dance crush speaker that booms i'm killing your brain like a poisonous mushroom deadly when i play a dope melody anything less than the best it's a felony love it or leave it you better gain weight you better hit bulls out of kid don't play if there was a problem yo i'll solve it check out the hook while my dj revolves oh the pinball world continues to wait and that's why we're here at canada's pinball podcast we're Looking over at CES, Seth Davis dancing around with C3PO. We've got people waiting on their Alice toppers, people waiting for their Winchesters. Game number nine just went out the door. I think it was like Wild Dog Arcade. We're going to talk about that three-hour stream of the game, which is really fun to watch. If you're waiting on a game, sometimes it's just fun to see other people play it. You don't want to watch too much, but just enough to make sure that you feel good about your purchase. We've got now a number of how many people actually ordered a Dune machine. The game that every owner just keeps saying, you just need to play it. You need to sleep with this woman to understand why you should marry her. Because the looks aren't going to do it. Well, it's a sexy looking game, but you know, the personality, is that going to do it? But once you sleep with Dune, you're going to want one. That's what the owners are saying. 720 Dune machines supposedly ordered. A far cry from the 1,000 they wanted to make. So here we are as we all wait, though, for Pokemon. Stern is stalling a little bit. Maybe not. There was no release date. What I wish they would do is this. can we finally get to a place in the pinball universe in which the largest company in the world will just tell us a month in advance when we can expect to see their next game why can't they just do that it's not like we don't know it's coming it's only pinheads at least a week out right that would be nice a week out next friday get ready for something special There's no rollout over at Stern. It's just like the same formula. Friday, are they going to tease Pokemon? Tuesday, reveal. And then some gameplay a week or two later has been the latest thing they've been doing. So we shall see. What we do know is this. If we get nothing on Friday, there's a good chance we're getting nothing for the rest of the week. And so then we wait for the next Friday. That just seems to be their schedule. I'm excited about Pokemon. Am I going to buy one? No. Am I excited for you who love Pokemon? Yes. Do I think this game is important for Stern to make a statement? Absolutely. Do I think they're going to make a statement with this game? Absolutely not. I think it's going to be like another Star Wars. I think Star Wars, huge IP. It's a fun game. I just don't want to buy it. I think the same thing is going to be true with Pokemon. And so, yeah. And I think then it's going to be like, all right, the four month wait to get to Transformers. I think what we might see with Pokemon is Stern release the anniversary edition at the beginning. It makes total sense, right? Because February is the 30th anniversary of Pokemon. And so maybe that's just what they are waiting for. And maybe that is the LE version of the game. Who knows? A lot of questions will be answered in just a few weeks. Did you hear the rumor that Barrels of Fun also has the Transformer license? That they have the cartoon license of Transformers? So then what would Stern have if Barrels of Fun has the cartoon of G1? Stern is no way going to make another Transformers pinball machine based on the Michael Bay movies. That's not going to happen. And I don't think they're going to make it based on any of the live action. They've already done that. It didn't work. This has to be G1 Transformers. Now, you know how I feel. The real hit is not the series. It is Transformers the movie. Whoever can get that license is going to be the one that I must have with Unicron and Rodimus Prime and the battle between Megatron and Optimus. Everybody's in that damn movie. Everybody. And it's got the greatest movie soundtrack of all time. And if you know what I'm talking about, you know what I'm talking about. I'm not going to play it right now. First Prime, then Ultra Magnus, and now you. It's a pity you Autobots die so easily, Or I might have a sense of satisfaction now. You got the time. You got the... Arise, Rhineless Prime. Optimus. Yeah! No. No. This is the end of the road, Galvatron. After all is said and done, you never won, you never won, you're a win. so pokemon then transformers then fallout and then the remake or remastering of kiss seems to be the safe bet and you know it begs the question does stern have no more surprises for us are they just so big that everybody knows what's going on what was the last time stern like really shocked us with a title. I think we knew about Jaws. Was it John Wick? I feel like we knew about everything else. We knew about Dungeons and Dragons. It's a really big organization. It's hard to be surprised. I think the last true surprise in all the pinball was Winchester's Mystery House. We knew about Dune for a long time. We've known about Beetlejuice forever. We know about Goonies We know about Sonic We know about Gremlins We know that Twilight Zone is coming back We know about Big Bang Bar coming back We know that Totem is coming back We know all of this stuff is happening We knew about Predator You know it really hard to keep a secret And I think that secrets in this hobby aren't really necessary for success. When I look down at this Winchester game, even if it was a theme we knew about, looking down at the game, I think it has everything you need to find 525 buyers. And it's still crazy to me that nobody has put up their spot for sale. Nobody. And I watched like