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Episode 224 - Liquid Haggis

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 25m·analyzed·Jul 21, 2024
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Haggis Pinball collapses into liquidation; Godzilla gets monochrome art variant.

Summary

Eclectic Gamers discusses industry slowdown, the Godzilla Black and White anniversary edition, and the major news of Haggis Pinball closure. The Australian manufacturer, known for Kelts and Fathom Revisited, has entered voluntary liquidation after announcing in February 2024 that it needed restructuring and new investment. The hosts examine the company's decline from high transparency in early years to silence in 2024, and discuss implications for pre-order customers and distributors.

Key Claims

  • Haggis Pinball entered voluntary liquidation on approximately July 18, 2024

    high confidence · Dennis and Tony cite Pinball News article and official liquidation documents

  • Fathom Revisited builds were supposed to be completed by end of 2023 but were not

    high confidence · Dennis recalls Haggis's previous timeline announcement

  • Haggis Pinball announced need for restructuring and new investor in February 2024

    high confidence · Both hosts reference written communication from Haggis in February 2024

  • Damien (Haggis owner) owns 95%+ of company shares; other shareholders hold minimal stakes

    high confidence · Dennis quotes official liquidation letter: 'the undersigned being a member with at least 95% of the shares'

  • Pre-order customers are likely unsecured creditors and will be far down priority list in liquidation

    medium confidence · Dennis and Tony discuss creditor hierarchy, acknowledging uncertainty about Australian insolvency law specifics

  • Godzilla Black and White Premium is priced identically to color Premium version

    high confidence · Dennis states directly: 'This is priced exactly the same as the color premium'

  • Current market period is slowest since hosts began covering pinball

    medium confidence · Dennis and Tony compare current summer 2024 to previous summers; subjective assessment

Notable Quotes

  • “we're maybe in the slowest time since we started commentating on pinball in particular”

    Dennis @ early — Establishes context of industry slowdown during summer 2024

  • “this one seems even worse than that [last summer after Stern announcement]”

    Tony @ early — Emphasizes severity of current market stagnation

  • “Haggis Pinball, maker of Kelts, maker of Fathom Revisited... has gone out of business”

    Dennis @ major_news_section — Announces the primary news story of the episode

  • “I respected the fact that they were this transparent on it. But also that saying that you need to recapitalize probably puts you even worse in a position”

    Tony @ haggis_discussion — Commentary on Haggis's public admission of financial distress in February 2024

  • “if I were an investor, that I would give my money to the company and let Damien still run it... it would just be throwing good money after bad”

    Tony @ haggis_discussion — Critique of Haggis's management and investor prospects

  • “the last major communication that came out of Fathom was... we have to restructure our just in time manufacturing... we need a new investor”

    Dennis @ haggis_timeline — Documents Haggis's final major public statement before liquidation

  • “I get it because there's basically no work involved, and it does look good, don't get me wrong... I just think it's what you need to do to keep the line moving”

    Tony @ godzilla_discussion — Assessment of Godzilla Black and White as low-effort but necessary product variant

Entities

Haggis PinballcompanyDennispersonTonypersonDamienpersonZach MinneypersonMartin RobbinspersonColinpersonRaymond Davidsonperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Pre-order customers of Haggis Pinball likely positioned as unsecured creditors in liquidation hierarchy; distributor pre-order deposits (e.g., Centaur deposits) also at risk

    medium · Dennis and Tony discuss creditor hierarchy with acknowledged uncertainty about Australian insolvency law; mention of Flipping Out Pinball deposits passed through to Haggis

  • ?

    business_signal: Haggis Pinball voluntarily entered liquidation with appointed liquidator after February 2024 announcement of need for restructuring and new investor

    high · Official liquidation documents signed by Damien; multiple account closures (Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, website) in mid-July 2024

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Defensive email from community member (Raymond Davidson) challenges recent Led Zeppelin criticism, highlighting unique mechanics (Icarus Multiplier, tour modes) and appeal to deep-play-oriented players

    high · Full listener email read by Dennis emphasizing game's tour mode system, wizard modes, and rules complexity

  • $

    market_signal: Summer 2024 pinball market characterized as slowest period since hosts began covering industry; even major releases like Jaws not generating expected enthusiasm

    medium · Dennis and Tony both note unprecedented market quietness; Tony: 'this one seems even worse than that [last summer]'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Haggis founder/owner Damien maintains 95%+ ownership with minimal outside shareholder involvement; investor acquisition appeared unlikely given public admission of distress

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.257

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, July 21st. This is episode 224. My name is Tony. I'm Dennis. We're almost to the, I don't know what the 25 would be. That's like a special, like some people celebrate their 50s. We do not. Some people could celebrate the 25s. We do not. But, okay.
0:43
It's been a lot of episodes is the point. And now we're in a strange time. We're maybe in the slowest time since we started commentating on pinball in particular. It has been oddly – I thought last summer after Stern backed out of doing their – when Stern had made the announcement that they were dropping one of the flagship releases and all of that stuff, that the summer was going to be super slow. But this one seems even worse than that. Yeah, last year was really strange because we had that March where like eight games came out. Right. And it was just like this weird final surge of the pandemic era. and now we're in this period where even Jaws doesn't seem to get talked about like all the other... Roar! I know people who like it, but... Roar! But this episode is going to be different. We do actually have one major topic. It has nothing to do with Stern Pinball. But before we get into that, what's been going on the last couple weeks? You been playing anything? I have not really been playing anything new. I did get two Kickstarters that I backed. Oh, wow. Arrived in like a day apart. So one of them is a tiny little tabletop game called Mech vs. Kaiju. And it is a map drawing game where there's just basic rules and you basically create a mech and draw a map and map out your mech fighting Kaiju. It's basically you roll a couple of dice and you play Pacific Rim. That's what it amounts to. Okay. And it was a cheap little $10 Kickstarter that I'd kickstarted at some point, and it arrived. I've read through the rules and looked at it. It looks really, really cool. I just haven't obviously had a chance to play it yet. The other one was I'd done a Battletech Kickstarter. Of course. To be fair, this was only the second time I've kickstarted a Battletech. You wanted to say first, and then you're like, I cannot. That would be a lie. But this one I didn't backstart nearly as large as I did the other one. But I kickstarted this one, and all of my stuff arrived, which makes it better than the Robotech kickstart. Yes. The Robotech one was a rough one. It was bad. But I got all my stuff, and it's cool, and I'm pretty happy. And so that's been good. other than that, we have been house hunting.
Carl D'Angelo
person
Nick Laneperson
Stern Pinballcompany
Godzilla (Black and White Premium)product
Keltsgame
Fathom Revisitedgame
Centaur Revisitedgame
Led Zeppelingame
Texas Pinball Festivalevent
Flipping Out Pinballcompany
Pinball Newsmedia
Final Round Pinball Podcastmedia

high · Tony's comment: 'if I were an investor... I would give my money to the company and let Damien still run it' / liquidation letter showing 95%+ single-person shareholding

  • $

    market_signal: Haggis Pinball's Centaur Revisited pricing increased significantly from Fathom Revisited levels, contributing to market suspicion about remake value and sustainability

    medium · Dennis: 'the pricing went way, way up' for Centaur; Tony: 'I remember that, that the pricing went way, way up'

  • ?

    announcement: Stern Pinball released Godzilla Black and White Premium as low-effort monochromatic art variant with identical pricing to color version

    high · Dennis: 'This is priced exactly the same as the color premium... it is entirely a premium. It's just a different art package'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Fathom Revisited builds failed to meet end-of-2023 deadline; production extended significantly into 2024 before company collapse

    high · Dennis: 'the last major timeline thing I remember coming out of Haggis was that Fathom was going to be done by the end of 2023, the builds, and they were not'

