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The Pinball Show Ep 161: The JJP Avatar Episode

The Pinball Show·podcast_episode·1h 19m·analyzed·Sep 23, 2024
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TL;DR

Avatar launches strong; X-Men stream criticized; Gomez reveals design constraints and licensing challenges.

Summary

The Pinball Show hosts discuss Avatar: Battle for Pandora's strong launch despite a short teaser-to-release window, analyze backlash to Stern's X-Men livestream ("Costume Gate"), review multiple George Gomez interviews revealing production insights, and cover manufacturing news including Stern's B-tier playfield promotion and Spooky's signing of Christopher Franchi.

Key Claims

  • Jack Danger was on an accelerated 12-month schedule for Uncanny X-Men due to a prior game getting in trouble and being pulled/bumped back

    high confidence · George Gomez interview on Canadian Spinball Podcast, reported by hosts

  • Gary Stern expressed concerns about Jack Danger's lower playfield design, telling George Gomez 'he's doing something strange with the bottom'

    high confidence · George Gomez interviews; direct quote attributed to Gary Stern via Gomez

  • George Gomez originally wanted to design The Matrix but Gary Stern pushed him toward Lord of the Rings instead

    high confidence · George Gomez interview; hosts note this has been known for over a decade

  • A competitor has inked a DC (Superman/Batman) licensing deal, per George Gomez hearing through the grapevine

    medium confidence · George Gomez mentioned hearing this; hosts speculate it could be Barrels, Pinball Brothers, or others but not JJP, American Pinball, or Spooky

  • 70% of Stern games are going into homes (consumer-based) versus commercial locations

    high confidence · George Gomez stated in interview

  • Spike 3 will maintain backwards compatibility with Spike 2 node architecture

    high confidence · George Gomez interview on Canadian Spinball Podcast

  • Jurassic Park Home Plus games sold to Costco are probably gone by Christmas

    medium confidence · George Gomez statement; hosts express skepticism

  • The next Spike 3 game introduction will likely be a 'Cornerstone game' rather than an immediate release

    medium confidence · George Gomez indicated this in interview; Gomez suggested Metallica remaster rumor on Spike 3 is not accurate

  • X-Men livestream suffered from difficult game setup, incomplete code state, costume obscuring gameplay, and lack of explanation

    high confidence · Community backlash analysis by hosts; Stern response with follow-up gameplay video

Notable Quotes

  • “I'm in so deep that I hear some things. It's so frustrating knowing things, not being able to talk about them.”

    Host (unnamed) @ early segment — Illustrates insider access and constraints on discussing unreleased information in pinball media

  • “You just don't want people making a game they don't want to make.”

    George Gomez @ interview segment — George's justification for not making Back to the Future; hosts strongly challenge this claim

  • “I'm a CEO of Stern Pinball, and I know how much money Back to the Future will make me. And I have a friendship with Joe Kamiko... I don't buy it. I just don't buy it.”

    Host (Dennis) @ Back to the Future discussion — Host expresses skepticism about Gomez's claim that no designers wanted the license

  • “He's doing something strange with the bottom. You're going to have to get that under control.”

    Gary Stern (relayed by George Gomez) @ interview segment — CEO feedback on Jack Danger's lower playfield design for X-Men

  • “I agree, but let me let him cook. Let's see if he can.”

    George Gomez (response to Gary Stern) @ interview segment — Gomez advocating for creative autonomy in design decisions

  • “The game's special. Just wait.”

    George Gomez (re: X-Men) @ Gonzo's Pinball Flipperama interview — Gomez reassurance on unfinished aspects like music, sound, UI, code, and animation

  • “We're not there yet regarding the Uncanny X-Men music and sound, background UI, code, general animation.”

    George Gomez @ Gonzo's interview — Explicit acknowledgment of work-in-progress state on multiple fronts

  • “It was stupid. It's like I just gave a lecture on this. Dennis, the golden rule.”

    Host @ Avatar release strategy discussion — Criticism of JJP's Tuesday teaser-to-Thursday launch window violating best practices

Entities

George GomezpersonJack DangerpersonGary SternpersonDennispersonChristopher FranchipersonStern Pinballcompany

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: George Gomez claims designers unwilling to work on Back to the Future; hosts express strong skepticism citing financial incentive, Dwight Sullivan's public interest, and modern business practices contradicting this narrative

    medium · Host: 'I don't buy it. I just don't buy it.' Evidence cited: Back to the Future profit potential, Dwight Sullivan's stated dream theme, CEO business rationality

  • ?

    event_signal: Multiple George Gomez interviews across Canadian Spinball Podcast, Gonzo's Pinball Flipperama, and Phantom Tilt creating unified messaging cycle; differs from 2017-2018 podcast interview distribution practices

    high · Hosts note: 'He is making his rounds'; speculate this is 'PIO, unified voice approach' similar to corporate PR structure

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: X-Men livestream faced widespread community criticism exceeding typical Stern reveal backlash; hosts surprised by scale of negativity despite good game quality

    high · Hosts note: 'The complaining was widespread more so than we usually see associated with Stern pinball streams. Again, I was sort of blindsided by it.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: X-Men livestream criticized for difficult game setup, incomplete code state, and poor presentation despite strong layout; community backlash prompted follow-up gameplay video

    high · Community backlash described as 'Costume Gate'; hosts confirm livestream showed struggles despite layout being 'super easy'; Stern uploaded damage control follow-up video

  • ?

    licensing_signal: George Gomez hearing through grapevine that competitor has inked DC licensing deal; Matrix originally planned for Gomez but Gary Stern pushed toward LOTR instead

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.238

0:00
Warning, the following episode contains adult language and screaming goats. Listener discretion is advised.
0:10
This week on the Pinball Show, Dennis and I discuss the new Avatar, the Battle for Pandora pinball machine release, and our first impressions of the game, as well as Stern Pinball production updates, the Uncanny X-Men gameplay stream, and follow-up video. Results of the pinball battleground between Stern Pinball and Jersey Jack Pinball and their recent releases. Some George Gomez interviews and interesting information about upcoming Stern Pinball games. Spooky pinball growing and signing artist Christopher Franchi to an exclusive deal. Other pinistry news and, of course, pinball market trends. Official Pinball Show Club members get an exclusive segment this week titled, What I Like and What I Don't About Jersey Jack Pinball's Avatar the Battle for Pandora. Enjoy episode 161, and thank you for making us the hobby's go-to media for pinball discussion, debate, and analysis.
1:05
Pinball is a game of skill. For some, it's a passion and a lifestyle. It's time for the Pinball Show. It's pinball with personality.
1:18
Ladies and gentlemen, it's the Pinball Show. It's episode 161, and it's big. It's huge. Have you seen my show, Dennis? I'm back. I am back, and they're eating cats. They're eating the pins. They're eating the balls. They're eating the jackpots, the multi-balls. Dennis, I'm so glad to be talking with you yet again on another episode of the Pinball Show. Bigger and better is what I say, and this last couple weeks in pinball have been huge. They really have been. So many reveals, so many streams, so many costume mistakes. I've seen the costumes.

  • Avatar: Battle for Pandora had stronger than expected initial response and reception

    high confidence · Both hosts confirm this observation

  • “They broke one of your golden rules, right? I said, yes, they did.”

    Unnamed manufacturer text to host @ Avatar release strategy — External confirmation from industry that JJP violated established promotion principles

  • “This is not Williams. They don't want to make people do things they don't want to. This is the 21st century.”

    George Gomez (philosophy on designer choice) @ Back to the Future discussion — Gomez articulates modern company philosophy vs. classic era practices

    • Jersey Jack Pinball
    company
    Spooky Pinballcompany
    Avatar: Battle for Pandoragame
    Uncanny X-Mengame
    Joe Kaminkowperson
    Dwight Sullivanperson
    Jurassic Park Home Plusgame
    Spike 3product
    John Wickgame
    Venomgame
    The Matrixgame
    Lord of the Ringsgame
    Canadian Spinball Podcastorganization
    Gonzo's Pinball Flipperamaorganization
    Phantom Tilt Pinball Podcastorganization
    Barrels of Funcompany
    Pinball Brotherscompany
    The Pinball Showorganization
    Costcocompany

    medium · Gomez quote: 'Another competitor actually has inked a DC deal.' Gomez confirms: 'Gary's mentioned it before' about Matrix/LOTR swap

  • $

    market_signal: 70% of Stern games going to home consumers versus 30% commercial; younger players via Insider Connected data show achievement/collection focus over traditional play

    high · Gomez: '70% of the games are going into homes consumer-based versus commercial-based'

