that didn't go over very well. So some people have been upset about that, but my, my engagement with them has been great. So other than, you know, obviously it's annoying having a defect on something you bought that you paid for months ago and it arrives and then you have to send it back away. But unlike pinball, they will actually fix it. They don't give you the, well, that was the breaks. Have fun with it. That was the breaks. Or, oh, yeah, you bought something and it's still under warranty? Well, why don't you buy yourself a new part for $500 and then you swap it yourself if you want. Yeah. No. No.
    20:18
    No, no. We understand. We'll send you an unpopulated play field. Oh, my God. Please completely take your game apart and rebuild it from scratch and send us the old play field. This is all I'm saying, Tony. This is all I'm saying. If you're going to take a hobby that you could say historically was occupied by operators and people that knew how to repair and deliberately target homeowners now and then still start sending blanks out and asking people to move mechs, you have got to be drinking something laced with something strong and potent. Because it doesn't make any sense. It's not how any other industry works.
    20:58
    And I get it. It's tough because pinball is hard with returning things because of how heavy and bulky everything is. Oh, well, that's the industry you chose. Oh, well. You should have sent it out with a pin pod. Figure it out. Or pay for people to come out and do the swaps. You know, tax. I don't know. Solve it. Shouldn't be my job to solve it.
    21:20
    That's part of the reason I don't buy. I mean, when I get warranty work on a car, I don't have to go in and take it apart and rebuild the car. Sure. Oh, man, we're sorry that block cracked. Here's a new block. Swap that out yourself.
    21:34
    Yeah. No, no. Oh, no, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, but take out your spark plugs. Could you imagine someone sending you, like, a blank engine and telling you to pull the parts out of the old one and drop them in? I mean, seriously. Oh, you got a bad transmission here. Here's all the gears and stuff. Just pull your old ones out and reassemble it inside. It's kind of like a puzzle.
    22:00
    Yes it like a puzzle That what the watches are like puzzles Well we talking pinball so let go right into it right in i know the intro was long that my fault but a lot of the intro was video games and pinball so i think we're we're still on topic send complaints to actually i don't want any complaints but if you want to you can send them a click to gamers podcast at gmail.com so starting in the pinball segment i do want to open that we did receive an email from ian regarding our prior episode where we talked a little bit about the wi-fi enabling that was discussed by George Gomez and Tanya Kleiss on the Just Another Pinball podcast. So Ian reports the following. Hey, love your podcast. Keep up the good work. Just thought I would let you know that even currently shipping, quote, Wi-Fi enabled, end quote, pinball machines use a USB dongle for the Wi-Fi. I have to unplug it when I want to update software via USB on my JJP GNR. So thank you, Ian. Sorry, Ian, if I bothered you with my take on GNR earlier. And that's good information. Okay, so at least with JJP, they're using the dongle. They're all about the dongle. JJP just lets their dongles hang, apparently. And I've wondered if with Stern, if that's what... I don't know that Deadpool and other older games, but still Spike 2 games, come with a dongle. I've assumed, though, that people will be able to buy a dongle to get their Wi-Fi enabled. That's what I've been thinking would happen. That would make the most sense. Because... Because that would just be a software patch to the... to the game and then when you put the dongle in it should work i mean there is a there are usb slots on it because that's currently how you update software so i'd assume just a usb dongle that means said the node-based system that stern has would allow them to also sell a node board that would just connect in with like a cat cable right as long as there's an easy way to mount again i'm assuming that we're just going to use a dongle because stern by and large by and large doesn't ask people to go and build their machine. Right. Well, and here's the thing is, I'm sure that the dongle will be cheaper and easier than a node board. Oh, definitely. Definitely. I agree with you. Yeah. Well, moving on to something that's not so easy for some people to accept is that Steve Ritchie has left Stern Pinball, and he's joined Jersey Jack Pinball.
    24:22
    Curious, isn't it? It is. It's very curious. First, I do want to thank John M., who did email us at the CollectedGamersPodcast at gmail.com about this when it was still just a rumor and hadn't been formally announced.
    24:36
    I do have a link in the show notes to Jersey Jack Pinball's Facebook announcement where it's Steve standing out in front of the JJP sign with Jack Guarneri and Pat Lawler, who leads the design teams over there. So, really, I wanted to get your thoughts initially. What do you think of this? What do you think of this move for Steve? What do you think of this move in terms of what it does for JJP? And what does it do to Stern?
    25:03
    I think that I'd like to say that I think that this gives JJP a chance to have some better games come out. But the truth of the matter is I think it gives JJP a chance to maybe actually hit their game release goal. they might add having another in-house designer might let them actually get far enough ahead on their work to get games out at a slightly faster pace. Um, I think with Stern, I don't think they're going to be too horribly hurt. I mean, there's been talk of Steve retiring for a while and they've got plenty of designers. I don't think it's going to harm their production basis. I mean, uh, the big question to me will be just how out there the games get with the higher bill of materials and the larger amount of like toys and stuff that we tend to see from a JJP release. I'm curious to see how Steve gets to play in that toy box and what comes out of it. Okay.
    26:15
    Well, uh, my thoughts for, I, well, Let me start with the Stern one because I agree with you on that one. I don't think this really has any impact on Stern whatsoever. They have so many designers. I don't know whether leaving with Steve's idea or Stern's idea or some combination of an idea. And the reason I say that is I know a lot of people who have been fans of Steve at Stern or his historic work. And I lump myself in that group. He has been overall my favorite designer of all time. I have not been particularly impressed with his recent games. And I'm not the only person with that sentiment. And I'm not sure whether or not the recent games have been selling that well for Stern. Some, like Star Wars, surely must have because it was Star Wars. But my sources indicate Black Knight Sword of Rage was not a good seller. I'm not surprised. I don't know if Led Zeppelin's been a good seller or not.