    • 3:19
    So that's exciting. It's something anyway. So we've been attending showings and open houses and stuff a bunch, especially in the last week or so. And then combined with all of that, I had a day where I was sick. And then next week we have 50% of our staff leaving to go to a convention. and like 20% of the remainders are on vacation next week. So we are going to be running with the barest bones of barest bones staff for the majority of this upcoming week. And on top of all of that, I got volunteered into assisting with some educational stuff during the course of that. So I will be splitting my time between helping to do all of the necessary daily work at work and then going out and helping to handle a bunch of teaching stuff with children. So it's going to be a very busy week coming up. Yeah, we've had a lot of staff vacations, as is common in the summer. I joked we were we were supposed to go over with my boss a survey months ago. We did it and we do one every year. I was joking with him because we were supposed to have a big like high level discussion with the executive team and i said you can't get the whole executive team together i have since i have been there we have never had the entire executive team present for anything it's a team of 12 and we've never had all 12 and we scheduled a special meeting and a family emergency came up for one of them so it was 11 and i said see you it cannot it cannot be done it cannot be done they can't all be in the same room it's just not allowed It's like one of them might be Batman and Bruce Wayne. This kind of feels like that. It's just strange. So anyway, so I have been – I have not been on vacation recently, so – other than the couple days it took around the 4th. So I have been working, and I won't be at the same conference as your staff, but I will be at a conference this week actually for most of it. So this was a good that we record on the weekend. Otherwise, this was going to be a mess because I it's like fly out on Monday, come back on Friday. Sort of. It's my last really long one planned for the year. And it's my last out of state one planned for the year. So then things should be much more calm for me. Game wise, I've been continuing to do Starfield. I haven't started anything new. Otherwise, I did play some of my pinball. I haven't gone out and played pinball this week or last, but I played a few of my games more so than I had. I'm going to have to work on Victory, one of the switches. It works when I toggle it manually, but the ball doesn't push it down enough, so it's a gap issue, and I'm going to have to correct that because there's only one way to, quote-unquote, play Victory. It's to get all ten checkpoints in terms of if you want to play it right, and checkpoint three is not responding properly. So it's kind of hard to progress when it won't register checkpoint three. There's only one way to register it, that switch. Right. That's one of those that just kind of – I just haven't wanted to pull it because that's in the garage. So it's like I have to put the glass in another room or I'll shatter it and all the rest of it. So anyway, that's what I have been doing. And I want to also thank Tony M. Tony M is a new Patreon member of ours. Welcome. Yes, we welcome you, Tony. And remember, everyone, you can support us on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers. We have three tiers. There's really no difference other than the amount of generosity you want to generous eyes. But the lowest tier is one dollar a month. And speaking of tiers, this podcast is basically tiered into two categories, pinball and video games, with an occasional stealth third tier of tabletop. But we've already got our taste of tabletop from your Kickstarter discussion earlier. So I'm going to put us into the pinball segment, which is what we usually do first. And I'm going to actually open with a listener email because it was the only thing I have. We actually have news this time. And I didn't get very many listener emails, which is good because we have news. So this one came in from Raymond, no last name provided, and I shall now read it for everyone's education. This totally is an anonymous listener and definitely not Raymond Davidson writing in to at least make an attempt to defend Led Zeppelin due to the more than usual amount of hate it's been getting recently. First, not all games appeal to everyone, but that doesn't mean there aren't aspects to games that do appeal to some. I know Nick Lane from Buffalo Pinball is an avid Led Zeppelin fan. He loves the flow and the high chasing, the Icarus Playfield Multiplier. The game's tour mode system was so good, they reused it in Jaws, where you collect X number of various things like spinners, ramps, and targets. The game has many rules, intricacies that may appeal to certain types of players who appreciate min-maxing and going deep into things, such as the four separate tour multiples that all have different scoring rules, the band boost action button feature, along with changing your songs at that time. There are also three wizard modes, one of which, Celebration Day, has been touted by the famous Carl D'Angelo as one of his favorite wizard modes of all time. And of course, combo rules that build the Icarus multiplier are completely unique to this game. I'll stop now out of fear that if this email is too long it might get thrown out I guess my main point is especially at some of the great prizes I see this game for don't knock it until you try it because if you are one of the type of people it appeals to you could be doing yourself a grave disservice by dismissing it entirely well thank you Anonymous Raymond for writing in and apologies for I'm going to try and use the power of editing to clean up some of my stumbles on that but um all right so Tony Anonymous Raymond has written in with some strong counterpoints that, you know, if you like to go in deep, if you like having multiple wizard modes. I have no experience going in deep. It's just not something that I'm used to. If you think like the world famous Carl D'Angelo or the renowned Nick Lane of Buffalo Pinball, that Led Zeppelin might be the game for you. My favorite point of all of it, which I had, in truth, never considered before. was when he mentioned that the combo rules that build the Icarus multiplier are completely unique to this game. Because the Icarus multiplier, strangely, hasn't been in other games.
    9:56
    What with the use of Icarus and, you know, why wasn't the Icarus multiplier in Rush? I don't, I just don't know. I've never really thought about it. But that is a very good point. It is, the Icarus multiplier is totally unique to Led Zeppelin. the warp ramp is totally unique to Star Trek too but he wasn't talking about Star Trek he's talking about Led Zeppelin with tour modes tour modes I'm trying to say it like Travis Murray I think I actually say tour just like he does but he gets blamed because he's from Oklahoma I wonder how he's doing without having easy access to a Brahms at this point I mean, is there something nice out in the St. Louis area that's better? I don't think so. He's got the arch, right? Right. That's so much better. They get to look at the arch. It's the arch. Yay. That's what Missouri always puts on all their coins and everything. Every time anyone says, what's iconic about Missouri? It's the arch. You know, Kansas City is deeply jealous, I think, of St. Louis in so many ways because it always seems like St. Louis is the example that everyone holds up as the shining beacon on the hill. It's probably because it's in Missouri and its name isn't Kansas. Yeah, but I mean barbecue. Barbecue Challenge hype.
    11:18
    Doesn't have an Icarus multiplier either. Fail. Okay, but in all seriousness, I 100% agree that everybody should play a game before making a decision upon if they like it or not. There are games out there that I quite enjoy that other people hate. WWE. No, I said games I enjoy. But that doesn't mean that they're necessarily a bad game. It just means I enjoy them while others don't. There are games that other people simply love, some well-known ones that I also don't like. And that's just due to my play taste. And I think that's going to be that way in any hobby, in any game. Uh, I personally, I, I don't like the, the, the flow and the field of Led Zeppelin. I don't, I don't like how it plays. I, I've never gotten comfortable with how it plays and I, it's not WWE bad, God know, but it is definitely a game that if I have the choice between it and a lot of other games, I'm going to drop my money into the other games. I think for me, the biggest issue, well, it's definitely the layout and that's part of the, I guess obviously everyone will approach it from their own perspective and I agree you should try it first and you can get them quite quite low price if you happen to enjoy the game or want to spend some time with it though obviously there's no guarantee that that price is going to hold and it won't even slip further the issue is that it is not fun to shoot and I look at it and almost all of my time has been on a pro but you it's like it's so stripped it's like iron man but even less but and and it shoots worse so because like iron man at least has the iron monger toy in it yeah you have to go up to the premium you get the the magic mystery elevator whatever thingy that half the people seem to disable so it's like like all the competitive people turn it off right jeff teal this turns it off that's all i need is my site for competitive people turning something off so it's like and and on the pro that shot sucks it's the warp ramp to nowhere it does it just bounces into the dead end target and the shots are one of those ramps is super tight like like unreasonably tight for no obvious reason and it's just i just don't think it shoots well so but it is good to know that there are some people who greatly embrace this because of the flow and mainly the Icarus playfield multiplier, which has never been used on any other game ever and probably will never be used on any other game again unless we get an Icarus-themed pinball machine, just like off the Greek mythology. Then they might reuse it, maybe, but I'm not sure.
    14:17