  • $

    market_signal: Jersey Jack violated promotional best practices with short Tuesday teaser (Sept 10) to Thursday full launch window (Sept 12); hosts call this 'stupid' violation of established golden rules

    high · Host: 'Full transparency, it was stupid. It's like I just gave a lecture on this.' Unnamed manufacturer confirmed: 'They broke one of your golden rules, right?'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Christopher Franchi signed to exclusive deal with Spooky Pinball, representing talent migration from Stern to boutique manufacturer

    high · Host announcement: 'Spooky pinball growing and signing artist Christopher Franchi to an exclusive deal'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Uncanny X-Men accelerated to 12-month schedule due to prior game trouble; Jack Danger normally works 16-24 month cycles

    high · George Gomez interview: 'There was supposed to be a game prior to it. But that game, quote, got in a little bit of trouble. So they had to either pull it entirely or bump it back, forcing Jack's game to be turned around in 12 months rather than a 16 or a 24-month cycle.'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Stern offering B-tier flawed playfields as promotional incentive with every new in-box game purchase; hosts debate practical implementation concerns around packaging and shipping costs

    high · Host confirms: 'They got a hold of dealers and said, hey, we want to continue giving value for these new in-box games'; playfields are defective art pieces normally discarded

  • ?

    product_concern: X-Men music, sound, UI, code, and animation still incomplete per George Gomez despite game shipping; requires post-release updates

    high · Gomez interview: 'They're just not there yet regarding the Uncanny X-Men music and sound, background UI, code, general animation'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Spike 3 maintains backwards compatibility with Spike 2 node architecture; larger screen size expected; Cornerstone game anticipated as introduction point rather than immediate rollout

    high · George Gomez: 'Spike 3 continuing with the node architecture, backwards compatibility'; 'Spike 3 is probably going to be introduced with a Cornerstone game'