an hour of the stream. I did. I watched the stream. I think it was Mad Dog Arcade. Thank you guys. They have game Relic number eight. And so they're trickling out. I don't think the full production line is going. It's kind of like they're making one or two games a week right now and sending them out into the world. They don't need to sell anymore. It makes absolutely no sense if even locations put it on location. Good for the operator maybe to make some money on the game, but for barrels, there's no more to be sold. So they've made as much money as they're going to make and that's it. They've sold every single one. Now they're probably kicking themselves that they didn't reverse it. Maybe say they're gonna make 750 Winchesters and 500 dunes but maybe the reason why Winchester sold so well is because it was only 525 it really reached that tipping point pretty quickly where the FOMO started to set in I remember how it went down they brought it to Expo after a day the FOMO was growing larger and larger and by day one at Expo because they launched it a few days before Expo the game was sold out nobody had any and they were all spoken for. So I watched the gameplay, same results as the other times I've watched it. The light show is beautiful. The world under glass is amazing. The coding is still early on. The main concern I still have, the shots are really hard. And for some of you, that might be what you want and you're going to get that. But even watching these guys play, you can start to see just a higher level of frustration in how often the ball drains on the left side, but more than that, how difficult the shots are. And I think they made a really tight game and that's going to be appealing to very good players. And it might be very frustrating to the more casual player. It's hard to find that balance. Some games are way too easy. You can sit on them forever. The last time I got on a game and I felt it was like way too easy was Scooby-Doo. I felt like I could just sit on Scooby-Doo and eat Scooby snacks for a few hours. And it was like really easy to keep the ball alive. You know, I have a game here that's really frustratingly hard. And people don't talk about the fact that Guns N' Roses to me is a drain monster. Like this game, it just drains all the time. And once the ball gets into the slings, it's like game over unless you're nudging it all the time. And because Guns N' Roses doesn't really have a lot of flow, there's a lot of bricking that goes on in the game. There's a lot of shots that are really close to the flippers. And that's what causes a lot of unsavable drains in the game. I think GNR would be a game that would be much more fun if it wasn't so difficult and it had more flow. Because I think most of us, the difficulty we want in a pinball machine is more about getting through the game. You want to be able to find the shots. You want to be able to feel the excitement of combos. You don't want the ball to brick a lot. And so again, it's that fine balance between making it rewarding to shoot, but not boring layout like a typical fan layout. But you also want there to be a lot of combos and a lot of kinetic satisfaction in lining up different shots in a row. I think the game that I've played most recently over the last couple years that had the most kinetic satisfaction was Elton John. I think after Elton John, the game that I had the most fun kinetically was the Uncanny X-Men. You could say what you will about the code and about some of the problems with the auto launcher or plunger in that game. But just for a pure where are the shots and how rewarding are they? The third game I would put into the list would be King Kong. King Kong is still an Elwynn game. It still shoots phenomenally well. The problem I have with Kong is when I'm playing it, I just don't feel anything. I just don't feel a connection to the theme. It feels a little too cartoony for me. It feels a little too childlike. And I think it just doesn't click with me. But from a shooting standpoint, it's got some great shots. Okay, so it's mid-January. Barrels has eight or nine or so Winchesters out the door. There's 515 or so more to make. I know a lot of you are anxiously awaiting your Winchester games. I'm anxiously awaiting them to sort of put this on the main line. I guess the question I have now is this. If there were around 500 total dunes sold before the cutoff, they didn't make 500 dunes yet, and they sold 220 more, 720 dunes. That's how many total orders for dune they have. This is just my question. So when are they actually going to be done making the dune games? and when will Winchester be the main game on the line? This is the drum I've been beating for a little while because even in Barrow's own communication, they've been saying due to their manufacturing capacities, they sort of have to finish the dunes to really get to the bulk of the Winchesters. So we're just gonna be watching this. I think everybody's gonna get their game. I think there's no drama here. I don't think anyone's gonna be worried about whether or not that's going to happen. I think it's just a question of when. And that's it. It's just a question of when. Because, you know, they did reveal this game in October, November, December January That was four months ago And so it was a good move to reveal it early but that just means the wait going to be longer And so now with these 720 Dune machines and is Dune this like amazing game you just have to play to believe, maybe, maybe, I think they're going to end up selling everyone. I really do. They're going to end up selling everyone. In a world in which there is like an unlimited amount of these Stern machines and nothing Stern feels special. and Jersey Jack only has one game on the line a