    Right. Yeah, you can just end with right. I'm just going to end with right. No, no, but... you are correct sir yes oh uh but no i mean definitely if you get a chance try a game don't don't make an assumption just because we say it doesn't even have stairway come on why are we why are we accommodating this they didn't get stairway the one song everyone knows from them i i i i will say and this does not apply just to uh led zeppelin this applies across the board to all pinball machines whenever i'm told how great a machine is and how much it's loved by some like high-end top tier player that doesn't necessarily mean that us mid to below mid players who have fun but are not like the gods of shooting will have the same level of enjoyment. That's true. I think that a good case in point of that is you look at Elwynn's catalog, and I know, at least in this area, a lot of our top-level players pick Avengers as his best game, where it's my least favorite of all of what he's put out.
    15:37
    And so there's something they're getting to that, like, I like it okay. Like, that's not a game I dislike, but I'd never want to own it. Right.
    15:45
    I think that is definitely one of those things is that skill has an impact on how much enjoyment you get out of something. If you have the skill to consistently get really difficult shots and finish really difficult stuff, that is going to be much more enjoyable than if you have the skill to go brick, brick, brick, brick. I didn't even know that shot could be bricked, but I just bricked it. because that's how I play.
    16:16
    It's how it is sometimes. Well, speaking of games that I want, let's talk about Black and White Edition of Godzilla. So Stern, a little bit after our last episode, revealed the anniversary-themed edition of Godzilla. This is the same gameplay, same layout. It is essentially a monochrome version with red highlights. Think the Elvira that was in black and white with red highlights. version of the Godzilla Premium. The art style on the game, like the cabinet sides and such, is very LE-inspired. Like, there's parts of it from the LE package, but again, in a black and white version. This is priced exactly the same as the color premium that has been out. So it is entirely a premium. It's just a different art package with a dramatically different monochromatic color scheme.
    17:08
    So, thoughts on this, Tony? some people have been upset because they don't like that the art is akin to the le drawings like some of the le style art is now available on a non-le game but the game itself this black and white version is not a limited model it doesn't have any of the limited trappings i i i think i like the black and white i think it looks good i kind of wish if they were doing the anniversary and the black and white look they had uh gone with an art package that included a more uh original godzilla godzilla so the big old tall eyes on the top of the head not like like you want them to actually do some work i want i want yeah and not just go into photoshop and just turn down all the saturation or something monochrome yeah put it in monochrome right right i mean i would i would have been happier if it was more of a mix of like you know the original Godzilla and all of that. But even there, I still don't think it looks bad. I mean, I like this art package better than the premium art package, but I think this game, who didn't buy Godzilla premium already over the art?
    18:29
    Right. So basically I see this. There will be a few people who will be willing to take the hit or whatever, sell their premium and get black and white premium. There may be some people that really wanted a premium but had bought a pro and might use this as the excuse to upgrade and get rid of the pro model. And there may be some people who are already thinking about Godzilla premium and for whatever reason, monetary space, whatever, hadn't pulled the trigger and will end up pulling the trigger and choosing this one instead of the color version. But I don't think a lot of people who already own Godzilla are going to go, oh, I like this art package the best. I'm going to sell my LE. I'm going to sell my premium that I already have. I think most people are not going to buy this. Yeah, I don't think that's what's going to happen. I think there will be some of these made. It will be a limited number, and it's just basically going to be like do you want a red Camry or do you want a blue Camry type choice when you go through and make your order? Yeah.
    19:22
    That's what it's going to be. But to be fair, it's Godzilla. the entire the the entire cabinet could have just been black with with with the word Godzilla in bright red Japanese on the black back glass and that was it and I would still play this game and I would the prop some people would probably actually buy that version yeah that's true uh I just I in terms of like cash grab low effort style stuff I I get it it doesn't offend me I'm getting a little it's kind of like what's with all these 180 vertical ramp twist ramp thing shots that's poorly phrased but the 180 ramps I should just say that they're constantly sticking on games now like to get an extra shot in on a layout this let's do a black and white version is starting to get a little old starting with that they did monsters from the get go black and white and then they came out with a version that was in color and I don't think they ever will do a primary release in black and white again because that held a lot of people back from it. But then we had the Elvira thing, black and white with highlights, and now we have the Godzilla, same black and white, same highlight color, red. Okay, I get it because there's basically no work involved, and it does look good, don't get me wrong. I'm very biased in favor of monochrome art packages in general, but I'm not the typical buyer. I just think it's – I mean I guess you do what you do what you need to do to keep the line moving. Do what you do. I just – I can't get excited about it. Even though it is – tip of the hat to them for actually like getting the Godzilla toy in the back, and it's black and white now and not green. And so they – I mean they did that, and the assumption is all the – there will be a topper that is a black and white topper and all the rest of it. So you want the total washed out look. Like they're going to let you have it in black and white. So anyway that I thought was honestly going to be the only news item of real note for us to discuss But Australia has delivered a gift I use the word gift in quotes because this is not good news for a lot of people. It's a gift for discussion.
    21:38
    But sometimes gifts are poisoned. So, Haggis, Haggis Pinball, maker of Kelts, maker of Fathom Revisited, supposed attempted maker of Centaur Revisited, I guess was what it was called, has gone out of business. So I have a link in the show notes to an article from Pinball News, which is a pretty good write-up, and it's pretty succinct in terms of what's happened. But essentially this is all broken just over the last few days. I think July 18th is basically the official date of death, as it were. But a really quick summary for people that are not familiar with Haggis Pinball. A lot of people probably have not played their games because they never made a whole lot. So if you didn't get to shows, you probably wouldn't get to experience them. But the company is based in Australia, more specifically based in Melbourne. They formed up in 2018. Originally – and a lot of people – I didn't even remember this, but they were originally working on a game called Ghosts, which I think went through some name changes. But Kelts is the game that people know of because that's actually the game that they ended up releasing commercially first. It didn't sell great, but there were a number that were sold. You and I have played Kelts. We have. What did you think of Kelts? Do you remember what you thought? Because we played it at a Texas Pinball Festival a couple years ago, I think.
    23:07
    I recall it being better than I expected it to be, but nothing special. See, they had the Fathom revisited at the same time. I really enjoyed the Fathom Revisited with the new coat. Kelts did not work for me. A little too silver ball mania for my liking. So I didn't enjoy the layout.
    23:24
    So anyway, but after Kelts, I just mentioned Fathom Revisited. And so that was launched April 2021. That's a remake of the Bally game. They were originally going to do a classic edition and a mermaid edition. And the Mermaid Edition was limited and would also have a new code set, an advanced code set that Martin Robbins, formerly from Head to Head Pinball Podcast, currently on Final Round Pinball Podcast. A lot of people know Marty. And so he was the coder who was working on that set. And as we just mentioned, we were both impressed by that game when we got a chance to play it back in 2023 at TPF. So the game looked great. Yeah. I mean they did a whole new thing with the lighting and all that. So a lot of demand. They did sell out of the LEs. As I recall, though, they only sold that because they had a deadline for the sales. And as I recall, they sold out of them by distributors picking up the balance of them because they basically had a surge on the last day. So which is to say I point that out simply because the market was already a little suspicious about the amount of money that was being asked for for like a remake. That isn't a CGC remake. It isn't a 90s DMD remake. We were going. Fathom was known for its art, and that's about it. That's why I think Marty's rules were so interesting, because Fathom rule set is OK. It's of its era. It's not a bad rule set, but it's not particularly – the most memorable thing about Fathom besides the art is the outlanes are where the inlanes should be, and the inlanes are where the outlanes should be. So it's very confusing when you play that. You'll think a ball is going to be safe, and it's like, no, no, that's not a real inlane. That's an outlane on Fathom. So anyway, so they've been building the Fathoms, and then they announced that they were going to do a Centaur revisited game in the vein of Fathom Revisited. The pricing went way up for the Centaur one, though. I remember that, that the pricing went way, way up. Now, the issue that's happened over time, getting back kind of into the timeline about the failure of the company, fathoms were not completed. a lot of people got all their fathoms i co-host the pinball show with zach minnie who is the owner operator of flipping out pinball and uh is a distributor for haggis and he had informed me i believe he's informed it on mentioned it online they they flipping out got all their fathoms like they got all of theirs and sound but fathom was supposed to be finished well before now right in In fact, the last major timeline thing I remember coming out of Haggis was that Fathom was going to be done by the end of 2023, the builds, and they were not.