    • 1:56
    I got to say, we've got the best costumes. Our costumes are fantastic. Stern Pinball in the news big time. You guys thought I was going to talk about Avatar? They thought I was going to. We did. We opened the show with Stern Pinball. But why? Well, because they're producing. They crank out machines. They have the most news. And they're the king, so that's why we discussed them. The past couple of weeks, they've been prepping for X-Men LEs. le's kind of weird really kind of weird that i thought those things were going to be shipping last week and yeah people are like is it a parts thing is it a a code thing what what is going on here but is it a flipper gap thing is it no it's not i think they went back and measured that i was listening to egp and i was like did what did you guys end up coming to the conclusion it was the same it wasn't the same no we we didn't come to any conclusion all i did was say that there were people who were claiming, you know, like how good media does. I'm hearing people say that there's a gap difference. But we made no commitment because we didn't actually look at it. I know Jack posted a picture with like some sort of measuring thing that looked like it was a dental tool. All right. And I didn't see a gap difference. This week they are building uncanny X-Men alleys. And then at the late part of this month, the pros are going on the line. And then, as we've said before, in October, the premiums, mid-October, the premiums are going to be built as well as Jurassic Park Pro. And then, I don't know, maybe something later in November around expo time, we'll see, at least hear of something else old, but maybe new. But maybe it's old, but maybe it's new. I would guess that that would then be in production come November.
    3:47
    Hmm. Yeah, we're still waiting for all the accessories. Man, Venom accessories, John Wick accessories, Godzilla 70th, and now Uncanny X-Men. I thought Gomez had said they were going to start getting accessories out faster. I guess it's relative. I suppose. I heard there's some hiccups in that Venom topper. They were wanting to do something, but then they couldn't. Man, you know what's crazy? Side note.
    4:11
    I'm in deep, man. Why? Maybe I'm in too deep in this pinball industry. You don't even like pinball. industry.
    4:17
    As much shit as I've been through, I'm surprised. You used to. This is why you never make your hobby your career.
    4:24
    You don't shit where you eat or something? I don't know. It's kind of like that. If the bathroom's clean enough, I'll have a cheeseburger. I don't mind. Don't touch the doorknobs. But I'm in so deep that I hear some things.
    4:39
    It's so frustrating knowing things, not being able to talk about them and sometimes i just want manufacturers to figure it out i've heard a couple things this last couple weeks on upcoming games past games that they were like oh yeah they did have that idea for this game they were going to do this and i'm like and what did they end up well nobody wants to make back to the future they're like it didn't work like It worked good, but they were afraid that over time, like, can we not have a pinball company that says, you know what?
    5:18
    We'll just provide extra parts. Like, this is so cool. You're going to fix it once a year. No, people don't want to change parts out. If it's a matter of something cool or nothing at all. This is a new homeowner not knowing how to work on their game economy. We can't. It's not 2015 anymore, Zach. We can't do that. I'm sick of hearing all of the cool shit that's coming. But in this industry. This is a tight market. We've got to play it safe. And the whole, fuck the bill of materials. You've got to keep the game conservative. All right, sorry. Where am I at? X-Men live stream. That's what we're ready for. The live stream. Yes. So we've got the live stream since our last episode. Yeah. Because the reveal of the X-Men was a hit. The sizzle reel, the pictures. Oh, yeah. People were like, look at those sentinel little fingers doing finger stuff. They loved it. A little head. They were thinking Circus Voltaire, but with Marvel. Hey, Dennis, when's the last time you did a little finger stuff?
    6:16
    There was the Sentinel head. When's the last time you did a little Sentinel? Yeah, so it was a great. But then the stream comes along with the team over at Stern. It was like a week later or something. How about him? And they got flamed, man. And I hadn't read the forums. I went for my last podcast. Yeah, I went and I just jumped around the store. I didn't watch the beginning. I loaded the recording. I jumped around to watch gameplay footage, and I didn't realize that there was this humongous backlash. Yeah.
    6:50
    And it seemed like – I'm going to call it costume gate. Okay. Because it seemed like a lot of – at least people were like, it looked really hard. Is that the sequel to Bulge Gate? No, no, no. It was like they're in the costumes. They're having fun, but the game ended up looking hard. It did look brutal. And, you know, you had lectured the listeners and me in the prior episode about, you know, these live stream reveals, they don't necessarily do you any favors. I got hate on that, too, if you read the forum. Did you? Oh, God. Okay, well, you know, you might have gotten some, you might have gotten some, you know, satisfaction. I'm sure there, yeah. Were they just mad that people were in costume or were they mad that they didn't play well and they were blaming the costumes? There's a perfect storm of things, but I've got to be honest here. Maybe, again, maybe the topic of this episode I'm in too deep. It seemed like a stern reveal stream. I didn't – maybe I'm losing touch. I'm losing touch, Dennis. It seemed like all the other streams they do. Like why did people get so angry? They played the game. They were having fun, making jokes. That's what they do on every stream. Well, and that's where, again, jumping around, I didn't see anything. that I thought was – they did struggle a lot more than I thought looking at that layout. That layout looked super easy to me, and I was surprised that they were having that hard of a time. But, of course, setup is everything. So they may have deliberately – especially – now, the code isn't very far along. I think that was part of the storm. And maybe they set the game up with a really difficult angle because they knew they couldn't go deep in the code. Yeah, and the costumes probably didn't help, as they alluded to.
    8:33
    And then they said, a lot of people are like, we want explanation. We don't know what was going on. They were just flipping around. They looked like they were getting their ass kicked. So I think it was a perfect storm of things. But part of it was us hobbyists. It's like, damned if you do, damned if you don't. If you've got Dwight Sullivan up there telling how to play the game, people are like, tell Dwight to be quiet. We just want to hear the sound of the game. So we heard the complaints following up doing on the Flippin' Out stream, Joel did Avatar. And he was very much explaining how to play. And people were like, no, no, no. We just want to hear the sound. Oh, yeah. No. That has been true for every stream I've ever seen. We don't know what's going on. You need to explain it to us. Quit explaining it to us. We just want to enjoy it. It's like, you know, it's different personalities. You'll never win with that. But the complaining was widespread more so than we usually see associated with Stern pinball streams. Again, I was sort of blindsided by it. Me too. And I didn't – like I've seen a lot of Stern revealed streams. Yeah, we've seen them all. And this one definitely was not like in the bottom rung of – like we've seen some really bad ones where tech issues just plague the whole thing. This was not that. So I was surprised they were so upset. And then so much so that they did recently, I think a couple days ago, they uploaded, Stern Pinball uploaded, a follow-up gameplay video. Yes, I have not watched it, but I did see when they put that out. I go, oh, they're trying to put out a fire here. Yeah, and then Unleash the Gomez. We'll talk about that. Same kind of thing that we've seen after John Wick. We got a lot of Gomez interviews. You know, here we go again. Another game released, a lot of George Gomez interviews that we'll discuss. So I watched the follow-up gameplay video, and it was good, too.
    10:22
    It wasn't as colorful, but I don't know. I don't get it. But the game's selling well, isn't it? I mean, you're a distro. To me, the game is still selling fantastic, and I still feel out of touch because ever since I stole that sizzle reel, I've been the same stance on this game as I have been from the day I saw it, which is this game looks fucking incredible. Incredible. And every time, the more gameplay I see, the more it furthers my stance on that. I think that this layout is very special, and I think the artwork is beautiful. I think the mechanisms are special. so the complaints that they're hearing thus far is the code and the animation okay well i agree on that and hopefully to get changed but yeah my stance is not wavered yes they don't like the call outs either yeah so that's uh uncanny x-men so i did talk about george gomez interviewing all around the the play the country the world maybe he was on uh canada's pinball podcast he's on gonzo's pinball flipperama i think he made an appearance on phantom tilt pinball podcast prior all that so he is making his rounds do you think this is like a a thing now yes i do okay and i'm pro gomez interview uh junket i'm just surprised so many people want the same interviewee well compared to what i mean no that's no it's fair he is just so damn good i just but i just remember i got my member berries mean pepperidge farm remember back in like 2018 2017 where podcasts actually kind of went out of their way not to bring in the same person for interviews right by each other because it felt like you were just sort of saying the same thing yeah yeah i'm this is different now i'm surprised that we don't hear more from jack on interviews jack danger the designer of the game because he is he was a media person prior to uh his current job as designer so that is surprising ways and seems a little bit shy kind of like the uh the elliot Iseman of John Wick, kind of shy. So I get that.
    12:36
    Maybe this is now that it's not Gary, but it's Seth, that they're doing more of a PIO, unified voice approach. It could be. That's how we do it where I work is if they want – people contact for interviews, and then the PIO determines which one of us will respond. Okay. Yeah, that could be the case. Let's jump into a couple little points made throughout these interviews. It was a Canadian Spinball Podcast interview, George Gomez. And George brings up the fact that, I didn't know this, Jack Danger was actually on an elevated schedule for this release of Uncanny X-Men. There was supposed to be a game prior to it. But that game, quote, got in a little bit of trouble. So they had to either pull it entirely or bump it back, forcing Jack's game to be turned around in 12 months rather than a 16 or a 24-month cycle. which is 12 is a lot of time that was the williams pace yes absolutely i think i don't think uh as much design element but coding and animation and stuff like yes i that does struggle that does help explain the the state of the of the code set so he was talking about that it's that's news they also talked about licensing and the headache that it is talking about the matrix uh do you know this George Gomez actually wanted to do The Matrix, which is a great idea. Gary Stern pushed back a little bit. Wasn't really feeling it. Instead, he pushed George into the Lord of the Rings game. This has been known for over a decade. I didn't know the whole – You didn't know that? Because George doesn't know anything about Lord of the Rings. Correct. He affirmed that. But I didn't know that it was in place of The Matrix. Yeah. No, Gary's mentioned it before. Wow. Okay. I thought it was common knowledge. What a bad – why not both? It was presented like, well, instead of this. That era was rough. Okay. That era was super stern. I mean, they weren't on, it wasn't like 24 bad, but they, I mean, they were the only manufacturer.