    27:19
    And then there have been just other little elements where people have been. Basically, it seems like it's sort of ACDC and Star Trek were, you know, and I think those were back to back for him. We're like the last two ones that seemed universally popular. And then like Game of Thrones, a little mixed. You know, I know a lot of people really like the pro. I know a lot of people really like Dwight Sullivan's rules on it. Right. And that's often been the case. I know plenty of people that like Black Knight sort of rages rules, but they don't like the layout and so on and so forth. So for Stern, though, I mean, Brian Eddy's on board now. I wondered if they were getting ready to have Steve leave because you have three cornerstones a year. they have three primary designers right now. John Borg, Brian Eddy, and Keith Elwin.
    28:10
    With the ability for George Gomez to step in and do a game design if he needs to. I don't think they need more designers doing out three games a year. I don't think it takes that long to do a play field play out, quite frankly. I think they've been given them plenty of time to do it. It's always been the code that's been a... And they have been. Stern has been. More and more programmers. Because more and more people have to be involved in the code now, as complex as it's become. You know, like video games. so so that's my so i agree with you about stern they'll be fine for steve um this could be a good move for him i think like you it's the attraction here has to be being able to work with a bigger bill of materials because it seems like jjp's got to be giving them as much more as they sell their games for and what we see on the games versus what we see from stern's games they've got to be working with a bigger bill of materials so if steve's been feeling like i like to do flow but with stern i can't have any toys basically you know any toys yeah air quotes like you get the vengeance ship with star trek you get the black knight toy which is a cool toy but it's like the only thing on sort of rage uh led zeppelin when i played the pro that i mean part of my gripe is it feels it feels so barren i you know there's a little pop-up thing on the more advanced model I mean so it's like there's one thing with all of this stuff one thing and so I think that could be where he's coming from so it could be good for him the only thing is Steve71 and getting to JJP I don't get this I don't understand this move at all if they want to up their production capabilities they already could with Lawler and Eric Minier as their designer like they're not keeping them busy in my view making new play fields their production schedule is not aggressive enough currently to even fully use both of them because it's over a year between games so why would we need to bring on a third designer when you can't even put out two games a year to keep your two designers busy you see where i'm coming from unless they're being busy because they are still actively working maybe they're just maybe their work's just that much slower I just I don't I wouldn't understand I have no idea I believe JJP has indicated based off of some information about letting people with damaged playfields have the opportunity to buy replacement playfields which will be at the end of the GNR run is expected to conclude in summer of next year so their production capabilities are what they are and I just I don't to me this move does not make any sense and for them, for JJP.
    30:55
    Because are you going to really broaden your mark? I mean, Steve's a big name, but why wouldn't you want a new designer, like a fresh designer who could work with you for a really long time? Honestly, I think, here's where I'm at. It's like, I think we see Steve's game in 2025 and we see one from him and that's it. That would make sense. And I don't, so again, completely, Because remember, you're talking about J.J.P. who has recently bent to the will of others for a game's entire reason for existence. It could be something similar to that. It's just, I struggle with, like, I could see if Steve was getting frustrated at Stern, for example, where most of the designers were having a game per year except him. He seemed to be on an 18-month cycle. I just can't envision JJP's going to give him an 18 month cycle I don't think they can produce fast enough and they talk about I know Jack Guarneri has gone on other podcasts and has talked a pretty big game about ramping that up but again I'd have been more comfortable seeing that actually happen with Pat, Eric, Pat, Eric Pat, Eric, every year a Pat and an Eric and that's a year to come up with a layout And understanding that, yeah, they may work slower, but I mean, Pat was used to doing a design a year at Williams. So I just I don't think that's the case. And and and again, like you look at Keith Elwin when I think he was on the Loser Kid Pinball podcast and said, yeah, you know, I've got like three designs already done. Yeah, it's not it's not that hard. I mean, what they do require. I mean, there's a knowledge that needs to go into it. But as we've seen with so many of these designers, they start cribbing from their past work all the time. And I know they talk about, hey, this shot, like I've heard George Gomez say, hey, there's a shot and I need to move it over a millimeter. I think some people, though, think that like George Gomez is standing in front of a big printout of his playfield and stares at one shot for 40 hours for the whole week, the whole 40 hours. And it's like, I move it a millimeter. It doesn't work like that. And I'd also like to point out that, remember, in the premier years, their designers were turning out play fields on an average of a full game relief, full life cycle of their games, three months. And what was the problem with their games? It was the code. It was the rules. It wasn't the layouts in terms of the chief complaint. Chief complaint was with Gottlieb, you got whatever rules came out at that three months, and they never patched anything unless it was like on a fry transistors. they would not they'd not no more code support after that so so i'm not saying that you should put someone on a three-month play field layout schedule but i think 12 is plenty generous right and i just don't i don't see how this i for me it's a cart before the horse thing they need to be able to show that they could put out two games a year before it made any sense to bring in steve to me this is like a pr thing like they want to show that they've got the king of flow now and now unless Steve's going to help them with something else like solving their play field issues like is he going to help with I mean because the manufacturing is now in Chicago so right they could have someone like if Pat's busy with the design because he's in charge of the design team too with Eric and everything that Steve might be helping with some other aspects I could see that that would make a little more sense to me but just as a designer I just don't see why JJP He brings in any third designer unless Pat's getting ready to leave.
    34:36
    But then if Pat's getting ready to leave, my assumption will be Eric Menyer will take over as lead for them. He seems to have been cultivated for that purpose.
    34:45
    And again, why would you replace Pat with Steve, for example? How long is Steve going to do it? Right. No, I think in that case, you'd need to bring in somebody newer.
    34:56
    Bring some fresh blood. So we're not done with the bloodletting at Stern, Tony. Apparently, information has also been revealed that Lyman Sheets, perhaps the most popular rules developer in the history of pinball, has not only left Stern, he left months ago. The end of last year, according to Pinball News, which I have a link in the show notes to the Pinball News. The article is actually about Steve Ritchie. This is basically a throwaway line about Lyman that's in there. But I've heard it from other sources as well that, yes, Lyman is gone. that's shocking because he was the one who went for code on the most important of the importance and so yeah that's been the last cornerstone that Lyman programmed was Walking Dead in 2014 and since then as you've noted he's been put on I guess what Stern might consider their boutique pins so like the Kapow titles but also like Elvira which isn't a Kapow title, but it was a specialty game. Basically, the no pros, the high dollar games. Because in Lyman We Trust has been a quote for a long time. It's generally accepted that Lyman's programming in the end results in some very good games. I know in the end because his early code versions are often not that popular, but it always gets there.