    26:15
    So anyway, this year, concerns started to increase because when Haggis got its start, like in the Celts era, Damien, the owner, was posting a lot of videos, I think daily. I mean, just really lots of sort of transparency, shocking amounts, too much, quite frankly, in my opinion, too much transparency. He spent too much time putting those putting all that information out that really shifted in the Fathom build era. And then as of 2024, there has been vast amounts of silence. The last major communication that came out of Fathom was something we covered where they basically indicated in a it was a longer written thing than this. But it was a we have to restructure our just in time. Manufacturing does not work with how we're trying to do things. And we need a new investor.
    27:08
    So things were very dire. And that was an interesting lot of red flags. Yeah, I remember cameras here on the other podcast that I do. But I believe if I remember what I said, it was I respected the fact that they were this transparent on it. But also that saying that you need to recapitalize probably puts you even worse in a position than had you not mentioned that aspect because now everyone is like you are out of money. And they're not going to understand how can you save yourself without the investor and what investor wants to come in when you're that – like it would be – you need an angel investor. Right. And as I had noted, there would be no way, if I were an investor, that I would give my money to the company and let Damien still run it. Which just makes sense. Because it's been run into the ground. So at that stage, I would feel like I would just be throwing good money after bad unless I got to change how they do business. But again, I'm not an investor, not at that level. So anyway, since that announcement happened, and that was in February of this year, 2024. So July 18th-ish, what started to happen, social media accounts started to be turned off. They turned off their Facebook. They turned off their YouTube. You can't get to the videos. Instagram, I believe, was turned off. Their website was turned off. And I know Colin with Kineticist slash This Week in Pinball, he was watching the website thing because the domain registration was about to expire, and he was curious that they were going to – and that was going to be his red flag. Well, they closed it about I think like two days before that expiration was going to hit. So that all got shut down, and then they had a general meeting of their shareholders. That's probably just due to a legal structure. I believe – the assumption is, and I believe, and I'm willing to be corrected, that Damien is 100% shareholder. I thought in the letter thing it said he had 95% of the shares. The letter thing actually says that being a member with at least 95%. Right. So maybe someone else has some – Has a minor percentage. It's like – you remember in the world – and I apologize to people that are never going to follow this. But in the world of wristwatches, there's a very famous scammer. It's actually covered on CNN from Anthony Farah, the time he's a gentleman, who is now in jail awaiting trial for, what, $4 million plus worth of fraud by stealing people's watches and claiming he was selling them unconsigned. Because they ended up deciding it was wire fraud. It was because, yeah, there was wire fraud along with – there may be some other charges. But anyway, Anthony, at one point when he ran Gentleman Timepieces in Dallas, Texas, one of his employees had a 1% stake in the company. People made fun of it because it's like, what does 1% of this business mean? But it was probably seen as a way to keep the person on board or appease them or make them feel like they were – Come on, you're an owner. You're an owner now. Yeah. It's like, come on, you're an owner. So anyway. It's like when you work for a major company and they do stock sharing and they're like, here's your single stock. Yes. Yay, we're employee owned. So, yes. Damien is 95 plus percent of the company. Maybe some other employees got token shares.
    30:43
    But, I mean, even if you had 5 percent, obviously, you don't get any – you have no influence, not any real influence, not when push comes to shove. So anyway, in that letter that Tony has mentioned that notes that the person – it said the undersigned being a member with at least 95% of the shares that may be cast in a general meeting, and the only undersigned person is Damien who signed the document. But special resolution was passed that the company would be – again, this is in Australia, so the rules and the language is not the same as in the United States. We would say bankruptcy. They would say wound up in insolvency. And so they announced that they were going into voluntary liquidation and a liquidator would be appointed by the same letter. So they've selected a liquidator to wind up the company, sell off the assets and start trying to pay off creditors is what's happening. And just to be clear, more likely than not, creditors don't include pre-order members. Or if it does, you're still going to be really far down the list. It depends on who you bought through is my understanding. So, again, I don't know the rules in Australia about like – because in the United States, certain creditors move to the top of the list. Employees who are owned back pay is like one of the number one groups that gets paid first. and then there's like secured creditors and unsecured creditors and people who have tried to buy products fall in that last category of unsecured creditors i don't know if it works exactly the same way in australia or not if you bought through a distributor then your money even though the distributors all gave as i understand it again from talking with zach all gave deposit money to haggis because everything they said that they needed in in the way of like the one thousand dollar deposits for the centaurs for example was just passed as a straight pass through like flipping i would get a thousand dollars from me let's say if i wanted to pre-order a you know be on the list for the centaur and then my thousand dollars would have been given to haggis it was how it would have worked however my contract is with the distributor not with haggis so if you bought through a distributor then you have as i understand different legal recourse again And the distributors are all over the world, so they all have their own rules. But the bottom line is with the liquidator appointed, Haggis is gone now. So you need to follow up if you have not yet. Follow up with your distributor and say, what is my recourse? Because I paid you a deposit, and I understand that the deposits are nonrefundable, but that is on the guarantee that you will then get to buy the product. Now that the product will never be made, you are entitled to a refund. So regardless of what they said. Now, Zach had comforted people by telling them you will get a refund to assure people that he was going to back the company. So he's already – even before the liquidation, he accelerated his plan on allowing refunds for people earlier than when the company failed. But now that the company has failed, I believe it just now will go into its default mode where people can get their money back or they want to move it or whatever. Or, you know, it'll be up to he's already allowing that if people want to. But obviously, a refund is an order. If you bought directly through Haggis and a lot did, a lot of Americans did.
    34:12
    Then you're one of those creditors that's in U.S. speak would be an unsecured creditor. And I have no idea. I believe you do count as a creditor because technically you gave them money for something they never gave you. So you count as a creditor, but you have to make sure you're known. Like you need to reach out to the liquidator and find out, like, what's the procedure? because I don't know what the record keeping is at Haggis. I'm assuming you're on a list somewhere, but I don't know how they will – like if the liquidator will go through their QuickBooks and figure out who are all the creditors or it's going to be a, hey, if you're a creditor, you need to come to us and tell us you're a creditor so we can get you on this list to figure out what's going to happen. Now, there's some added drama to all of this. It's already pretty dramatic, Tony. but people were reporting how the place where they were leasing uh was already cleared out of equipment before all of this happened and so people are asking is this like highway well highway did it the legal the right i should say pinball brothers uh what became pinball brothers did it the legal but in my opinion not so nice way of i get why they did it but from a The illegal but morally suspect. Right. They came in as investors on highway and then started transferring out all the valuable assets and then got rid of the company. So it didn't have very much stuff to actually sell off to pay off creditors. In this case, I don't believe that aspect of it happened. But people are like, did they move stuff? Is stuff being shuffled? We don't know. It's just that stuff got purportedly moved out of that building. But they don't own the building, and the thought is they may owe rent on it. That's a creditor, too. They may owe rent on the building. So there are a lot of questions regarding all of that. The final little cherry on top before we have our discussion is, and I have not checked today. We're recording Sunday morning, as you noted the date at the start of the episode. But I have seen zero communication from anyone at Haggis explaining any of this. I don't expect you will. And so we don't have anyone's side of the story. We just have – we know they have failed at this point. They have gone into liquidation.