    14:36
    Yeah, interesting. And a guess had to be made. And I, you know, why not both would have probably been the right answer ultimately. But why not since? Lord of the Rings ended up working out very well. George Gomez hearing through the grapevine that he was asked about DC, like you're doing all this Marvel stuff. What about DC, Superman, Batman? you've done Batman before. He said, well, he's hearing through the grapevine, George Gomez, is that another competitor actually has inked a DC deal. Oh, man. Oh, shit, shit.
    15:06
    I wonder who it could be, though. Hmm. I don't think it's Jersey Jack. I don't think it's American Pinball. American Pinball? No, I don't think it's that. Spooky?
    15:17
    It just doesn't seem. It doesn't seem spookified. Barrels. Yeah. I don't know. That? Hmm. Maybe. Pinball Brothers?
    15:32
    George Gomez had some, we're talking about regrets. Like, is there anything you do regret? He said he does have some regret for passing up on the Back to the Future. No. Let that go. Don't. No regrets, George. No regrets. Here's my issue. No, don't have an issue with this. He said, quote, you just don't want people making a game they don't want to make. Yeah. He went around, and even with Joe Kamenkow pushing Stern Pinball to do it, even then, he said nobody raised their hands. Nobody at Stern even remembers Joe. I wish. I've not had the pleasure of sitting down with George Gomez. Who am I, right? But if I ever did, I just don't buy any of this. Their young blood doesn't care about this team. Who cares? You don't. This is not Williams. They don't want to make people do things they don't want. This is the 21st century. Ask Zombie Yeti about commercial art versus other art. It's commercial art. You do the damn job. Sure, but there's so many themes out there. I'm a CEO of Stern Pinball, and I know how much money Back to the Future will make me. And I have a friendship with Joe Kamiko, who has personal investment in this IP. I don't buy it. I just don't buy it. Just let it go. Something else happened. They'll make plenty of money off X-Men. It's fine. And I think time goes on. You will find that to be the case. It's about time travel. You don't bring it back to the future in a boardroom. Hey, which one of you designers and coders would like to? Oh, shucks. Nobody wants to. Let's make John Wick. Bullshit. No. That's not how businesses work. No. What do you mean? Are you saying it's not back?
    17:17
    Well, I'm back to the future. Thank you, by the way, for putting that ad out. Oh, Avatar's coming. You can't do it with other companies. That's just ridiculous. Avatar was made again. They're back. No, it doesn't matter if it's true. So, I'm sorry. I just, I don't like this fabric. There's no way that that's true. Also. What? No. Also, I know that. Again, he has repeatedly said this. They asked the design teams, and if they're not into it, they don't do the license. Don't believe him. My evidence, I actually have evidence. Number one, there's so much money associated with Back to the Future, but that's just objective data. The other data I have is that Dwight Sullivan, their senior coder who's been there forever, has said publicly Back to the Future is one of his main dream themes. It's a team sport. It's not just him. We need seven people to raise their – No, I think you probably need the playfield designer on board, too. And if Borg doesn't like it, Elwynn's like it's too old. Borg doesn't dislike anything. Jack Danger's like it's not weird enough. I don't buy it. You'll never be able to convince me. George, you can't convince me there. We don't need to convince you. The wild nose. Did you know Costco came to Stern? Wasn't the other way around. No, I didn't. Costco came to Stern. We were using pinball machines. Gomez said it's been a great relationship. These Jurassic Park Home Plus games are selling very well, probably gone by Christmas. I don't believe this. See, now you're not buying something. No. I mean, I'm sure they sold well for Stern because they sold them to Costco already. But this, again, what is it with the Jurassic Park Home Edition? Because that was the same thing originally. They came out with Jurassic Park Home Edition. They go, this is sold really, really well. And then they never did another run until this Costco thing. It's like, how well did it sell if you didn't make any more of them? How many people have messaged you in the last two weeks? Oh, did you see this in Costco? Oh, God. No. I have family members. I had zero people message me. Did you see they're making the pinball? Oh, okay. They don't care about my opinion about Costco. Thanks, Uncle Frank. I don't ever. I've never been inside a Costco. Uncle Frank, where did that come from? Yeah, where's that? Is that like some national nonsense? I don't even have an Uncle Frank. Look what you did, you little jerk. That was Home Alone. Is that Uncle Frank? Maybe. All right. Did you know that that Home Plus game does have the ability to the user can go into their phone instead of opening the coin door and the four buttons They can actually go into their phone and control the settings That really cool George said that that's actually going to be coming to main games from Stern in the future. That's nice. That's cool. I like it. They talked about Spike 3 at Canadian Spinball Podcast. Yeah, Spike 3, the operating system. Talking about, are we going to feel this? Are we really going to see it different? He said, yeah, you're going to see. It's going to be seen. You're going to see a difference. He talked about Spike 3 continuing with the node architecture, backwards compatibility.
    20:24
    I don't even know what that means in reference to pinball machines. It would probably mean that they would be able to use the Spike 3 architecture to continue to make Spike 2 games. Yeah, that's what I wondered. The system can play the older software. That's what it would be. That just tells me that it's basically Spike 2 but with more node boards. Well, the thing is you wouldn't be able to put in a spike two board into a spike three game and get it to work. But if in the future a spike two board gave out, they could give you a spike three board. That is beneficial. Okay.
    20:52
    He also said, George, the lineup, your lineup will look – it was important to him that it looks preserved. So it's not going to stand out from the different machines. Where's the boldness? Where's the visioning like you were talking about, like the chance taking?
    21:08
    It's in what I've been saying for a year now. You're going to see a bigger screen size. That's going to be changing. The lineup's corrupted now. Yep. The trans light area, it sounded like trans light area is kind of going to stay the same size. Hmm. Are they moving the speakers? I would anticipate them moving. They should put them to the top like Gottlieb Premier did. Yes. The boom box. Yes. Put them up top. Lights, camera, action.
    21:35
    That's quite a look. I don't know if our elements are looking at elements, but I think maybe they could just have a higher quality speaker, just smaller, and then spread that of that screen size more horizontal on that display panel. I think that's what you're going to see because they're probably going to find a way to use the same display panel metal and just the insert for the LCD screen. I would anticipate different, but maybe just wider. The next game's probably not going to be a Spike 3, the next game introduced. And a lot of people were rumoring Metallica remastered kind of thing. Maybe it's the game that had to be pushed for X-Men to move up. I don't know, but he said that Spike 3 is probably going to be introduced with a Cornerstone game. See, that would make the most sense to me. I thought this idea of Metallica on Spike 3 was silly. Yeah, you're right there. So we'll see. If Gomez could eliminate one problem in the industry personally for himself, hands down it's going to be licensing complexities. It sucks, it sounds like. That's almost their own making, though. Yep. 70% of the games are going into homes consumer-based versus commercial-based. That's wild. It's not surprising.
    22:48
    Honestly, it surprises me that it's only 70%. I could see that. I would have guessed 80%. Arcades are back. Where's their little ad? Oh, but are we? All right. So he was talking about the importance of Insider Connected because especially now that everything's at the home, he's saying that through the data they're getting through Insider Connected, the younger the player, the more they don't care about anything else. They just care about the achievement-based kind of stuff. When I was younger, I played a lot for achievements. They like collecting.
    23:24
    And then over on Gonzo's Pinball Flipperama, they were discussing, George Gomez discussing they're just not there yet regarding the Uncanny X-Men music and sound, background UI, code, general animation. So that is certainly coming. He referred to it being bumped up in the schedule. So he said the game's special. Just wait. Gary Stern messaged George Gomez with some concerns about Jack Danger's lower design of the Uncanny X-Men. Goldwing. Yes. George Gomez said that Gary said, quote, he's doing something strange with the bottom. You're going to have to get that under control.
    24:04
    I love that. That's funny. And then George Gomez went back to Gary and said, I agree, but let's let me let him cook. Let's see if he can. Yeah, let's see what he's got. And we'll we'll we'll let's see. Let's just we'll see. And now we've seen what it is. But did you know Stern's doing a new in-box promotion for their new in-box games?
    24:29
    There's a weird rollout of this because – Yeah, this was odd. I actually read about this on some discords. It's almost like I've seen dealers mentioning this, but they were positioning it in a way that was their own promotion. But I'm here to tell you that this is a Stern pinball promotion. They got a hold of dealers and said, hey, we want to continue giving value for these new in-box games for you guys and your customers. So we've got a lot of B-tiered play fields. Don't you say that about Star Trek. They can't get – it's not like they can use them. You can't use them in a machine. They're – whether it's an art piece. They're flawed. They're flawed in some way, even minute. But they make the most beautiful decorative wall hangers or whatever you might want, coffee tables, all kinds of cool stuff. And they would probably throw them away anyway. So they were like, we've got a slew of these things. We're going to give them to you dealers. And our promotion is every new in-box game you sell needs to come with one of these play fields until you're out of them.
    25:35
    That should be fun for you to ship. That's a whole other story. I saw another distro showing their photo. I mean, they've got like Rolling Stones. Yeah. Playfields, WWE, of course, WWE. They'll never be free of it.
    25:54
    So here's the good thing. I like that, again, I don't see any other manufacturer. Maybe American Pinball. They're doing some little price reduction stuff here and there. I've heard they might throw in a barbecue with every Houdini they have. I don't. I just don't know of any other manufacturers saying, hey, we're trying to do what we can. So I give Stern Pinball a lot of credit here. It is a cool promotion. So for consumers, if you buy a brand-new pinball machine starting now, you get a free play fizz. But it's a separate shipment. There's no way you can fit that in the box. I think you can. I'm finding a way, damn it. Otherwise, I'm going to be paying more. Don't you scratch up my powder coat. I don't think I'm going to put it in a box. I think I'm going to strap it to the outside of the box. I swear to you. You know, that could be a good indicator. If the external decorative play field is damaged, reject the shipment. The tilt. That's the new. You don't have to open the box anymore. This play field is your litmus test.
    26:51