    36:22
    And he tends to spend a lot of time, like a lot of these games seem to have like a 24 month cycle for him to reach 1.0 code or whatnot. So, um, so yeah, I, to me, you know, I, I can't really say like, I'm not to my knowledge from what I have heard, he is not employed by another pinball manufacturer anymore. He may be doing contract work for pinball manufacturers, but I've also read reports that Lyman was very burned out, which I can see. So, He may now be working as a programmer outside of pinball. That's my take.
    37:02
    He's making dating apps. Yeah. Yeah, a few years late to that craze, but okay. Soon it's just going to be Sheets replaces Tinder. Yeah.
    37:19
    Dating app code is great. I love the risk-reward of this relationship. That's very exciting So for Lyman This could be a good move If he was burned out Then yeah I think he needs to move on You know Professionally That makes total sense You need to do What's best for you Always So Now for Stern I think it's a bigger blow Than losing Steve Ritchie Yes Definitely Stern has Really good designers I think Stern has Really good code team too It's just Lyman has been Seen so He's been On such a It's been like Lyman with Stern and Kiefer with JJP. They have been the rules – I mean, they're programmers, but it's the rules that are the important thing. Right. They've been put on this pedestal of rules. Now, that being said, the reaction to Keith Elwin's rules, which he works with a coder, Rick Nagel, to implement them, but the rules come from Keith. Those have been very popular rule sets. And so I'm assuming there will be a lot of embrace on that. I've also just actually, when I was at 403 yesterday, talking to competitive players, I heard multiple people really pleased with Raymond Davidson being at Stern. They think that his code rule sets are going to be because he's coming at it from a high level competitive perspective. And as I noted earlier in the podcast, like Tim Sexton, he did the rules for Black Knight Sword of Rage. The rules are really well liked on Black Knight. That's the layout that was the problem. So, I mean, they've got three people there who do rules currently that they're, I mean, they're top. The thing is that I think, especially to tournament people, I think this affects casual players as well. When you have tournament people, people are really good at pinball, making rules.
    39:05
    You get this balancing to it that ends up being really, really enjoyable. And then they have Dwight Sullivan at Stern, and Dwight's big difference that I hear versus all the other rules developers is he comes at it from a very video game perspective, really big into what Zach many would often call moments. But I think with Dwight, it's deeper than having those special light shows and stuff. I know that those sort of things stand out, but Dwight has a gamer's mentality. so that's where like choose your house and uh being able to have all the the foundry weapons in mandalorian and what those you know those those are like rpg elements right or board game or tabletop game elements that's what dwight brings in because he comes at it for me to me from a gamer perspective which attracts a certain other type of player versus the tournament player so but that means that the tournament players by and large so far that i've heard from like mando too So it can all coexist. It's just, I think Stern isn't hurting for coders. It's just Lyman was, I mean, he's like, he's his own currency. Right. So that, that it's a bigger, it's a bigger loss no matter what. I was already frustrated though, that Lyman wasn't working on the, on the cornerstones. I was, I was annoyed. Let's put it that way. Just because there's been burnout building there. Yeah. Well, I mean, that could be, it could be that, or it could be this long-term. I mean, Lyman used to, like, I thought he helped develop some of the board set transitions that they did. Maybe he's more into systems architecture than wanting to make game rules. You see my perspective. But given his personality, he has to put so much into the game rules because he wants them to come out in a way he sees them that I could see where he would burn out from it. If that's not his favorite thing to do. But if he's like too much of a perfectionist that he needs the rules to be a certain way. So he drives him. I mean, he was notorious for working on his own time doing code updates. Right. And I'm assuming that's, I mean, again, it's a. That's not a good work life balance. No, no, no, no. And that's one of the things I, years ago, I learned, you know, I like things to be right. But I said I can I as a person cannot embrace a perfectionist mindset because I will drive myself mad over the most minute things versus getting more things done efficiently and having a bigger overall positive impact. Right. But it can be hard to see that force for the trees. Well, that's it for Stern. I have one more thing, but it's a it's a bigger so much pinball news. And no releases. Well, our last pinball element is deep root pinball. So I think you noted on the last episode our lack of having an update from you. Correct. Well, there was an update that released after we recorded. So I will read it aloud. I know many have probably read it online already. But if you have not, here you go. We are sorry for the length of time without an update. We have been contacted by a few of you within the last few weeks. The main topics were how many people took the refund offer, then parenthetically it notes three. Is the refund offer still available? Parenthetically, notes no. And what the status of the Raza bills are. A legal matter affecting Raza arose around a month ago that we did not expect. We were advised by counsel to not send out any substantive communication while they worked to resolve it amicably. We have taken that advice while patiently waiting for it to be resolved. The back and forth has taken much, much longer than we expected. So we are providing this brief update so you understand what the delay is about. We cannot discuss the parties or what the complaint is about. We cannot provide a timeline. What we can say is we are working hard to resolve slash settle it, and we hope to be resolved very soon. We will be able to give a meaningful update at that time. Until then, Robert J. Mueller, Principal, Deep Root Pinball. So that update came out. Now, you have words People can't see Tony's already, he does this When he's got words, important words He extends his hand out to me Like he's trying to force grab a boulder Here's the thing You sent this to me When it first popped up Yes, I found this on Pinside You sent it to me And I was just shocked Initially And my very first thought I don't know how true it is. This is just the first thing that popped into my head. It turns out somewhere in the background, they don't have the rights to the game. I've struggled to figure out what legal matter affecting Raza, because that's what you said is affecting is Raza itself. Specifically. Right. That it could be. And that's the only thing I could come up with as well. Now if my recollection is correct back in the Zidware days when there were still attempts to quote save Zidware there was someone I believe that came in and I thought was looking at buying the rights to the games to help get them built Now, I've read online, but I have not confirmed this, that he did get the rights. but surely Deep Root took care of that like years ago when they decided they were going to move ahead with Raza you would think it was just like checking off all the boxes like resolving the deal with Zombie Yeti on the art and they ended up doing some art changes and all those little pieces from the Zidware pot had to be drained and resorted we had to disassemble the stew that J-Pop had made and then move forward. So, I mean, other than that, what could it possibly be? Because everything else was under J-Pop, who works for Deep Root. So what's the problem? Yeah, I can't think of anything else that could be the problem, unless potentially something showed up in one of their other little design things that someone's got a patent on, that they've got to redo something for some reason. Right, right. Well, okay. I mean, it's conceivable, but I mean, ultimately, isn't that most of the time, wouldn't that be like, just change the mech? Yes. At this point, just change the mech. It'd be. But there's nothing that I look at because, again, they've been patenting and innovating. Like, the pin bar is theirs and all that sort of stuff. So looking at the play field of Raza, everything on there I don't think is under any patent anymore. It's all old stuff like rotor targets or swinging targets and stuff like that. It's all old stuff that's no longer protected. So I just don't. The other option is that this is the best way to shut people up.