    36:30
    So there you go, Tony, a surprise draw. I know because of how busy you've been over the last week in particular, you weren't aware of any of this stuff. Oh, yeah, I completely – because this all started happening, what, three days ago? Yeah, it's really only been a couple days. So I've been completely – I've been super busy. that whole time. So, so here you go. What do you, what do you think?
    36:53
    I mean, this wasn't a surprise. We kind of all called that they were going out. We, we wondered if they'd be more of a Dutch where they trickle along and managed to actually complete what they were trying or if they would be a complete failure. Cause I mean, we thought Dutch was going to be a complete failure until they surprised us. Uh, but no, Haggis is what we thought. I'm not surprised that there have been no comments, but at the same time, I am kind of disappointed, especially for a group that started out with such a strong social media presence and worked so hard to build that up, and they let it all fall away, and now is the point in time when you would think you would want to come out and just apologize, and, you know, I mean, business happens but there's a reason that we've been saying for years now that you should not pre-order and if you do pre-order you should most definitely not pay a hundred percent of something and you shouldn't put anything that you're not willing to lose because just how the situations have been in pinball lately so yeah the um i mean i'm not going to be one of those that said i i called it years ago or anything it was there were warning signs for i so when the february announcement came out about and i think the word used in that letter was actually was recapitalization i think almost everyone understood who was trying to be objective on it that they were in dire trouble if they needed a new investor which is what the way the i mean i had to look up what recapitalization meant because i'm like what does exactly this mean i don't people don't usually say that they Usually, they'll say like we need more money and we need a cash infusion or whatever. I mean normally, they don't say anything publicly. So doing that, I think going about trying to get an investor to recapitalize that way was a sign of desperation that actually hurt them. Though I – again, as I noted, I appreciated actually having that piece of information because it let us know that they were in a lot of trouble. but I think the earliest where I recall that I may have said something where I thought they were in trouble uh but not I didn't know about it being severe trouble was after we we played Fathom Revisited at TPF because after that they came back out and it was a little bit of drama that they were going to they opened back up sales because excuse me Fathom I think at that point wasn't going to be sold anymore, period. They opened back up classic edition sales, and they allowed for an additional fee for you to buy Marty's coat on the classic edition, which was not supposed to be allowed. The classic edition was going to only be the original coat. And if I remember, and again, I don't remember if I did it here or if I did it on the pinball show, I speculated that the reason they did that was they needed the money. They needed the money, and that's why they would break their word. Because the company broke its word by all of a sudden going back and saying, okay, you can get the cool code set on the cheaper version of the game that was not supposed to let you have the cool code set. I mean, reopening the classic editions alone was a sign of, hey, this game is cool. People finally got to try it. This could be some real easy sales and get us some money. Adding in the software piece, though, because that was the part that was so impressive beyond the light show and everything, That, to me, was definitely the huge warning sign there.
    40:25
    So that's when it was on my list. Obviously, them constantly missing the Fathom build deadlines was well known because a lot of people had ordered Fathom. And it was weird in the sense that here's Haggis Pinball having all these problems. I mean, they're citing parts issues. They're just-in-time manufacturing strategy. That came up in the February letter. all of that in the meanwhile all the other pinball companies are no longer claiming that they have supply chain issues remember everyone has supply chain issues in the second half of pandemic in particular stern and they're we need the same computer chips that the f-150s get and of course we're less priority than ford is and all the rest of it that they're not saying that anymore the haggis was saying it all this year you know the one time they talked to us in february So there have been warning signs for a long time, separate from them being an upstart startup.
    41:21
    Another thing that I know, regardless of how successful they were, but especially in the wake of the games not coming out and these excuses, I know you have heard, I'm sure, ad nauseum from me at this point about how they should not be building pinball in Australia. This was a huge mistake, and it was obvious from the word go. And I don't care about Australia's taxes. I don't care how much the labor is in Australia. The bottom line is that's not where most of the games are going to be sold. And because they focused on international shipping, where do they get most of the parts from? It's not from Australia. It's just everything about where they are located. Unfortunately, it's not fair, but life isn't fair. they were behind the eight ball anyway which is why i think another piece that was always a huge warning sign is when they put the price tag out on centaur revisited it was a huge increase on top of fathom and the the upper edition one that was like supposed to let you have the helmet and the leather jacket and all that i can't remember what it was 15 000 or something it was i was like you have got to be kidding me it was insane you have got to be kidding me this is in no way this is in no way a quote-unquote fair price in my view i i could not i i refuse to believe they would sell out of them because yeah the it was i the oblivion edition to believe but yeah it was just i i just now went to to try and and check the pricing on it and the Haggis Pinball website of course is down So it shows up first in the Google search but it wouldn let me actually click on it So Oblivion Edition, 50 units, $25,000 Australian dollars. That's $16,700 US when it was announced. So more than JJP's collector's editions.
    43:12
    Absolutely ridiculous. For a centaur. And that's the thing. And it shows you, I think, and I think I argued this at the time as well, that it shows you they are in a lot of trouble financially. Like they realize their costs. This is such a high spike over Fathom. It's not inflation. This was a lot of people now are saying, and I'll see what you think because I'm talking way too much, that they knew they were in trouble and they tried to dig themselves out of the loss issue they were having on Fathom or however far they were behind cash wise. by just spiking the delta of their profit on Centaur to try and fill the hole in with this, by just overpricing this game to get themselves out of the trouble they were in. What do you think of that theory? I think that's a pretty solid theory. I mean, there are a lot of signs that that could be exactly what they did, and it obviously failed. It's just not necessarily the best way to go about something, because as you increase prices, you also reduce your possible selling market because your market's just lower when you raise the prices like that so even if you're planning on not having on doing it that way you're reducing the amount you're going to sell overall so it's a balancing game and they failed to successfully balance it yeah it's it's pretty tough so ultimately now this one played out a little bit differently than than some of these because you and i tony we have been in this hobby for so long we've podcast in this hobby for so long we lived through a lot of when this was common right for those of you who are newer to the hobby and a lot of you are a lot of you probably got in during the pandemic this used to happen a lot i mean we covered skit b when it went under we didn't cover vonny d i think that was a little bit before us but that was just before us but aware of it and pinball gremlins obviously highway uh we had a lot of strong feelings on it we were we had been commentating all the way through back when dutch pinball was not a problem and had a contract manufacturer and then went through a whole chain all the way through their neuron 10 year process to finally start like we were in the hobby at that point so so we we went through that uh zidware we remember the zidware failures and back in when a lot of those were happening there was a that was before the huge pinball resurgence pinball was in a resurgence for sure but before people were looking around and there was a lot of this hey remember when big bag bar did well uh the remake the remake and that which was before us the reason why i mentioned that is back with all of those entities, there was always this fairly, in my opinion, large, definitely vocal contingent on Pennside that continued to cheerlead these companies into oblivion until they were true dust. And then there was the whole issue of eating crow at that point. And to be fair, some of them still have cheerleaders. Sure. And that was where I wanted to mention about Haggis. same but not as and i don't know if it's just because the company is smaller or what but it did not seem as bad quite frankly looking at the now part of this was i wasn't following the haggis threads as aggressively as i used to follow some of those other ones but mostly uh the defense has been a few people almost all of whom are australian and i think it was a national pride thing that's my guess i don't know if they knew damon personally or not most of their comments that i can recall didn't really stress that i think um and it's come up a little bit in some of the discussions but i think some of them felt like they needed to back it because it was a real australian manufacturer they haven't had a home pin isn't a real australian manufacturer it's an australian but the company is not australian right and so there just hasn't been a pinball builder in australia for a long time and a lot of australians i mean they have a pen pal is very popular in australia and so there's a there's a pride aspect i think some people who live there not all of them but some people who live there blinded themselves because they really just wishful thinking they really just wanted it to work i and i i can i can definitely see that uh that's something that to have a good powerful large homegrown uh manufacturer i can see where they would like that but so it didn't work out but i have been pleased to see less zealotry than we i mean we've seen upstart including companies that haven't failed but have their you know super fans that are really aggressive oh yeah uh about criticism and stuff hasn't seemed that bad um but i i remember back when we first started There were companies you did not say a bad word about without getting flamed.