    So, yeah, that's what I'm going to try to do. But I think it's a cool promotion. I mean, yeah, no, it is a neat idea. Banners would have been preferred. Yeah, but they have these. They're just going to throw them away. Having said that, come on, Stern. I was the guy that had to message him and say, just some follow-up questions, team.
    27:13
    So are you guys providing the packaging for these things? Because from a business standpoint, the packaging, people don't think about that. But you know how much packaging costs for a specialized box for a play field and the packaging within? I think a lot of people would be surprised. What would be your guess? if i had to go and buy a box and i had to buy packaging to to surround that just for the playfield just for a playfield um fifteen dollars i would love it to be that um no you're upwards of probably 30 to 50 a piece just because you're buying specialty boxes unless you're buying a thousand boxes and then you could probably get it down to five dollars a piece but But if you're buying 10 or 20, it's expensive. And then to ship, you know, the weight and dimensions of a play field,
    28:05
    you're looking at anywhere from shipping $35 to $100, if not more, to ship a play field. Yeah, that part doesn't surprise me. So I think what Stern is saying is, I know it's going to cost you guys money as dealers,
    28:20
    but we're allowing you to, you know, help reduce the price on some of these to consumers, the price of the game. So, you know, you're making more. They're thinking we're going to make more sales because of this promotion. I don't know a single person that finally goes, you know what, I'll finally pull the trigger on a new inbox because I'm going to get a decorative flawed play field. So we'll see how it works. My other concern is like even though they're all totally random and you can't request them or anything, I've already had customers. Of course they're going to request them. Well, I'll buy a game from you if you give me a Deadpool play field. I'm going with X dealer and say oh fuck why Jersey Jack pinball this last week launches Avatar the battle for Pandora Hugh James Horner no I tried to make the sound of an Avatarian but I don't know what they sound like the furry things on Star Trek what are those things called? Gimbals? no they're called Vulcans no that's the pointy ears the little furby things Oh, Tribbles. Dribbles, okay. No, Tribbles. Gimbals? Tribbles? With a T. Okay. Tribble with a T, not D, Dribbles. Oh, man. That's the problem you face when you get up in the morning. No Tribbles here on Jersey Jack Pinball. They launched Avatar the Battle for Pandora with a very, very good response. It was better than I thought it would be, honestly. 100% agree. Better than I thought it would be as well. But before that, I want to discuss their release overall. We talk about launches here on the Pinball Show because I have some interest in that. This one, I got to say, and nobody else said it, very odd to me. So they release the trailer. I'm going to call it a quasi-trailer or maybe a mini-trailer. But not a teaser?
    30:14
    I can't call it. They wanted it to be a teaser. But when you show the entirety of a product, it's no longer a teaser to me. It falls within the trailer or promotional, you know, product video. That's fair. I'll agree with you there. But they did call it a teaser. They launched this on Tuesday, September 10th. However, the game launch, we know, was publicly scheduled for Thursday, September 12th, which launched and had an 18-minute deep dive video, almost featurette-like, very featurette-like. But from Tuesday to Thursday, that's why they called it a teaser. We got the teaser Tuesday. Thursday, we launched the game. So, listener, the reason I call this odd is because I'm being nice. Full transparency, it was stupid.
    31:05
    It's like I just gave a lecture on this. Dennis, the golden rule. But they didn't listen to your lecture. I had a manufacturer text me and go, they broke one of your golden rules, right? I said, yes, they did. And we'll see how it did. So, again, listener, when you show somebody a product, that is the height of the emotion that you're going to get from that. Let's not dive into the emotion. We're not going to dive into it. But if you then make said person that is excited, you make them wait 48 whole hours before they're able to open up their wallet and make a purchase. That is a fail. It is strange. Yeah. And again, strange is being nice. It is ignorant. I'm the second nicest person in pinball. That is what it is. Makes, made zero sense to me. So as a dealer on Tuesday, I wasn't expecting it because we've gotten those Thursday. So Tuesday noon hits And people ding ding I'm like alright let's see What did American Pinball do And I look and they're like Hey I'm kind of interested in this can I order it Interested in what Alright ding here's the link And I'm like oh it's a teaser alright so that's fine And I watch it and I'm like Oh no so that's the whole play field Oh that's the max Oh that's the UV Oh okay so they showed the whole thing There's a 30 second trailer That showed the entirety of the game subsequently whenever they did launch the game there was no other videos it's not like it was a cut of that trailer it was a 30 second trailer and it was launched on tuesday just very strange to me that uh even from a jjp perspective jjp loves money and they did not have that on their website where you could click to order whenever they showed you the product So strange. Extremely strange. But to each their own. Guess what I did? I fucking took orders. I was like, I would say if I were you, I would just start taking them down. You know what? And I was thinking maybe I'd get in trouble, but no. How? They love money. They're still going to get paid. If you show a product and somebody wants to buy it, I'm good with allowing them to purchase that product since they've been able to see it. But they did have – did you watch the 18-minute deep dive video? I did. What a beauty, that whole sizzle reel and the 18-minute video. Yes, as usual. They rock at those things. Unbelievable. What a wonderful job. So that, again, kind of showcases my whole point of the lecture weeks back. But the response to this game, like you said, Dennis, for myself, much better than I was expecting. Sales were much better than I expected. We'll talk about that in a bit. And then the week later, they didn't have like a gameplay video that they released officially. We were able to get a game pretty soon. So flipping out Pinball, the channel on YouTube, live streamed it with Joel on Wednesday, September 18th. I saw there were a lot of live viewers. I did not watch the stream. Yeah, you had 300, 400 people. And then I think it's 5,000, 6,000 views. Not bad. Not bad for a gameplay video. The game itself, Avatar, The Battle for Pandora, two models, limited edition model. They went back from Platinum to back to limited edition, limited to 5,000 units. Weird. Newsflash, you're not going to sell 5,000 units. And collector's edition, limited to 1,000 units. They very well probably sell that. Maybe, yeah. Designed by first-timer Mark Seiden. He was in the homebrew scene prior to this. Code and rules by Keith Johnson and team. art by Leah Fask, Fasky, Fosk, Leah, Leah. I think it's Leah. I have to go back and I went and I watched that 18 minute to know how to say her name for EGP. And now I have since purchased great art, though. Well, I guess I'm getting ahead of myself. And Leah is doing the is it Leah? I don't know. OK, she had done, first off, major accomplishment in this industry to have a lead artist be a female. So that's that's wonderful in and of itself. But I think she did some Hearthstone stuff, some Magic the Gathering stuff, just almost like a watercolor feel to her artwork. Oh, just gorgeous, just gorgeous artwork. That's one of the big prominent features of this entire product. UI and animation by John Paul Ford DeWin, as usual, alongside Mark Molitor and Olaf Grimmie. So the team over there. Music by Stimich. We'll talk about old Stemmage, but that's a new music person to work on this. I guess music and sound, too. Mechanical engineers, Rachel Frerichs. She was on the video. And the rest of the team over there, there was others. Same with electrical engineering. I'm sorry, guys. There's a whole team over there. The game features six flippers. That is three standard three-mini flippers and six ramps, question mark? These new games now. What do we call a ramp? Is it a fan lamp? Two lower playfields, one under playfield, visible infinity mirror physical ball lock thingy. Very unique layout. It's UV lighting, but they're calling bioluminescent art with an eclipse feature. Essentially, it's a UV reactive playfield art, plastics in the back panel. Custom speech by Stephen Lang. I like that. Colonel Quarch. McFarlane figures, figurines throughout. A scram. You ever heard of a scram? I hadn't until this. I always think of the Rick and Morty feature. What was his name? Scampi? No.
    36:45
    Pickle Rick? No, no. Pickle Rick. Scamp is a scoop and a ramp in different stages. So it can be a scoop. It can be a ramp. All right. Stageable kickback mechanism, which I love that. I love when they do that. There's a magnet somewhere in there. Rad cow cabinet art is back for the LE, not just the CE. A topper for the LE as well, not just the CE. it's still topper okay extensive audio video assets from both avatar films now the ce comes with different artwork hydro dipped navi armor interactive topper almost like the mandalorian holographic one on steroids a bioluminescent art on the ce comes in three uv inks so instead of just your blues you get some some reds and some teals turquoise screenies UV reactive inner art blades on the CE Natiri's arrow shooter rod on the CE Tritone illuminated back glass I still don't know what that means But I heard it's stunning on the CE Because it doesn't look mirrored And UV reactive flipper silicone on CE So some differences there between LE and CE Let's walk through this game really quick Your first thought when you've seen it And you've seen it in the most beautiful way possible Yes, excellent As I think pretty typical, great light show. In fact, it feels like they are leaning into the light show for a lot here. It didn't seem like it had a lot of toys, though. A lot of shots, but not a lot of toys. So those are kind of my first takes. But I've always been hit or miss with Jersey Jack art, and I've already noted that the art is so good on it that with the light show and the UV thing that they do, it seems like they decided that's what they were going to lean in to do the immersion and given all the clips and stuff that they got. I think they nailed the immersion, and the shots looked flowy. It looked like a flowy shooting-style game. I just don't – I remember in the featurette, they talked about how – I think it was the featurette – talked about this is the highest bill of materials game they've had since Wizard of Oz. I heard that, too, from Jack Guarneri. But when I look at it, when I look at it, if I strip away the light show, I see a lot of ramps, and I see some zip-tied toys. I don't see like a moving house and a monkey that picks up a ball. You know what I mean? Yeah. So above the play field, I don't see anything. I don't see a bill of materials aside from the light. But they do a light show. They always do this kaleidoscope light show stuff all the time. So it's just like they dialed it up to another level because they got the UV elements. And it looked good. It's just I didn't see – I still don't see the BOM. I still don't. I was with you, too. I think you and I are actually kind of on the same page with all of these different categories here when it comes to the artwork on Avatar. Just stunning. It fits better than I think any other artist could make it fit Like I can compliment that enough It looks like watercolor laid out in the most perfect organic manner possible And then you attach UV reactive inks on top of that. It is a match made in heaven. It's super stunning, having said that. I don't know that – it's almost like Dirty Donnie artwork to me. So, weird comparison. Yeah, very weird. Meaning it fits perfect here. I don't know if – I like that it's a different style. I don't know if I want this on every game. Well, and they haven't said anything about them using her for future games, period. Absolutely. I just want to take that stance of, like, as beautiful and gorgeous as it is, pinball still lends itself by default to more, you know, particular illustrative type of art, I think, with the themes that they pick. I'm glad this doesn't look like a bunch of comics. stuff 100 it stands out even the le we get the le and geez it's just sit sitting it there with it on and going through the attract modes just shit man look at that fucking machine it's it's very stunning it is but i i mean i i will i do want to give jjp a lot of credit they really in my opinion have made the ce look a lot better yes yeah and that historically especially when they have the three-tier models. It was kind of like premium versus LE, CE versus LE. It wasn't like a big deal.