    46:09
    The lawyers say we can't talk about it. Oh, versus saying, well, we're still waiting for UL certification. Now it's just legal? Yes. Okay. I mean, I could see it. Sure. I mean, it's a not great look, and I'm not saying that's what it is, but I think that the two most likely is either that they're just trying for the thing that lets them not talk about it as much as possible, and legal's the best way to do that. Or they don't have the rights to the game. Well, the reason why I'm not sure it's just a delay tactic to get people to give them some breathing room on communication updates is what we have learned after this update. So in addition to this information, I saw a post on Pinside from a user named Blueberry Johnson. I have a great name. Yes, it's a great name. Beautiful. The avatar is even better. If you go and look at the avatar. But I have a link in the show notes to the blueberry and specifically to the post of his that says that the Facebook pages for Deep Root Pinball and Deep Root Funds were no longer there. They've been pulled down. You try and go to the links and they don't work. At the time, he indicated that Deep Root Studios page on Facebook was still up. I did go back on the two days ago. So on the sixth, on the morning of the sixth, I went and tested these and what he says is true. I couldn't go to Deep Root Pinball. I couldn't go to Deep Root Funds. I could go to Deep Root Studios.
    47:48
    Then I heard a podcast. I just confirmed that again, just now. Okay. And we're recording for those that don't know. We are currently recording is just after noon central time on the 8th of August. So 2021 for those that are listening from the future. So then I heard an episode of the Loser Kid Pinball Podcast. And I have a link to this episode in the show notes for those that want to listen to it. And on that, they noted that Robert's personal Facebook page was also gone.
    48:22
    Now, I don't have links on this, but in that same thread with the Blueberry Johnson post, If you go further along later on, I've not gone and confirmed these, but there were reports that the LinkedIn pages were also gone.
    48:37
    Also information that the while the website is still up, the there used to be like a call directory of routing when you would dial the number. The number, when you call DeepRoot now, is like a robotic automated female voice that basically tells you that you can't route anywhere. It just gives you some basic information. So, okay. Now, so, I mean, you wouldn't need to remove Facebook pages and LinkedIn profiles to reduce the need to put out communication. You would just not post stuff on those when you don't want to do updates. So, what are your thoughts of what's going on with that information on top of the Raza update? That went out to the customers from Deep Root. Take the money and run. But no one can ask for rebates anymore. No, no. I'm saying that's what Deep Root's doing. Oh.
    49:41
    What money? Whatever's left. They're heading for the border. As they say in the watch world, you're saying they're pulling a runner? Pulling a runner. no to be fair it could be that they are removing their social media or more likely than not it's that they no longer have a social media manager and they shut everything down okay yeah I could see that I worked for an organization where we didn't have anyone running the Facebook page. And so we took it offline for a while. It actually, actually, I still was, I think ultimately I was the only owner even after I wasn't there anymore. And eventually they brought in a communications person who wanted to bring it back. So I transferred ownership over so that they could do that.
    50:40
    Yeah, I mean, I could see that. But again, when we took it down as an, when we did it as an organization, we very deliberately said, we don't want this up anymore because we're not going to maintain it. That was the decision at the time. It wasn't a, we didn't have anyone for the time being to manage it. We would have just left it up in that case and brought it back. But the person who was in charge at the time of communications was like, this is no longer a part of my strategy.
    51:09
    I don't think we get a lot out of Facebook, so let's not do it anymore. So, sure, there's that. But what about the phone system thing and not being able to call and get a human being anymore? See, that's not social media. That's telephone. No, I think they're cutting staff. I think they're just dumping everything. I think it's over, like we thought it was over forever. But I think it's done, done. Because you know what else could be a litigation issue that doesn't allow them to talk about it while they get their things in order?