    48:20
    I mean, it was, no matter what was going on, it was a problem. I know we took plenty of fire talking about quality control issues with Spooky back in the early days.
    48:33
    I mean, it's just one of those things. And it's very much the whole team mentality and, oh, my team's great, rah, rah, my team, no matter what. That is weird to me and a hobby of any kind. But especially like this where they're literally just manufacturers who make games for you to play. to be so enraptured with a single manufacturer, to be so rabid about them, is strange to me. Yeah, but while I find it an odd reason to want to continue to be like, no, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine, it's like, well, no, because they used to be really, everything about the behavior lines up with that they were in trouble, especially after the February letter. I really honestly didn't get it. And anyway, the – but the difference for me is I – at least I sympathize, I suppose, a little bit. I think it's wrong, but I do sympathize. I have a better understanding for, I guess, this desire, kind of this just sort of pride desire to see something successful in that area versus what happened with things like Zidware and Skitbee where I honestly – the Big Bang Bar effect was what I felt was the driving factor for the cheerleaders. they didn't care if the company succeeded or failed they only wanted it to succeed for sure long enough for them to get their game which would then become a great deal valuable item that could be flipped for a high profit because that's what happened with the big bang bars that became a collectible that was worth way more than anyone paid for it and that's where i saw and i thought that's the only reason you want predator this game is trash no one likes how it plays you want it because you want your in fact it would be in a perfect world that he would fail to deliver all of them and you would like get one of five you could sell it what we saw with the magic girls like those people with the magic girls yeah someone a group of people got together and got one to work that's using it loosely it's not really fun but they have this valuable uh paperweight and so i guess if you get a valuable paperweight you're a winner i don't feel it was the same here with haggis here it just seemed more like a bunch of us aussies were like having some aussie pride it doesn't make them right any cheerleading of a company that's failing does one one thing in my opinion it hurts consumers because there were people that maybe had they purchased within a you know close enough window could do a credit card charge back but after 60 days they may lose Is that – some people may have had options had they been able to react based off of the truth of what was known and not been suckered in by cheerleading. I don't want to overstate it, but – I will say I hope nobody put in an order and put money down on one of these machines after the February post. I don't even know if – now, I know Zach with Flippin' Out at some point quit letting people put in money. Again, he had already sold his fathoms. He didn't take any more for a long time, but his whole issue was on deposits with Centaur. But at some point, he had mentioned on a prior episode that it had been months ago that he quit taking deposits on Centaurs.
    51:59
    But I don't know when the direct order people quit. and and one thing we didn't mention because it's been so long they had that that club membership which let people buy in on the games all like if you wanted to get all the remakes because they were going to do oh man i completely forgot about club members and they all had to buy direct you couldn't do that through the distros i completely forgot about that as i recall you had to do it direct with them and so those people all had money in um with haggis directly or i don't know how I mean, I don't know how many of anyone full paid for Centaur early deposits for sure. But they didn't even finish the fathom bills. I mean, there was a discussion. I think I think NAPARC had an article on this is a few weeks ago, but there was a report. Someone in Australia said they drove by, you know, you do the old parking lot check that and that there were people, but not very many people there at the building. and supposedly there was a distributor that still needed fathoms and they had like given an ultimatum that you need to get us these six fathoms by the by within a month and like they were able to build four i mean i mean and again it's a report it's a rumors what you know it's like so okay but it's Like that, you can't even build a game a week. There's a problem. So let me ask you this. Damon, do we ever see him in pinball again? Or is he like Andrew Highway and he goes off and does hydrofoils or what? Right. I think that this is one of those ones where he will probably walk away. just because there's been zero communication as the company has failed there's been zero anything so I could completely see him just fading into the shadows and disappearing from the hobby anyway any final thoughts on Haggis this has been something we've seen coming and it's something that's probably not the last we will see of in the pinball what's the next company to fail people want to know I don't know really yeah okay you want to guess who do you think would be the most likely to let's not say fail who do you think would be the most likely to choose to exit pinball to choose to exit i still think it's american pinball i mean of anybody who's actually has a working game that has been released as of this point i would say it's american okay we will have to wait because there's there's been there's been a handful of little startups this year sure sure i mean but none of them are big enough yet or have done enough yet to i mean we could say something like hexa pinball with the space hunt game or something like this right but i just i have no idea like of their operations it'd be like uh you know some people have mentioned like pinball adventures but i have no idea like what their cost investments are versus you know where they get their parts and how they do their build and like if they don't have a lot of overhead and it's more of a quote-unquote fun thing to kind of do, then something might be pretty sustainable.
    55:17
    American Pinball is a serious manufacturer. The issue is just nothing that they put out seems to do very well anymore.
    55:28
    If only there was a good way they could fix that. Well, we may never know. video games tony let's go into that i'm i don't feel like talking about this pinball oh yes and video games uh we did have another email that was video game related uh it was from chris g he really just emailed in to thank uh thank us for finally giving a fence update my about my fence my chain link fence repair but the email had a subject line I thought you should weigh in on, which was VATS is for babies.
    56:05
    For those that do not know, VATS is a reference to the system which you can use to do gunplay and other combat in the Fallout series. What do you think of VATS, and is it for babies? I can see that argument with Fallout 4 and or 76 because they made major updates so the gunplay wasn't absolutely terrible in those ones. But try to use the first-person shooter gunplay style in Fallout 3 or even New Vegas, and it is much rougher. and VATS is vastly superior. I mean, and VATS is one of those, it is a uniquely Fallout thing that comes from the type of game the first Fallout game was and has stayed in.
    56:58
    And quite frankly, I find VATS to be fun in certain situations. But I will admit, while it has been a long time since I played it, back when I was playing Fallout 4, I found myself leaving VATS alone except for in very specific situations just because the gunplay actually felt decent.
    57:21
    So maybe not with the modern fallouts. That could be correct with the modern fallouts. I think with the older fallouts that VATS is superior. Okay. Wow, that's a really nuanced answer to that. Mine is Chris is wrong, and Chris, I would ask. You're good, bro. No, I'm not even going to ask that. I'm going to ask that you not listen to this podcast anymore. Wow. No.
    57:49
    That's a harsh take. Well, you know what? Maybe don't be so wrong. That would be my response to the criticism that the take might be a little bit harsh.
    58:00
    So what else is going on in video games? Bye, Chris. Enjoy the door. Because you ain't enjoying Fallout, obviously. I should reinstall Fallout 4 I have 76 installed I still haven't played it I mean Try a different playthrough route Maybe something that doesn't have me Have almost 200 hours in the game Before I go to the place you're supposed to go to Like in the first hour You could try and speedrun the game I tried to speedrun Doom I'm not much of a speedrunner I did do kind of a speedrun-esque style for Fallout New Vegas I did it that way in part though because I was playing I think there was an achievement for it I was playing with like it on hard, like the bullets had weight you had to eat and sleep I did a playthrough like that was an interesting playthrough so So, you know, it doesn't count as a speed run if it's just over fast because you died. No, I won. I won, but I didn't want to have to worry about eating. So I'm like, if I win fast enough, I won't be hungry. That was the theory. Like, I won't need to sleep if I can win in a day.