year, you know, a lot of people come into this hobby, they get excited, they get bit by the bug. And if you walk over to a distributor's lineup and John Youssi a dune and it's on the showroom floor and you can get one instantly, they're gonna sell them. They're absolutely gonna sell them. And yeah, the game is only gonna get better as they polish the code more. I don't think it's gonna go up in value. I don't think like a year from now it's going to be Pirates of the Caribbean and it's going to be selling for like $15,000 to $20,000. It's never going to be that kind of theme. In fact, when you go on Pinside now, it's so comical. Look how many Pirates of the Caribbean from Jersey Jack Pinball are for sale right now. The last time I checked, I want to say there was like seven or eight of them. You got to remember they didn't make many of those games. and it's just comical because people are still trying to get like 20 grand plus for the le and 30 to 40 for the ce i think that ship has sailed there's so many better games coming out pirates was cool but man it's not the end all be all it was an overly complicated game it doesn't even have the assets in it i still can't understand the love affair with the game if you love pirates There's no Jack Sparrow. There's no theme song from Pirates. I get it's like inspired by it all, but there's barely any footage from the movies in the game itself. And now that we're going to get like Sonic from Sega from the 80s, that's going to crush. And then we're going to get back to the future, are we? Have you noticed what's going on over at Dutch right now? And I think Dutch Pinball is in a really fragile place within the community right now. and I'm not seeing what I want to see from them. I think they are taking for granted the second, third, fourth chance that this community has given them and they're letting little things like just communicating what's going on with these toppers for Alice really start to create a larger audience that is becoming a growingly skeptical audience on whether or not this company is in it for the long run, whether or not they're gonna be viable into the future when their customer service and their communications leaves this much to be desired. But it's more than that. It's more about the point that they didn't even come close to achieving what they said they were going to do. If I tell you I'm going to have for you by the end of this year, 500 episodes of Canada's Pinball Podcast, and I only manage 300, but I still want you to be a subscriber, and I still want you to go in on the next year subscription, you would be like, come on, man, you didn't live up to your end of the bargain. Now, I do think that Dutch will absolutely honor all of the refund requests. The weird thing they did is say that refund requests are open now all month. And they're spending this entire month in this like weird quagmire communication space around these toppers. So talk about bad timing, Barry and team. this is not the month to start to make people feel insecure and anxious this is the month where you should be doubling down on how you're going to want to keep your alice order because we've got something so magical coming at the end of the year have you even heard them try to keep people in on the game have you even heard anything it's like melvin made the promise that if you own an Alice and you keep your order, you're going to get back to the future. I mean, that's basically what he said, but it just seems like they're not all in on it together. This company needs to get together and figure it out. It's not hard to figure it out, but they've got to become more transparent. I remember when Lebowski manufacturing was going well, they were doing factory tours. I want to see more of that with Alice. We know Raza's next. You've already announced Raza. So where is like anything to do with that game? They need a strategy. It's almost like they need to be friends with a guy that works in marketing that talks to them for free almost every single day, if not week. And I'm saying this on my show because I just don't get it. I really don't get what the issue is. How can you have like 20 or 30 people without a topper and then start making toppers again and those 20 to 30 people aren't the first 20 to 30 toppers that go out the door? They don't go on the new builds. They go in a box and they go to the people that have been waiting for months. And those people deserve immediate communication the moment the new vendor is making new toppers. You know, there's something to be said about being transparent and being a company that understands the importance of that. Like your brand, every single month that goes by is an opportunity for you to either elevate your pinball brand or damage it. It's really that simple. I look at a brand like CGC, completely damaged. I look at a brand like American Pinball, beyond repair. They are. American Pinball, beyond repair. I put something up on Facebook. It's like, this company acts like the old employees that they fired and treated like crap are not going to now come out of the woodwork and articulate what a garbage experience they had at American Pinball They are basically like waving the red flag You have to be a moron to go work at American Pinball because here my experience They're going to treat you poorly. You're going to go in thinking you're going to be a part of this pinball industry you love, and they're going to burn you. They almost want to make like PSAs to stay away from American Pinball. Okay, CGC, I don't like them as a brand. American Pinball, beyond repair. Companies like Pedretti and Pinball Brothers, I'm kind of indifferent. They haven't ripped anybody off, but I just don't see them on the same level as the