    51:47
    Bankruptcy is a litigation issue. well I mean they would self file for bankruptcy would be the I mean it goes to the courts it goes to the courts but if they're not to that point yet if they're getting everything lined up okay well I mean and one of the things I did I did consider as a possibility was the nature of the let's assume that there is the Raza litigation as Robert outlined in his update what if part of the litigation had to do with statements that were made on social media and rather than try and find posts that might be problematic, they just purge the pages in the hopes that that would get rid of the information. That's possible. But they haven't purged their main pages. Right, right, right. I mean, Deep Blue Pinball is still up. And again, that has nothing to do with the phone system. Have they purged their YouTube channel? Didn't they have a couple things on their YouTube channel? I don't know. I don't remember. There were some videos I thought that they had hosted Let's see Their YouTube channel is still up With all 287 subscribers So And 46 second post 8 months ago Well So I mean I guess But again like the social media manager Theory I guess that would So Deep Root Pinball and Deep Root Funds Had the same social media manager but Deep Root Studios Is that a different social media manager? Well, here's the thing. Deep Root Studios hasn't updated since 19. Their website hasn't updated since 19. The whole Deep Root Studios thing might just be utterly defunct at this point. But again, if you're purging pages, why would you leave it? Right. And the answer to that question is, I don't know, unless they just forgot it existed. Yeah. I mean, I don't. Obviously, all we could do is throw out wild speculations. We have no idea internally what's going on. The fact is, as you noted, this has not looked good for a really long time. They have missed so many self-imposed deadlines. I think even though there was a lot of criticism about how Robert responded, communicated, I should say, really, with the community, by and large, I feel Deep Root got quite a bit of a pass because they hadn't taken anyone's money. But since they've taken the money, they've continued to miss self-imposed deadlines. The excuses for these misses have constantly evolved, ranging from UL certification troubles to pandemic supply issue problems to now a legal matter. It's just so it feels very flavor of the month when you do get an update. And none of the updates suggest to me that progress has ever been made. They say some of the older updates, they would say that progress has been made, but they never document or demonstrate any progress, which they're not obligated to do that. But you have to understand that the confidence levels have to be really, really low. And at this stage, again, based off the Pennside discussions, it seems like you basically have a class of people that stayed in on this game that are hoping for the next Big Bang Bar. super limited super rare game that people didn't get and they're going to cash in big once it's made and are willing and willing to risk whatever deposit or I've even read that one person did a full payment and so I mean I get it like I get I get we ever since those big bang bars were made by Gene Cunningham this hobby has had those sort of people that are just rolling the dice and that's how we got Zidware. That's how we got Highway. That's how we got SkitBee. That's how we got VonE. It's all these people that think, oh, get in on this really ultra-exclusive thing. I'm going to pay like $6,000 and I'm going to make $10,000 easy sort of stuff. And so that drives poor decision-making when you're affixed to the gamble, I suppose. But, hey, it's the difference in this instance versus all the other instances. And maybe I'm just becoming cruel and more jaded as I've stayed in this hobby longer. But I don't really sympathize much with those that have money in on this because I think there were plenty of warning signs with all the constant delays to have been comfortable. It's not that I would say don't buy a Deep Root game. It was rather than wait for them to come out. And that means missing Raza and then buying Food Truck when Food Truck is built and ready and available, then do that. But until they release a product, it's just not – everyone should know better at this point.
    56:42
    The reason why people will preorder from Spooky is they have a track record of putting out games. And I still don't like that they do that preorder model. I agree with you, but I understand at least our – But they're established. They're established. You have a firm chance to actually get what you pay for. It might not be what you thought it was when you get it. Sure. And I mean, even though I, well, I don't do pre-orders in pinball. Again, that the watch with the alignment issue I mentioned in the intro, that was a pre-order. Yeah. Those companies involved in the collaboration had produced and sold other watches successfully. So I don't do Kickstarters for watches. There are a lot of them and most of them are garbage. but people will do that to hope that maybe they'll get something on the ground floor, this really exclusive thing that they'll be able to flip for a profit. That's what a lot of it is.
    57:34
    Anyway, it's a mess. I'm very skeptical that this is going to come to fruition. If anyone's listening from Deep Root and they want to have a conversation about it, I'm always open to hosting something on that. I mean, you brought up how long ago it had been, or someone else had actually, how long ago it had been since we had done that Deep Root interview.
    58:01
    But, I mean, if they've got, I mean, there's legal stuff going on. I just don't think they'll be in a position to really tell us anything that wasn't in Robert's update. Right, and I don't think there will be anything that they'll say. I think they'll keep quiet no matter what happens. I just, based off of all of this, just objectively speaking, I have zero confidence that Arasa will come out or they will ever release any game. I just don't, I just don't see the, they have not outlined a path to manufacturing. Well, and we've been talking about that for years now. And that's been, and that's been the thing. And the thing that started to, I think, show up, you know, going back to the, you know, when the Deep Six were allowed to start speaking and things like that even, was, it's like they have all the design pieces in place. And never went in and put together any manufacturing. And I've often wondered if the strategy was ultimately that Deep Root Pinball was going to patent a bunch of tech and then license that out to other companies to do. And that things like Raza were sort of proof of concept. Like they're going to build a few just to show that the pin bar is a good idea and things like that. And the wraparound Translight looks cool. But they didn't really want to be pinball manufacturers. They were going to do a few games. But then why you bring on like five designers? Here we are. Earlier, I'm looking – I'm pulling out my loop and I'm zooming in trying to go, so why did JJP hire a third designer? I'm not even talking about the fact that Deep Root at one point had Dennis Nordman, John Norris, John Papaduke, Barry Ausler, and Robert Mueller all being credited for doing design work on their own games. I was just like, that's a lot of designers. I mean, Stern doesn't have this many. Right, but there's also no games. And that's the – and again, it's like it looks like you put in – and people on that Penn site thread have been pulling up – I think again, I think it's Blueberry Johnson has been pulling them up. But like the records of the PPP loans for all the staff that they've been paying for. And so it's like – to me, it's like they onboarded all of this creative talent, but nothing has ever been shown. I don't think I've ever seen a picture of a manufacturing space, a line. It's always been super vague. Remember the octo or quad manufacturing and then it was octo manufacturing. It's always been super vague how they were going to be built.
    60:35
    And it's just my sense. My sense has been because Robert has never shown us anything about them putting together manufacturing capabilities.
    60:45
    I don't have a good sense that there is any. like that they've never obviously they've put together some games but anyone you got any team of people can build a pinball machine people do it in their garage all the time it's not building one that's hard it's building a lot yeah and so again i've wondered you know they wouldn't have to be manufacturers if they were going to contract the manufacturing out but obviously that hasn't happened because that would have been an easy update yeah we've gone and we're working with American Pinball as a contract. They're going to be our contract manufacturer. We just do design. They could have done that and promoted it and announced it, and people would get that, but they've never done that. So I don't think they've considered doing it. Or if they've considered it, they never pulled the trigger. Yeah, I think that's one of those things that when most people think pinball, it's an all-in-house thing. You design the machines. You build the machines. But the thing is, like you said, manufacturing is a different animal than design. Yeah, I mean, I would not have held it personally, because I don't have money in. I don't really care. But I would have been, as a consumer, as a hobbyist, totally on board with Deep Root going, you know what? We've decided that the designing and development of these pinball concepts is our strength. We don't want to get into the manufacturing.