    59:22
    So that's what I try to do. Okay. Following up, we're going to is what we're going to open up with a follow up with some of our discussion from last time when we were talking about the doctor. Doctor disrespect stuff. the live service shooter Rogue Company was heavily endorsed by him it had a Dr. Disrespect pack that lets you wear skins and sound bites and all sorts of stuff they have completely removed that from the game not just from sale they have completely removed it from the code of the game it is gone gone and they are reimbursing the people who had purchased it their $40 wow, $40 for that pack.
    60:09
    We also got a news update, as it were, on video game hardware sales. They're down 40% compared to May of last year. May of this year. PS5 is still the top-selling console, easily followed by the number two top-selling console, the PS4.
    60:34
    But Nintendo saw the largest drop May over May, but it's been speculated that that is 100% because of Tears of the Kingdom, because that release of Tears of the Kingdom spiked, in May of last year, spiked Nintendo's hardware sales. Plus there's all the speculation about the new version of the Switch coming out, And so there's this. And it's been out. Isn't it the longest of these? Like, is it the oldest? Yeah. It came out first. By like a year. Yeah. And in what could be considered an interesting thing, Nintendo has actually released a charging dock for the Switch Joy-Cons. So because the Joy-Cons, typically, you have to have them connected to the Switch to charge. so what you have to do is you have to rotate your joy cons are on your switch to charge up the joy cons when you've got a you know four five six joy cons oh i see okay so now they've actually created a charging dock that you can load them into and charge them uh which has made people wonder coming out with this is it just a quality of life increase or is it going to be compatible with the Joy-Cons on the Switch 2.
    61:57
    And the answer in my mind is this bit of tech has to be so cheap and so easy to put together. I'm amazed they didn't do it years ago. Yeah, I agree. So it might just be one of those things where they saw third-party people were creating them, and they're like, hey, why aren't we getting in on that? So that's coming out soon. game pass uh for xbox is getting major uh changes we've known the changes were coming they are getting rid of the uh xbox live setup uh and forcing everyone onto like game pass core and then and they're changing how game pass works so but the major changes is is the uh The new bottom end of it will be Game Pass Standard, so it comes with the live gold, and it has access to the back catalog of Xbox games. But they are not going to give you access to first party and other releases on day one. So you're losing the day one Game Pass access. The main thing that people like Game Pass for. Correct. And the standard version is $15 a month.
    63:17
    But they are keeping the fancy ultimate version of Game Pass priced at $20 a month, which gets you day one access.
    63:29
    So you can see that that is very much a drive to get people to go. Yeah, it's only $5 more. Yeah, it's only $5 more a month, and you get day one access. The PC Game Pass is different, and while it's had a price increase, it still gets day one stuff, and its price increase took it up to $12 a month. You don't upset the PC people. Yes.
    63:53
    So they are increasing the Game Pass Core to $60 a month, or a month, a year. $60 a year for the Game Pass Core, which isn't terribly above what Xbox Live would cost you around that. Yeah. So what interesting is it going to be in September that they phase out Xbox Live Gold They are allowing you to stack your Xbox Live Gold 13 months Okay. So if you have 13 months worth of stuff stacked up on your Xbox Live Gold, when it ends in September, you'll basically get to go to October of 25. I'm under that. Well, I've got mine because they converted my gold to core at one point, and then I'm just in the core system now. Yeah. I think all my old cards have already been spent down. I bought a little surge when there was a rumor that they were going to end gold, and so I bought like two years' worth, and I couldn't have more than like loaded into the system. I couldn't have more than like a year or something or 13 months or something, so I had to use another card a year later, and then they didn't actually end it. and then they did end it, but they turned it into Core, and they just converted the months over. Core! I mean, Core's how I got to play Firewatch. Yeah? Yeah. You got to work on your Core. I don't usually look at the list of games, because the list of the Core games is small. Are normally pretty small and not... Small and old. Nothing... Call of Duty, Call of Duty. FTC ain't liking this Game Pass change. They are not. They're mad. They had some words, and Microsoft had some words back. so I don't think I think it's too late for it to change anything at this point but while we're talking about Microsoft they have successfully Bethesda has had 200 plus workers successfully unionized their union has been recognized by the Communication Workers of America and that union has also been recognized by Microsoft is what the reports are saying. Okay. And this is the first time that it's not been like, oh, it's the play testers who are unionized. This is an entire swath group across the board, just like an entire division that has unionized. So we'll see how that comes out and continues going. the olympics start like tomorrow yeah i think i don't know i haven't been following it too closely all i know is that like the mayor of paris swam in the water right and then i think he died that latter part may be inaccurate uh yeah no uh the olympics start tomorrow uh The last Olympic Games, there was a not well-received Olympic eSports little addition to it that didn't go over super well. But this did not deter the International Olympic Committee. The IOC is convinced that there needs to be an Olympics of eSports gaming. so they have continued their plan for it and they have announced the inaugural Olympic Esports Games in partnership with the Saudi Arabian Olympic and Paralympic Committee to be held in Saudi Arabia next year it's all tied in to the Saudi Arabian public fund that has been buying so much into gaming the last like two years that we've talked about off and on but for a group such as the IOC that harps on being massively inclusive and for everybody opening their esports gaming in Saudi Arabia has been getting them a little backlash. Maybe more than a little backlash.
    68:07
    So we'll see how this goes. I don't know. Do we need an Olympic sports of eSports. I can't wait to see it. I get what the IOC is kind of wanting. Think of all the sponsorship money and everything that they might have if there was a third Olympic thing for them to do. I can see that. No, we don't need it.
    68:29
    We're going to start drug testing all these gamers. I've never seen caffeine levels this high. I'm amazed he can even move the mouse's hands shaking so bad. so I just I can't wait to see who wins gold in Valorant or Overwatch who's the bronze runner up in League of Legends oh it is definitely going to be interesting to see how that works out I think it's going to be one of those things that just kind of is barely talked about and just kind of is a thing that happened. But we'll see next year.
    69:18
    Space Marine 2, we've talked about off and on for a while. Yes. Originally supposed to have been released in December, got pushed back to September.
    69:27
    And then a couple weeks ago, videos started appearing on YouTube of full playthroughs of Space Marine 2. So this release is imminent. Well, no, it's still like two months out. This release should be imminent.
    69:47
    Apparently, a developer's copy of the game was leaked and is available on torrent sites online. And the full game is out.
    69:58
    But it's the full game from a year ago. So they've been sitting on the game and it's been done and they're just wasting our time. We could be a space marine right now. We could be. Or it's the massively buggy version with all sorts of problems that they've gone through and been fixing. And it's part of the reason they pushed it from December to September to finish fixing the game. So it is a very broken, not accurate representation of the game, which is what is being said by Saber Interactive.
    70:30
    They're asking players to not obviously download it. Do not pirate the old version. Because it is. It is not indicative of what our game is, and it is not a symbol of the game that we are trying to put out and we've been putting all this time into because it is an old, early version of the game. Yeah, but they've been making us wait, so I just don't know what the right answer is here. I know. It's like, oh, man. You get it for free, and then you get to complain how terrible it is. You guys get content for Reddit. You put all the weird glitches. You'll be in all those glitch videos. I can't believe they did this Bethesda games is part of the reason people play them is to be able to record the bugs so many bugs you could do it with this with Saber games Saber we'll see how much this actually hurts their sales I'm thinking with it being such an old developer version that we're probably it's not going to get too much traction overall all uh if this had been a leak like we have seen in the past uh of leaks of games the the the live version being leaked like weeks early like happened where zelda got that leak uh a few years ago where full versions of zelda were going out like three weeks before the release date uh i i don't think it's going to be as much of a hit as like that would be right so but we'll just have to wait and see we can while we're waiting if you are interested in the xbox ecosystem and you love deadpool they are running a sweepstakes to get a deadpool themed series s xbox but that's not the important part the important part is the one winner the grand prize winner who gets this deadpool themed xbox is also getting a pair of custom deadpool themed controllers where the back is shaped to perfectly match deadpool so that you can cradle ryan reynolds behind in your hands while you're playing games. And let's be honest, isn't that what this entire world wants? Probably.