    41:11
    Aesthetically, though, it's just interesting. Even in the little flyers, it looks so much more natural in the CE format. Everything looks a little more jarring, a little more RGB, not softer with the different shades of the UV that they had. It still looks good. It just looks, I don't know, more toy-like. and it looks well the ceo looks more expensive let me put it that way so they actually with the lighting i think pulled that off not to mention the topper the conclusion i'll make even though i'm skipping ahead here is that what i'm walking away from listener is i'm walking away thinking yet again i've done this before but yet again this game is an example of the reminder to me that Jersey Jack does create the most luxurious, top-notch, looking aesthetically pleasing, highest quality looking game product. I don't know at this point, again, I don't know how you can compare it. It just looks, it's high quality stuff where a lot of other products in the industry may come close and a lot don't. It really solidified my belief yet again, that Jersey Jack pinball makes a very special product that you just can't look away from. And it's hard to compare to anything else. On the other hand, I'm with you like, okay, you get that far. And okay. Whenever I lifted that play field, Dennis, wow, it looks like the Hobbit under that thing. It is full. And when I picked this game up, somebody at Jersey Jack or Eric somebody reach out this may be as heavy as their wide body games this thing is a nut buster it was obscenely heavy to the point that I'm like do we need this? shit you have to be cautious with this thing the BOM maybe that's where it's at maybe it's the under play field but I'm with you I don't necessarily see Sentinel head coming from the play field and grabbing the ball and magnets throwing it around. I see a very complex layout, a lot of wire forms, a lot of wire forms. There's a lot of wire forms there, a lot of different shots. What's so appealing to me on the layout of this game by Mark Seiden is it fits the theme. I want to venture around and discover different parts of Pandora, and that's what this layout is. It is a very unique layout, and people are like, oh, there's elements of this game. I don't see elements of any damn game in this. Like, well, you know, Steve Ritchie helped. First off, I don't even know that to be true, but I don't see a damn Steve Ritchie thing in this entire game. It's the upper right flipper. That's what it is. Okay, all right. Well, shit. That's a warp ramp. So I don't see it. But on this layout, I like to discover different shots. How do I get there? Oh, that's cool. How do I get there? Can I get there from here? What is that? That's where I was at on this, and that's what intrigued me and continues to intrigue me on this game. But I didn't see a lot of big toys or anything. The lower play fields, I mean, you've got two lower play fields. That's probably a lot of space and money right there. Another thing that kind of solidifies this top-notch quality for me is the UI and the animation. Is anybody in the same chapter of the same book? No. jeez no it's very interesting to me there's got to be people out there that can do this I mean sure and Tony and I on Eclectic Gamers podcast kind of talked a bit about well you know fully acknowledging that here you go with Jersey Jack having all these assets and they've done a really good job securing a lot of assets for a lot of their games so they have a lot more to kind of work with but you know just looking at the difference in animations from X-Men to this and just that John Plow to win has just remained at the top of the game like the entire time he's been there he's like I'm number one and it's not really even close it's not and I respect the hell out of the people that are in that same category but it just it it's not and we talked about this on episode 160 Dennis so we said well yeah when you get all the assets though it's the ui is a hell of a lot easier whenever you can put movie clips in there sure but but but the consumers sees the final product and the final product currently it's the screen looks so much better on their cut sequences so much better their overlaid animations that are sitting there on the ui are so much better they're and jean-paul does have i see his style i know when a multi-ball starts it's going to be a jp style of multi-ball sequence um and they're just they're gorgeous and they're they're beautiful um and i like how they set up their ui it's very organic so that's again what lends me to say like, man, this game is really just, if you want to show off, this is kind of how you show off what a pinball product can look like. If you're playing a game, though, that might be a different argument. If you're long-term getting through the code, that might be a different argument. Moments might be different. So just, I'm not all in on it, but in a big way. Have you seen any of the streams of this game yet? No, I have not. Okay, so that helped showcase different things that we didn't see in the featurette and such, as it always does in gameplay videos, such as the sounds, the lighting, and all of that. The UV bioluminescent is so damn cool, but I don't think it's as dynamic as Stranger Things. It's more subtle, and maybe a lot of people might like that, because I've heard people saying it blinds them in the Stranger Things UV thing. But this is more subtle, and it's going to require like the Stranger Things projector thing. Like, oh, it looks really good in a dark room. The same kind of thing here. To really pick up on that UV. You can tell the horizons or the eclipse is happening and stuff. But the UV, I wish it was more pronounced. And it may be on the CE. Nobody's really seen that yet where you have three different colors. So maybe you get it more there. And the sound. Damn it, Dennis, for once, so many people crapped on the sound effects and the sound of previous Jersey Jack games. Like, that's been a thing, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, their slot machine default sound pack, they toss in there for the lower half of the play field. For me now, it's a strength.
    47:51
    The sound and sound effects were amazing, immersive, along with the video, along with the lighting. Like this is an immersive experience unmatched by many other games ever made. Now, we'll talk about we've got some give and takes and what I like, what I don't about this game later on in the show. But but that can't be that can't be matched. Sales of this, as we said, a lot better than I had anticipated because I thought Avatar, you know, not a theme that people necessarily want. But the product's been able to wow people and check other boxes. So sales have been pretty good. Production schedule, they've already started. So bravo, Jersey Jack. I've got an LE in my hands. I don't have an X-Men. And it was announced a week after. So they already had some games made to go into showrooms. They're trickling into locations now. I believe, flipping out pinball myself, we're getting our first batch of LEs come this week already. Already getting those. Nice. And then they're going to start producing. they plan on production of the CEs come November. So they're going to build LEs until probably November, take a break, build the CEs, and then go back to the LEs. There was a media event for Avatar.
    49:10
    So Jersey Jack invited some media folks up there, paid their trip, their flights, their foods, their hotels, and all that stuff, similar to what Stern did for John Wick, and had some media go up there. You were invited to Collected Gamers podcast. I was invited. We were unable to go, both you and I. A lot of people went up there and had a good time, had fun. They went to Interium afterwards to play the game at a private event and all that. It was like a reunion up at Interium after they took the tour of Jersey Jack for a couple hours, played the game, asked the questions, sat through the Q&As and all that, took a break, went to Interium. and then there was like stern people up at interium too so then they all collided and had a big party fight nope nope it wasn't a it wasn't a street gang fight like i killed someone with a trident like back in the 80s michael jackson it wasn't anything like that they didn't that escalated quickly they didn't tie the wrist of uh jack danger mark seiden up with switchblades I can just see them.
    50:18
    No, they're actually kumbaya-ed. Everybody held hands, sang, I think got drunk, and had a good old time celebrating both of these game launches. We've got two new games in the world. They both have their strengths, and they both were themes that maybe we were like, eh. But they look like they're going to turn into pretty awesome offerings. Isn't the world of pinball great, Dennis? Yay. Nothing ever going on behind the scenes. This is just wonderful. Can we not have peace? Absolutely. I feel so good about this. So at peace with everything that I would like for us to provide our official club members with some exclusive content this week.
    51:02
    Look, Jersey Jack wants to do a deep dive feature. They can do the clever use of terms there. I want to dive a little deeper as well because I've been able to get my hands on Avatar. I've played it. I've seen it. I've heard it. I've felt it. I've bonded with it, Dennis.
    51:20
    That was my tentacles. I could hear them. Tentoline. We're going to do an exclusive segment. You guys know it well. It's What I Like, What I Don't about Jersey Jack Pimble's Avatar, the Battle for Pandora. And some of them really may surprise you. I think I'm going to get some gasps from people on this. Number three will amaze you. Oh, there it is. I was waiting for it. And number three might amaze you.
    51:46
    What's my favorite shot? What works? Sorry, guys. What really does not work? How are you guys not seeing this? That kind of stuff. Remember episode 160? We talked about the pinball battleground. I don't even remember the last episode. They were battling it out, stirring. JJP, who's going to come out first? Who's going to battle? Who's going to win? All right. We've seen Avatar. We've seen X-Men. We've seen sales numbers thus far. We've seen gameplay stuff thus far. We've seen features. Were there any winners here? Were there any losers? What's your take on this battle? The war's not over. In the battle of pinball, there can be no victory. They're all sitting on the battlefield picking clovers together.
    52:28