    62:04
    With COVID and everything else, getting the parts and all that, it's just a huge headache. It's like trying to build the line and make sure we have all the supplies at the same time. we're just going to say screw it we're going to ask Spooky which probably would say no but we'll ask American Pinball which has been promoting that they want to do that sort of work, contract manufacturing and just outsource it because the only group that I know of that ever did that was Dutch and yes Dutch had a terrible experience I half suspect Dutch's own fault though I mean they again I know people who say, no, they got screwed over by the contract manufacturer. I never saw their contracts. All I know is that the court said Dutch Pinball was wrong. Right. The courts are against you. So I know everyone who's friends with the owners of Dutch have been all like, no, no, no, no, no. The judge was wrong. Whatever. I'm sure you're an expert. So everybody who's been ruling against my judge thinks the judge is wrong. No, no. I totally didn't kill that guy. My favorite thing. The judge just picked wrong. My favorite thing. and I've actually had this professionally happen multiple times is I have had someone, I've had two different people tell me that a judge ruled and they've, and the two different people have identified different parties in terms of who won. It's like, oh yeah, the judge rule, you know, the judge did, the judge sided with this person or sided with that. And I'm like,
    63:32
    that doesn't work that way. Maybe the judge like gave someone some of something. Is that what happened it's like i need to see the case so i can just read it myself right because that's not how it works and most of the times yes it's been when i've been able to find out it's usually been like a a legal ruling sort of interpretation thing where it's right yeah they said that this person owes money and then they might go okay so yeah so the person who needs to get money won yeah but they're only getting 10 of what they asked for so then i was like no they the other guy one because he only has to pay 10% not 100% of what the claim was so yeah so I get it but it's like no it's somewhat they both lost too sort of the idea it's a compromise basically except they didn't agree to it it just happened Tony video games we can move to that now and I'm sure there's nothing there's no drama there's no there yeah Definitely nothing has ever happened I'm going to be honest with you This video game segment Just like last week Is nothing but the Blizzard mess Well But it's news and that's what we cover It's news and it's just so much So much has happened In the two weeks Two weeks Since I've done my Total recall In the two weeks Since this happened Well Bobby Kotech put out a statement Bobby And followed his statement up With a Discussion in a call to investors The other day for the second quarter earnings report A group of employees staged a walkout With a list of demands Jay Allen Brack The president of Blizzard Stepped down and has been replaced by Jen O'Neill and Mike Ybarra. They're going to co-lead the president. They're going to be co-president. I've heard of Mike Ybarra before. I don't know Jen. Yeah, they're... Mike's fairly recent. He was an old Microsoft guy, as I recall. And he's a recent addition, like last year or the year before.
    65:56
    And Jen, if I remember right, was head of one of the studios that Activision Blizzard bought out a while back.
    66:05
    Blizzard's head of HR left the company Fran Townsend who we talked about Oh Fran She the executive that put out the extremely defensive response to the email to all the staff.
    66:24
    And then she decided to follow it up by retweeting an anti-whistleblower article talking about how whistleblowers are destroying business and how they're so terrible. That came off poorly for some reason. And she ended up first closing down and then, I'm sorry, first making private and then totally removing her Twitter account. So she's completely gone off Twitter. She has also stepped down. She was the executive sponsor for the Activision Blizzard King Women's Network. and she stopped having anything to do with that support group as well after the last round of stuff. She still works for the company. She's just removing herself from the high visibility position she placed herself in in the company. Bobby Kotick, in his discussion with the investors, put out a statement during the call. He said, in our industry.
    68:03
    I would really like to hook him up to a power generator because he's spinning so hard. Spin to win. Spinning so hard. In his email he put out earlier, he also called the initial response tone deaf, which I believe is an understatement.
    68:21
    Activision Blizzard did pick a third-party auditor to come in and audit their practices and policies. but the employee advocacy group that has that put out that out as one of their demands when they did the stage, the walkout has come out saying, uh, they don't like the group they picked because the group they picked is well known for being brought in to do the whole fancy show.
    68:47
    Oh yeah. Everything's good here and we fix these things and it's all better type, uh, thing. So we'll see how that turns out. Now, this is having a downstream effect, obviously, to all of Blizzard's products. Yes, yes. And I'm more familiar with this side of it. The Overwatch especially is being, because it's a Blizzard title, badly beaten.
    69:20
    I don't actually have it in the notes because I saw it just before I left the house to come over here this morning. rumors out there now are that Overwatch 2 has been pushed to 22 yes I saw a Reddit post late 22 I saw a link to a Twitter post someone saying his sources that he used for other things regarding Overwatch 2 are such that there are so many delays at this point he's not sure it will be 2022 at all anymore He hopes he's wrong, but based off of what he's hearing, it sounds like there are extensive delays, which is very concerning to the Overwatch League. Because I know a lot of people have been speculating that the Overwatch League wants slash needs to have Overwatch 2 as the feature game next year. That it can't be Overwatch 1 again. But I don't even know if there will still be a league. I don't think there will, honestly. I'll be impressed if there is, but if it is, it's going to be a very different format than it is now. Yes. Now, I mean, one of the things is now the league has been bleeding sponsors, and they don't have a whole ton of high-profile sponsors anyway.
    70:38
    So last I heard, which was yesterday, I believe only TeamSpeak and I think Xfinity were those that were still allowing ads to be shown. Yes. and technically Coke isn't allowing stuff to be shown but they haven't fully a pause but State Farm, Kellogg's and IBM are out and as an interesting tell though about the Coke pause I was watching and I don't know if you're familiar with the tank player Sato, he used to play for the Philadelphia Fusion Sato when he's on stream most of the people drink from water bottles I'm assuming probably water Sato's like me and he drinks pop when he plays games. He drinks from two liter bottles of Coke. The label was off his bottle.