    73:06
    Deadpool. When I saw the first mock-up of it, I seriously thought it was just a joke thing that somebody had put out. No. But no. No, it's for real.
    73:29
    Okay. I mean, I am looking forward to Deadpool. That's next week? It is next week. And I really want to go see it.
    73:38
    But. I don't know that I need to cradle his butt in my hands. But maybe. Will they have a butt popcorn holder? I don't. And man, the popcorn things for just in general are getting crazy. Ever since Dune, everything has stopped. I even saw a Xenomorph head one coming out for the new Alien game.
    74:02
    Does it have a second smaller one in the middle that comes out? It thrusts out and holds popcorn for you to pick up? I wished it actually would let you have one piece at a time with this little tonguey. I think it actually you eat it from the back of the head So it's not as fun as it would be But yes I wish it would just extend out and hand you one little piece Kind of like a Pez dispenser for popcorn Oh can you imagine when you got that one that had too much butter on it It's just that slobby soupy Yeah it's like when the drool from Alien Resurrection The aliens are all drooly It burns I'm going to finish out today.
    74:51
    I'm going to finish out with something sad. Well, that's too bad. I ended pinball with sad. So we're ending everything with sad. At least for some people.
    75:03
    Paramount Plus has decided. The Mountain. That the Mountain doesn't need the Master Chief. What? so the record-breaking oh wait no it wasn't the the the the critical six no no it wasn't the fan love no it wasn't that the the the tv series that claims to be halo has been canceled after two but it was like on a almost cliffhanger thing actually it wasn't even almost it was a cliffhanger thing look that no no i know you have an ear just irrational love of halo halo is this is peak television it's it's so much fun it's so much fun i hope like is there any never knew that you needed to see master chief's butt master cheeks that's what some people call him that's what they call him or or or or master chief making sweet sweet love to the person who she's with the covenant so that she can translate for the audience because we couldn't understand if there wasn't a human with the covenant we wouldn't be able to identify with them somehow like some of these things i don't understand why people still think this but But yes, Dennis, there's hope. Oh, good.
    76:32
    Amblin TV, Xbox, and 365, they're shopping out looking for somebody else to pick up, to resurrect, to save. This worked with The Expanse. It worked with The Expanse. Kind of. The Expanse is weird because while it worked with the Expanse technically, Amazon was producing and making the Expanse, but SyFy had the rights to air it. So it wasn't being made by SyFy. It was being made by Amazon's production company, but SyFy had the rights to air it. So when SyFy decided they were done, Amazon just went, oh, okay, well, we'll just finish it and release it on our platform. because they were already the production company.
    77:25
    But, I mean, it's happened a couple of times. Prodigy, Star Trek Prodigy, was canceled by Paramount, and they kicked it off by Netflix to do season two, which I've not completed, but I have heard has been pretty good.
    77:44
    I haven't seen it all. I've only seen the first couple episodes of it. Look, someone needs to pick it up. All right. Everything you said was true. I mean, out of fairness. I don't want people to be deceived. Okay? It's not great.
    78:03
    It's insulting to the fans. It's insulting to the lore is why it's insulting to the fans. It's designed by committee. Writing structure shines through and through. In some ways, it feels like a show from the 90s.
    78:18
    It totally changes up personality traits. It goes off on weird side stories that have nothing to do with anything from a game and, quite frankly, don't really belong in a sci-fi show at all. But because it is so terrible, it's really funny. And people should watch it because it's just – I don't recommend it if you don't know the games. You don't have to have played all of them, but you need to understand a little bit of Master Chief. because you want to go into this and be like, why is this not anything like what the game world was? And you want to go, yeah, right, get it. Let's keep watching. Let's see. You could do all sorts of fun things. You could have a drinking game about how often you don't see the helmet for Master Chief. There are entire episodes. He doesn't wear it. So if your rule is every time he appears without a helmet, You have to have consumed one, though. Don't do that because you will die. You will die. But, I mean, like even a non-alcoholic beer would probably kill you if you did that. But it's so awful that I – honestly, I think I laugh more in an episode of Halo than I do an episode of The Boys.
    79:42
    So – I mean, with the last couple seasons of The Boys, that's not – The Boys is in a rut. The Boys should probably have been a three-season series. Well, it only has one more season. I know. And it's okay. It's not terrible. It's just, it's struggle. It's on the struggle bus. So, with your love of Halo for what it is, not what it should have been or could have been, but what it is. People are saying this has been canceled because they looked over at Fallout and they're like, oh, we really missed the boat. Yeah, but you didn't need Fallout to know that. Yeah, you just needed to listen. This ain't no boat. It's just like what happened with Witcher. Yeah. Where literally the showrunners have flat out said that they hate the Witcher and they're running it their way, which is like, why are you the showrunner of something? Sure, sure. But just would you rather see more episodes, shows, continuations of Halo as it is, or would you rather see more Tremors movies?
    80:52
    I mean, maybe more Tremors movies, but it's been a long time since I've seen those. Except for the original. I watched that not too long ago. I'd watch the original not too long ago. there's like because we watched it at tpf we did watch that's why we're remembering because i put it on it's like we're watching there's a bunch there's a bunch of them there's one set in the wild west it might be my favorite oh wow because because because burt grummer's great great great grandfather said it ah okay and and because he's got a link he's the link to everything he's the Tremor.
    81:29
    He got divorced from Reba McEntire after the first one. Oh, no. But those movies are – that's how you're talking about Halo is how I feel about those movies. Okay. They're a guilty pleasure. Sure. Yes, it's a guilty pleasure. Like the 1990s Lost in Space movie, which was absolutely terrible. Oh, my gosh. that no it was horrible that movie was horrible yes and it was fun it was so much fun joey from friends is just not a space marine no he's sorry i'm sorry i can't just i just can't accept this and then smith turned into a spider yes that was probably the only good part but gary oldman can't really i mean can't really not act so right I remember in the 90s when that movie came out, I rented that movie and we watched that movie.
    82:33
    And then we immediately rewound it and rewatched that movie. The people I was with. Because that movie finished and we're like, are we drunk? Did that movie just happen? So we rewatched it. We weren't drunk. And that ties us back into pinball because there was a Lost in Space pinball game. There was, and you've played it. I've played it. It's got a multi-ball problem. Yes. That was a very Sega period of everything. You shoot the three shots and you get a multi-ball or whatever. It and X-Files were of the same era, though. I think the multi-ball problem is more of a Lost in Space thing. It is definitely more of a Lost in Space thing. So that's what we have for video games. Okay. Well, if you want to reach out to us, as long as it's not to complain about VATS like some sort of person who doesn't like Fallout and has disgraced themselves, you can email us at collectedgamerspodcast.gmail.com. Or you can reach out to us at facebook.com slash collectedgamerspodcast. If you want to support the show and allow us to have the funding to fight against those who try and besmirch the great name of VATS, you can – yeah, I'm just leaning all in. You're just leaning all in. We're all in. Whipcrack. We're just going to – It's patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers. That's how it is. When you want to go and say things are for babies, that's, I mean, gloves are off.
    84:00
    Welcome to the EGP. I love that I'm the one who had the, like, nuanced response. Yeah, your response was wrong, too. You can just not come back also. Okay. I'll just put both of the likes by me.
    84:13
    Will you do a different voice for each one? Yes. my name's tony i have nuanced perspective love me or die great i like lost in space spider that's you that's what you sound like right now yeah that's big words coming from somebody who genuinely likes the halo tv series it's so much fun there's a whole episode where one spartan is not even master chief it's like debating like what color to dye her hair with her helmet on yeah well i mean they do the inside helmet cams kind of like the early spartacus episodes too which is really disconcerting to me but um spartacus had more fun with those the the one where you can see their face yes it's Is it at least like when they did it in Iron Man where it had like all the Yeah, it's more Iron Man-y. But anyway, Halo, yeah, watch it today. Or don't. There's better things to watch on Paramount+. Not much, mind you. It's basically Strange New Worlds. They're kicking everything off the mountain. That and Yellowstone are like the only things left. Right? Yeah. It is a Paramount+. It's on my cut list. it's going well i understand that so but bye yeah goodbye everybody