companies that are executing better. If I asked you right now, who are the Pinball Brothers? Some of you might know. Most of you probably don't. If I asked you right now, who is the team over at Pedretti Gaming? You're coming up blanks. You're coming up blanks. You don't have names. You don't have faces. That's inexcusable in my honest opinion. Any pinball manufacturer out there should be in front of the community on a weekly basis. It's your job. I'm in front of the pinball community multiple times a week, and it's not even my job. So if you are a pinball company, you should be out there every single week, and the faces of your company should be out there. That is what will attract new customers. It will give your brand personality. And it forges a personal connection between your company and the community. And that connection is everything. Look, Stern does a decent job with all of its content every week. It's got the Friday factory tour. They're always putting up content. They are. Like, they're trying. They've got people where their jobs are solely that. I mean, someone's handling Stern's social media content. That is their job. And so they respond to people. They're a big organization. They've got something like, I want to say Stern has half a million people like them on Facebook. Maybe it's more. Maybe it's a couple million. It's something really large. So when they speak, people are listening. And Stern does what they do. Jersey Jack, I feel like their stuff is very polished, but it's a little bit more ad-like. And I would like Jersey Jack not to only hit me with a plethora of polished ad-like objects. I would like Jersey Jack to hit me with more of the personalities. I want to hear more from Brett, from Eric, from Jack, from Steve, from Joe, from Keith. You know, they've got the personalities. Tom Capera is amazing, man. That guy should be out there more often. Hey, guys, what's up? It's Tom. Let me walk you around our factory and show you something special. You know, maybe he stands in front of some parts that just came in for our next game. I bet you're wondering what's inside this box. Simple stuff like that. I know they're busy building games, but it's more than just building games. You got to be busy building your brand in pinball, and it should never stop. When I think of spooky pinball, they do a great job. They just showed the Beetlejuice test units on the line, and OMG. Have you seen how beautiful those games look when they're standing over the actual games and the factory lights are on? I can't wait for you guys to get your Beetlejuices. I can't wait to see what happens when this game starts going out to people. I think it's going to be special. I think it's really going to raise the bar. I think it's going to be the game you put in your lineup and you look over at it and you look over at some of these recent sterns and you're going to just see like the pinball industry has changed. The bar is now raised. I think Harry Potter and Beetlejuice have elevated to the top. I think right below them is like the Winchesters, the Dunes, like the stuff is looking really good. It's like right up there. And I think the Stern stuff needs to improve. They need to improve. They need to make the stuff look better. And I hope they do. I hope they aim for higher quality instead of higher quantity. My worry is Stern is going to chase the money and not chase the legacy. They are really going to be about volume, volume, volume, because now their customers are the private equity investors. That is my take on the modern world lately. The world has become a weird place where we are putting simple profits over people. Everything's about how big you can get at the sacrifice of how creative you can be. How large your organization can become and pay back the shareholders is way more important than are you actually putting something of real value and innovation into the world? It used to be like you had to create the value to create the money. I don't really feel like that's the case anymore. I feel like the modern capitalistic world is kind of broken. Remember the days when there was like only only Bugatti was like the supercar of the world and we all were like, OK, there's this, this, this Ferrari Lamborghini. Lamborghini, then Bugatti. Look at it today now. There's like 20 car manufacturers making multi-million dollar cars. Crazy, crazy. And here we are complaining about pinball toppers, everybody. But anyway, let's see what happens on Friday. If we get the Pokemon announcement, it's about to get real. If we don't, we're going to be still in that holding period. I'm going to hit a bug in Luke. They are probably listening right now. When are the first Beetlejuice is going out? I want to talk to the people that get the first Beetlejuice machines and see what it's like to put that gem into your game room. Everybody have a great day. It's Wednesday. It's hump day about to go have pizza with my boys. Thank you so much for your subscriptions. Thank you so much for the support. So much fun. I can't wait to see what happens in pinball this year, people. It's about to get crazy. I know some stuff I can't tell you yet, but man, it's about to get crazy. The cream is going to rise to the top and everything else is going to sink because almost every game now is like 10 grand or more and you are not going to buy on just a whim anymore. You're not going to buy just because something is new. You're going to buy because something is magical, something is special, and something is worthy of being inside your game room or at your location. If you're an operator, that's how it's going to be. Canada out. Yo, man, let's get out of here. Word to your mother. to go to go Ice, ice baby to go to go Ice, ice baby to go to go