    71:26
    Yeah. It was someone had posted a screen grab in Reddit and it showed him taking a swig. It was just the clear two-liter. It looked like Coke was in it, but the label had been stripped. And so I don't think he was displaying the label for Coke's sponsorship purposes, but I'm betting they told them remove it because Coke has paused and we do not want to lose them. Yeah. They need to have that. Others have speculated that because it's affecting his livelihood, he may have switched to RC Cola as a protest. But we don't know. We don't know. If he had, he should have left the label on. It's actually just Sam's Choice, Sam's Cola.
    72:08
    But, I mean, this is – we've talked about before and there's a whole thing about the viability of the Overwatch League. So much of it is, isn't playing out like how they envisioned. And some of that has to do with just things that they got wrong. Right. Some of it has to do with the pandemic. And now some of this is going to be, well, what income do they have? Like I'm hearing like Reddit is exploding with all sorts of discussions on this with like, oh, well, I think Overwatch League will be a thing next year because these teams cost millions of dollars to form. Those investors who own those teams, those owners are not going to allow it just to go away. But I don't think that Blizzard can have a desk. I don't think we'll be able to have any of that commentary in the way, like the analysts and stuff. Like Blizzard won't be able to afford that stuff. Maybe the owners could keep their teams based off of selling swag and stuff. But who's going to organize it? Right. Well, and investors will take the money and run. They will walk away. Yeah, the thing is whether or not are the investors still dropping more money in or not. It's not like what a lot of, like, let's say, like, for example, a few months ago, I bought some penny stocks. And they're all down right now with the market changes. I mean, they're down like 10% total. So, whatever.
    73:30
    They do what they do. Chances are they won't all become zero, though, is the thing. But it's like if I wanted out of one of them, I could sell it to someone else. No one will buy the NYXL. No one will buy the Houston Outlaws because everyone's concerned that there won't be a league. Right. Now, and I think part of it comes as a lot of these teams, while they are owned by various groups, a lot of them are owned by e-sports groups who play multiple e-sports. and if one of them starts hemorrhaging enough money, they'll cut it off just to protect the rest of their brand and to protect everything else. And the cost factor for those that aren't familiar, because the Overwatch League was set up like a professional sports league, it has things in place that do not exist in a lot of other esports. For example, everyone on the roster of all these teams has a minimum guaranteed salary of $50,000 a year. right and they are required to have at least a group of six players because that's how many you need to field they're allowed to have as many as 12 so and a lot of those players who were really good get more in their personal contracts than the 50 so again it's like it's a big mess a lot of livelihoods are on the line with this one yeah because i mean just i mean that's it they wanted it to be professional. So these players are making money just at this one game. See, because a lot of the other leagues or groups and esports events, most of the money comes from payouts.
    75:10
    Right, right. You've got to win. And that's how it was in Apex. And again, now that's the one thing. Yes, competitive Overwatch. Sure, that will still exist. If the league goes away, I would not be surprised an Apex-style thing crops back up, especially once Overwatch 2 drops. But, I mean, that's what happened with Heroes of the Storm or whatever. When Blizzard ended their... There is an outside league of that stuff going on. People play that for money still. This is not organized by... It's just not directly organized by Blizzard. And that used to be how all esports were.
    75:46
    So... But this is just a... As long as Overwatch League exists, There's really no oxygen in the room for any of the other startups. In fact, there have been a lot of criticisms about how Contenders is, and you can't really make a living doing Contenders, and that's supposed to be like a farm league. Right. So am I supposed to have a day job, and then I play Contenders by night? That's like collegiate. Yeah, but that's also how, at least back in the day, farm leagues actually were. You'd see the farm leagues where it'd be guys who had normal day jobs, and then at night or on weekends they'd go play some baseball and then they'd go back and then they'd be back to their normal day job because that's what they had to do to make the bills be paid. The issue is with the way these, you know, the game mechanics and the maps and stuff are it's like you have to you don't just get in two hours you have to train yourself up to be top tier and then you have to keep doing it to maintain that. It's just a mess. Anyway,
    76:47
    yeah, I don't. I don't know what's going to happen with all of this. I mean. I said, whatever happens, it will not be in this format, let alone the format we have. Well, and this format we've been doing isn't what it was supposed to be. Not at all. All these people who bought these, I mean, these teams cost millions of dollars to buy. I forget what the buy-in was. Somewhere between like 10 to 30 million. I don't remember the amount. Yeah, it was lower. The first group was much lower and the second group was like twice as much. These people, these owners who bought these teams at the time, they expected to have local events, stadiums full of fans, buying swag, paying ticket prices, coming in. That was what was promised. And early on, it was all that format. It was really cool to watch. They did it all out of L.A., but then it was supposed to be amongst all of our like you could go to New York City and watch a game. You go to Dallas and watch a game. And then COVID meant they couldn't do it. And then this year, it's been virtual again. And for me, well, I'll still watch games, but not like I did. I don't watch it like I did. It's just not the same. It's a background. The only live events anymore. I remember I had one on once, and I thought, do they add it in a cheer track? I forgot it was one of the Hawaii events. The tournament had started, and there were fans. I was like because I was like people are cheering It sounds hype what's going on Oh my god I forgot what it was like When there were fans And they bring signs and they go and cosplay And just watching I mean one of the fun things during the breaks When the analysts were talking to watch what goofy signs People would write up like Let Torbjorn fly Yeah no that type Of thing was the stuff That I thought made The league interesting Plus I mean you know we're talking Overwatch because it's a game we play But oh my god World of Warcraft is just like collapsing At the worst than anything It's like I actually read today Apparently one like founded In 2010 major fan Site is like well we'll keep Up the old stuff but I'm done They don't care anymore There's a YouTube group that Also said no we're done with WoW is all they've done for like a decade and and they're just and gold's been making bank huge bank off of his foray into final fantasy 14 and in a discussion the other day he flat out said that world of warcraft is way more toxic than final fantasy and i saw in a in a write-up that there were i guess three newer mmo i hadn't heard of any of them and they didn't list final fantasy 14 and said these other here are three other like mmos that a lot of people are going to and they love them yeah and warcraft like And the whole thing is like The developers just don't care Yeah they just put out Things and they don't really have It's like this game isn't fun And they're not changing anything and they've given no confidence And of course as we've learned Through all of this stuff it's like The World of Warcraft team was the most toxic element Of the Blizzard scandal Overwatch group actually I had read was the Seen as a good space Well it still has issues It does. And I wonder if Papa Jeff left because of that. Maybe he couldn't get the change because Papa Jeff was the savior. Because, I mean, I've seen the calls out there to change McCree's name because he's named after one of the people who turns out to have been a pretty toxic person. Though the thing is, I think I read a piece, the guy he's named for is a World of Warcraft guy. Ah. Because I knew he was part of the, I can't remember the other guy's name, who was the big World of Warcraft guy. who was like literally straight named in the suit.