    I mean, we'll have to see where it all shakes out. I think Stern had the initial stronger launch, and then the stumble with the live stream. Yes. Jersey Jack had the weird initial launch, but in subsequent viewings, I think a lot more people have come around as they've seen more about the game. It's actually built up a little more joy on that front. But I also think that Stern had the stronger of the two licenses. So there's a lot of nostalgia for X-Men in general, more so than Avatar, which is a newer property. Especially right now. Yes, but that being said, when it's all said and done, I think, and maybe it's just more price point than anything, that Stern ends up doing better. What I'm curious about with J.J.P., though, is does Avatar do better than Elton John? Which, when people finally got to see more and play it, Elton John is so loved for how it shoots. Elton John had the tail. Yeah. it's got had this long tail and i don't know if avatar is going to have the long tail obviously the pricing is is apples to apples because they're the same pricing regardless of the change back to the le from the platinum so i don't know in some ways some people might prefer avatar as a theme um some people might be excited to try mark seiden's first professionally released game so there's those things going for it but i mean elton john had like the most layout buzz of a Jersey Jack in a long, long time. And I haven't heard the same level of buzz for this one. I've heard more talk about the beauty of the art, the beauty of the light show. Oh, I mean, I'll tell you right now, Elton John's a better shooter than Avatar. There you go. Boom. Story headline.
    54:15
    Well, so. It's hard to. So ultimately, I don't know if the Venn diagram overlaps very well between the X-Men. And I've seen in our TPS Discord at least one participant has said they ordered both. Yeah, a couple people ordered both of them. But I think that's very much going to be the exception. We did have – if we're talking about the pinball battleground and how it played out, I think that overall both companies ended up being winners. Because as you talked about the Venn diagram, I think these are very vastly different products and games. So much different. almost to where the strength of one is a weakness on the other, like, and vice versa. So I think they were both very much winners. I also seem to think that society and subgroups, especially within a niche hobby such as a pinball, it's almost Avatarian where, you know, you stick a spike in a tree and it affects the living people because we're all one. And not to get too, you know, loosey-goosey here, but when that x-men stream came out it was right before the day before they made sure it was the day before the avatar launch so and it's kind of weird that a day before that they rushed out that trailer teaser but whatever on avatar but when that x-men hit it's almost like um it's almost like it was in the air that we want to form balance within the system so it's almost like the storm of, of course this isn't going to be received well because our internal substructure needs to balance because we're awaiting and anticipating the Avatar release tomorrow. So it was kind of doomed already. They were going to nitpick. It's weird, but that's how I feel. And then they both won in a lot of ways. I think that Stern has to be really happy with the sales of this and the response thus far, especially if they really did bump it up in the schedule. I think that JJP has to be happy with the response that they've seen thus far. And if they're surprised by it not being more popular, that's when I would say, hey, JJP, you're a little out of touch. You've got to be better at assessing what things are going to do because I was very hesitant with what this title would bring. And it's brought better than I thought. So you've got to be happy. Now, both were losers in a certain way. They did stumble even. I think it was more organic balance worthy of the X-Men stream. It was a little stumble. and I will say that JGP kind of stumbled on the whole we're announcing it but we're not taking any money for a couple days kind of thing. That was weird as well. And then it was very iconic that they all came together and celebrated together. So maybe it was a wash. You might have had to wash yourself after the last episode 160 of the exclusive content because Dennis and I, we gave the people of our membership. We talked about a trip to Spooky Pinball, Stern's Costco partnership, Stern leveling up your office talked about the Jaws Topper breaking your game so if you didn't hear that sign up today at patreon.com slash the pinball show and go listen to that and then now you can listen to what I like what I don't about Avatar so all kinds of exclusive content over there and it does help us out with the show here so it's $10 a month go sign up today or be a baller and do $25 or have us both fall in love with you and do the $100 a month patreon.com slash the pinball show spooky pinball in the news do you know they signed to artist Christopher Franchi to an exclusive deal. I did. They had a lot of fun with the agreement terms. That was clever. Nice job, Franchi, on that. Interesting move here, though. Exclusivity on artistry. Kerry Hardy had on Bug Emery, who runs the company, and then Christopher Franchi, the artist for now Spooky. They talked about all kinds of stuff. I would encourage you to go back and listen and watch that. Spooky Pinball Company. bug talked about the health of the company and the business the growth and everything and they were talking about for them you know look where they've come they they wanted to emphasize that they really focused on steady growth and safe conservative approaches to growth they did not want to grow too fast they've seen in the past people trying to take two bigabytes and they choke So for them, very measured risks throughout the last 10 years. Bug talked about reasons for that. He said they've got little to minimal overhead over at Spooky Pinball, which is great. They have no investors. They own their own buildings. They make a lot of parts and assemblies in-house. They've actually helped other companies start companies just to make the parts for them, whether it's ramps and everything.
    58:56
    And he said, quote, we also have good luck. especially with the community there, giving them a lease really cheap initially and helping. So it was nice to see, first off, how can you not see a young guy like Corwin Bug Emory and not just respect the pressure that that kid has? I call him a kid because he's young. And to be this mature to be able to sit here answer questions such as the growth of a multimillion company I got to give that guy a lot of credit because they are doing it right in my opinion And regardless of what you feel about their offerings you got to respect the process in which they come into this industry and they grown ever since In my opinion, in the next year or two, probably in a lot of people's minds are going to surpass even some of the bigger ones.
    59:53
    Nothing. Nothing on that one. Well, I mean, they don't even have to answer to investors. How hard could it be? But that's, I mean, that's by design. I should say, what pressure? What pressure?
    60:07
    Employing that many people. Answers to himself. Employing that many people. It's minimal overhead. How many people is it if there's minimal overhead? Oh, what are they up to? I bet they're up to 50 to 100 employees. That's like the whole town. That's a lot of people. That's a lot of pressure. All right. Maybe he does feel the pressure. I don't know. I hope he's not stress eating.
    60:32
    He's still skinny. Talked about Franchi does have two or three games in the works already with other manufacturers, though. So we'll still maybe see some of them in the future. But he's already working on, I think, three games, I said, for Spooky. It's interesting. I mean, I could see why Franchi, given the output of Spooky, would be okay with doing an exclusive deal with them. But Spooky's always had good artwork. I can't really think of a bad artwork game. In the early days, some of the play fields weren't great, but they always had good cabs and translates. Yeah, they always find those themed artists for the Halloween. I mean, Franchi's good, so this isn't going to hurt them or anything. It'll be a positive. It's just they never have had an art problem either, in my view. You seem to hedge a little bit. But Halloween, Ultraman, Scooby, Rick and Morty, they all look great. They did look good. That is true. I just hadn't thought about it like that. See, there's what pressure.
    61:32
    I just don't understand. In their next game, they teased a little bit about the upcoming game from Fugue Pinball. When it's coming out, we don't know. I'd still guess December. They said it's multi-level. It's four flippers. And Spooky Luke took most of the lead on design here. More to come. American Pinball in the News. Josh Kugler interviewed by Brody Even Pinball, the guys over at Buffalo Pinball. Did you see this? No, I did not. Really fascinating interview. Kugler's always very interesting to hear and to talk pinball with. Very big endorsement by me to go listen to this interview. It was good stuff. I read his commentary. He writes a lot on Pinside about American Pinball. Yes, and he's not with the company anymore, so he's more free to be open and to state the affairs over there by being still tactful. He did say publicly. I just giggled. It was almost like he was giving a shout-out to AP and Dave Fix. I think he even said, hey, Dave, you all still owe me money. You still owe me residuals for Hot Wheels. Where's my money? Yeah, and he asked publicly to be paid.
    62:40
    How embarrassing. Nothing says your company is going great like any former employees ask for their money. Well, Kugler was talking about some worries he had, especially now that I think it is a publicly traded company. Right. Well, I mean, it's a subsidiary of Ametron. So what pressure? He's just saying now that it's owned by others besides just the Ametron. The investors might start looking and asking, Ametron, why are you carrying this? Why are you not spending it off?
    63:18
    Another news pinball brothers started shipping ABBAs. I've got, I think, maybe the first ABBA in North America. Wow, mama mia. Yeah, gimme, gimme, gimme. Okay, we can keep doing that. I was a dancing queen unboxing this thing. All right. I did unbox it, and this is kind of a tease because we're going to talk more in episode 162 about this. But, hey, you know what? Got my hands on an ABBA. And there were a lot of things that surprised me. A lot of things I really liked. Some things I didn't like, of course. We'll talk about that more in an upcoming episode. But your boy's got some disco fever. We've got to thank some people. Part of the Screaming Go Club.
    64:00
    Thank you, Rodney. You're a little bobcat. You're precious. If the bobcat was a play-filled toy, kind of like that mech arm suit stabby thing that flips out on the avatar. Like the slingshot. At that point, I wanted to be like, guys, just don't. Don't even make his arm move. stupid kung fu action yeah we we joked a bit about that on ecp like flip no i'm actually i'm going to make mine not flip just because it seems cooler than just flipping that arm out uh but if if the bobcat was a figure on a playfield what would it what would it do do you think it attacks a wife i mean that's almost that's a lot of toy so a coil powered slashing of a wife like mick on a stick but it slides over and there's a wife on one side and you have to try and shoot it to stop it. Like a climbing post. You got to shoot it. You got Karen there. It's getting closer. Shoot that fucker. Oh, shoot that fucker. A bumblebee. Bumblebee. Thank you so much for the support, Steve. We love you. The bumblebee. That would be Mothra-like, I think, wouldn't it? Bumblebee. Maybe bumblebee would be bee on a spring.
    65:12
    Bobble. It should transform, but okay. Do you think we could do another Transformers game? Would that work? I mean, it would only be better than the last one. Ouch, man.
    65:26
    Rob, we want to thank you for being a continued member. The Panther. A scram. That's a scram, huh? A scram, yeah. And the scoop part looks like the mouth of a panther. And 60% of the time it will go in there. 60% of the time it works every time so much stuff I'm going to say thank you Frank we appreciate your support as well as a Screaming Goat Club member we couldn't do it without you Falcon we really couldn't and I think for the Falcon when you buy a game you get one of six different Falcons it could be a light gray one it could be a brown one a black, is it a black Falcon? well, if you paint them they can be anything I did kind of like that on the Avatar where you get one of six different Banshees It's just the little things like that. I think that's really cool. Of course, people are like, well, if you want me to buy it, I've got to have the blue one. Yeah, people are like, well. I just felt like they're like, well, let's just buy these variety packs at Sam's Club. And it's a different one. You know how many people try to get out of their non-refundable deposit this last two weeks? I don't know.