    80:44
    And yes, it's about, you know, they, they put in their Easter eggs of their developers and stuff all over. I, uh, it's, yeah, I don't know. I, I mean, I'm not going to go so dramatic as it does blizzard. I mean, it's Activision. This is one tentacle in the, you know, octopus that is Activision. The largest, what? The largest, I believe they have the largest video game producer in the world. I think, aren't they bigger than Take-Two and EA? I think Tencent's the bigger. Oh, I forgot. Freaking mobile. Fake games. Yeah, Tencent. Well, they own pretty much even non-mobile stuff. No, I have a brand of them as fake games. But, I mean, that's the thing. They'll survive. All of this, their stocks are down 8%, which puts them up still 3% from last year. So it's not like they're even doing worse than they did last year.
    81:49
    So it's one of those things where they will survive. It's just what shape will they be in and how will the current teams and the games they've got going now make out. Now, if World of Warcraft completely collapses, they're going to have an issue. it's not going to destroy them, but they're definitely going to take some losses. I have pulled up a chart from Statista, which has market capitalization of the largest gaming companies worldwide as of June, 2021. Okay. And they are in order Activision Blizzard's number one with a, which, which line is what they've got multiple bars here. Let me see what the graph says. Ah, okay. Some of them were past years. All right. 75.22 billion US dollars worth of market capitalization. Nintendo is just behind them with 74.71 billion. So a billion, less than a billion difference. Roblox. I see where I made my mistake. Is number three. You're doing developers and Tencent's a publisher. Well, I did say publisher originally. And then for the rest of the developers, EA, then Take-Two, then Ubisoft, then Square, and then CD Projekt. Wow, CD Projekt made the list. Of course, it falls off really fast after EA. You're on 21. Yeah. I'm looking at fiscal year 19 to 20 for publishers. Go Sony, Tencent, Nintendo, Microsoft, NetEase, Activision Blizzard, EA, Take-Two, Bandai, and Square. Alright, so Sony's the biggest on the phone I guess that kind of makes sense No, Tencent's not too far behind them No, looks like they're Two billion Okay, interesting Well, I'm sure everyone loves to know that They're biggins And Activision's going to be just fine But it's just For those of us This probably predates some of it too But it's like It's just It's so frustrating because Blizzard was one of those companies that was put on a pedestal by... I mean, I really liked Blizzard as a company. I did too. It was one of those that was just up there. And then Activision took it over and everyone's like it's just gotten worse and worse and worse and now this stuff on top of that it's just... it's sad to see. It's one of those things that started... Pardon me.
    84:23
    To everybody felt, at least it seems to me that everybody felt like when the Activision buyout started it's when Blizzard started to slip. But from the sounds of this there were issues inside of Blizzard. The harassment stuff sounds like it's long running. This sounds like a large, which brings into question all of those big developers and the big names and the original Blizzard people who were bandied about as being some of the greats. And as more and more of them left, we're like, oh, Blizzard's dead. It's not what it used to be. But now I wonder, when they left, was it because there was people starting to talk out against the stuff that was coming up? or was it something that was more naturally occurring? Yeah, I don't know if we'll know or not. I guess it'll depend if more stories come out. But we'll see if Activision will finally right the ship and get this solved. But it's not going to be easy.
    85:37
    Because let's see, they were purchased by Vivendi in 95. yeah I barely remember pre-Vivendi Blizzard I don't remember pre-Vivendi Blizzard at all I mean I might have played some of their games back then uh but I don't remember there and then in 08 is when they merged with Activision so yeah I don't know we will see where things go.
    86:14
    Oh man. Bobby Kotick was in back then. He's been there forever. Yeah, no, he's, he's been long running. He makes some of the money.
    86:24
    Well, I think we've done enough to make our money for the two week period. So, but no, okay. That's why we've done enough because, because it's, it doesn't matter. So again, if you want to reach out to the show, you can email us at collective gamers, podcast at gmail.com, or you can go to facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast. We're available on Twitch, Twitter, and Instagram as eclectic underscore gamers. You're not really going to see anything there in any of those because I haven't been streaming in like two years now. My rig's disassembled. Your rig's disassembled for watch videos. It was, yep. Sad. So sad. I actually have reinstalled OBS. I've not set it up. But I did reinstall OBS. I still have it installed. I'm just not using it. I just... All I play is Final Fantasy.
    87:18
    Yeah. Nobody wants to watch me craft, because that's what I do. Well, I guess we'll plan to be back in a couple weeks. Maybe we'll have a few more developer updates on the Blizzard front, or maybe, I doubt the Deep Root front, but possibly. I doubt it, but we'll see. And we should have some news. so I might actually go find stuff, but this time it just... Every day, every day something new popped up to add to the notes. I just have a series of tabs that I open a tab, open a tab, open a tab, and throw together notes or save articles in a folder for me to go through and pull notes out of later, and that's all it was. It was Blizzard, and it's like, I don't have the energy to go look for good news anymore. well maybe we'll have some next time so until then I'm Dennis I'm Tony goodbye everybody bye