    66:34
    At least. Oh, fuck. You've got to take that out. sorry at least at least probably i'd go back it's probably 15 to 20 come on guys on which game or was it a mix of games a mix of games okay because of all these new releases you get people i want this no i want this no it's very squirrel shit people thank you joe for the continued support and your unwavering support All right, the fox.
    67:08
    The fox would move around almost like that. Maybe like the Drac toy on Monster Bash. Oh, I do like that. Come out of his little den. Yeah, and you've got to hit him. Or he could be like the heads on Labyrinth that pop around. Dave, our shaker motor. Red trimmer. Come on, don't do that to him. No, he's the blue knobby. A little more subtle. thank you for the support babe charlie charlie can ring a bell he's the knocker isn't he well yeah i mean could be another option would be like the acdc bell another option would be we're going to do uncanny x-men taking that elevated captive all very target but at the back is a bell that gets rung when you get the very target all the way back or the the bell tower on venom oh yep good one that you'll never hear no because it's just like this That's right. So that's the bell. Thank you. And William the Dude. The Dude comes from a pinball machine. I am not Mr. Lebowski. You're Mr. Lebowski. I'm the Dude. So that's what you call me, you know? That or his dude-ness or duder or, you know, El Duderino, if you're not into the whole brevity thing. Yes, he's the rug and the big Lebowski. Yes. It unrolls. It really ties the room together, too. You think that UV ties the room together? I don't know if we want to look at that rug with UV oof did you see Joel with his little flashlight he had this UV flashlight no I just don't he turned all the lights off and pointed Joel over on the pinball show private discord private-ish discord they've been chatting about Avatar vs Uncanny X-Men it's been a lot of fun as a reminder we're going to have our happy hour hangout for official club members of the pinball show on September 25th at 8 p.m. Central, I believe. Yep, and that's already posted for those that are the Nordman level and above on Patreon, so they have the link. And hopefully I listed the right time this time. I double-checked it. Ladies and gentlemen, it's that time for you to unwind, kick your feet up, lay back, put on a costume, paint your face blue, because it's time for Pinball Market Trends! The Pop-Town Techno-Works!
    69:26
    I like your style, dude. That's right. Trending up this week is Avatar. It's the blooming group. It has to be. I guess so. It's the uncanny Avatar. What? X-Men's not trending up, at least. Blue is the new black? Is that the thing? That sounds made up. You do you, blue blue?
    69:46
    I like that one. You do you, blue blue? Avatar is definitely trending up. Again, what is it with Jersey Jacks? Everybody complains about how much these games are. It's $15,000. for the CE. It's not cheap. I know rich people like you have lost sight of that. Then they outbuy the CEs like three, four to one to the LEs. People still complain, why don't you make a standard version? Well, because nobody buys them. The CEs, we've sold so many damn CEs. What would the standard version be with Avatar? It'd be the Scram, that's it. It wouldn't have the underplay fields? Two flippers and the Scram.
    70:25
    It'd have like quasi UV light. It'd just be bright blue light. No, that's out. That's gone? That's out. What about the acrylic topper?
    70:33
    You might get to keep that. No red, Kels? Oh, man. I don't know. It's turning up. But you guys are killing your arguments because you keep buying the CEs. You just keep buying them. All that's turning up this week is still uncanny X-Men. It's uncanny how many orders still continue to flow in just this past week. The special game is going to be a special game. um poopoo all you want it but it uh it's the real deal ladies and gentlemen the real deal but trending down this week it can't be all bioluminescence uh trending down as i i don't agree with this but numbers don't like costumes in september i guess it's trending down what the this is what we this is what stern does i just don't get it what do these people want dennis something professional are you going to dress up for halloween this year no really no i don't even know what day like what day of the week that's going to be in oh geez it's a thursday when i i have important thursday meetings can't be going around dressed up like rogue you'll at least go to the pumpkin festival or something right like a pumpkin farm what are you talking about it's indiana nonsense doesn't happen here why don't you guys have like pumpkin farms we do yeah do Do you not go? Not on Halloween. No, not just in general. In the fall, you just go and enjoy a hayride or a corn maze or chucking apples or getting yourself a corn dog. You know, we already had the fair. I went to the fair a couple weeks ago. It's close. It's adjacent, I would say. I didn't dress up for that either. All right. Well, speaking of costumes, also trending down this week is themed weddings.
    72:11
    We got invited to one of these things. Nicole was so mad at me. Because the bride and groom thought it was a swell idea to do a 1920s-themed wedding. It's an incredible wedding, folks. So why did they make us dress? Like, why do you hate people? They made us dress. As a guest, I shouldn't have. It's bad enough I've got to go to your wedding. And it's bad enough I've got to dress up. But now you're making me go out of my way to dress old-timey? What level of evil is that? and my wife got so pissed off at me dennis because i did my whole seinfeld bit with that what is it with these people and she she did not find the humor in it she's like you're always such an ass why can't you just enjoy anything like why do you not have joy do you not have any joy or fun like this is fun we don't get to do anything zach burn your fucking 1920s outfit and get in the truck Okay.
    73:08
    Yeah, so I just... You know what I almost said to the couple? Hey, congratulations, bride and groom. Congratulations, you guys look great. Guess what gift I got you. Say what? What gift you get us? This fucking outfit. Yeah. You don't get an envelope of money because I had to go out and spend time and money on this stupid outfit. See, I would have been nicer. I would have probably said something like, you know, congratulations. I hope you enjoyed your 19th wedding because now it's time to transition into the Great Depression.
    73:38
    That's right. No money for you. Enjoy that honeymoon. In the dust bowl. That's right, in the dust bowl.
    73:45
    So, yeah, I love these people, so I'm just being entertaining here. But, honestly, I was so pissed off finding out there was a theme to that wedding and I had to dress up. What is it with these people? Also trending down this week, objectively, I hate to say this is one of my favorite games is Stranger Things. I think we have like four or five now in on trade. Everybody's trading in their Stranger Things. Maybe this is the old UV syndrome. Hmm. Maybe. Hard to say. There's another hot UV chick on the block. Don't turn your back on Stranger Things UV. She's got a lot of bite, and that's a good bite too. But yeah, Stranger Things, just because so many are getting traded in, there's so many on the secondary market, the value has to drop on them. I don't like saying that because I got them ready to sell, but we have seen that's probably been the hottest ticket item that people are wanting to trade in on new games or even other games. It's always stranger things. Deal of the week this week, we've got an Elvira flipping out pinball. It just came in on trade. Wonderful quality. It's got the topper. It's a premium. It's even got the medicinal mod interactive gargoyle mausoleum thing, and you can't find those anymore. We had this at like $10,000-something. I don't know. But with the topper, again, this thing probably is like 12 grand worth of stuff. I'm going to mark it down to $99.99. Buy, buy, buy! It's under $10,000 for an L-buyer premium with the topper and medicinal mod. Get out of town. And as always, people, I'm just here to report the facts because numbers don't lie. Neither do I, ever, on Pinball Marketing Rates.
    75:22
    Where can people catch this? They can email me at collectogamerspodcast.gmail.com. Yeah, you can email us at thepinballshow at gmail.com. Follow, like, and subscribe to us on Facebook, the socials, the Instagrams, the YouTubes. I think that, yeah, a little bit everywhere. Yeah, we're everywhere. Straight down the middle, a video series I do. Go follow, like, and subscribe to that as well. We have some manufacturer stuff coming up this year as well as Flippin' Out Pinball. They're the sponsor of this show. When I buy my pinballs, they're not far from Flippin' Out. From toppers, toppers, to me, I've got it figured out. Flippin' out, figured out. When I think of pinball, I think flippin' out. Flippin' out, figured out. When I buy, buy, buy, I buy from flippin' out. Buy, buy, buy. Flippin' out pinball. Go follow, like, and subscribe to the socials there too. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube. We have all our used games on Facebook and everything. Product showcase this week is Avatar. Taking pre-orders on that. Honestly, I think I have a couple Avatar LEs coming this week that are unspoken for. Buy, buy, buy! So if you want one of the first Avatar LEs in the entire world, you can get them from Flippin' Out Pinball. The Uncanny X-Men, we have those pre-orders we're taking. We still have first-run premiums mid-October. We still have LE spots. Buy, buy, buy! A couple left. Godzilla 70th Anniversary, we've got those, as well as pro models. If you want to get on the list for the new Stern coming up, or a new JJP release coming up in probably the spring, or the new Barrels game, or anything. You name it. Medieval Madness. All the other games we have in stock. They're everywhere. Just come by one, please. I'm flipping out with friends. Joel streamed Avatar, the Battle for Pandora, and likely will again this week with the uncanny X-Men LE the following week. So go follow and like that, too. In the meantime, Dennis will teach you people something. I hope.
    77:26
    Mark Seiden. Oh, no, there he is. Listen here. Congratulations on your first commercial pinball machine, but I have concerns. Where are the plastic ramps? Why is there wire form all over this? There is more wire here than in the bottom of my Ford Chevy pickup. Yes, I combine two manufacturers together. That's what I do because I'm Nordman. Do you not understand the power of polymer? There's so much that can be done. Plastics make it possible. This is sponsored by the U.S. Plastics Council.
    77:55
    Where are they? This was the chassis of a Ford. A Ford and a Chevy merged together. It's the abomination that we deserve, but not the one that we needed. A Whitewater sequel. And always practice safe pinball, people. And George Gomez, I love you. I respect your work more than probably anybody in this industry. your ambition, your creativity. You are a pinconoclast, my friend. You're nearly everything.
    78:26
    But a group of people with brains passing on Back to the Future as a theme for pinball is one thing that I do not believe. But then to believe that the executives and ownership of a multi-million dollar company known as Stern Pinball also passed and didn't strongly encourage courage one of their design teams to make one of the hottest ips in all of existence i'm just not bye-bye buying is your fan still on it is thank you i could feel its presence you felt the heat i fucking heard it get you buy you a quiet one for christmas i need a heated quilt no you're going to start a fire ladies and gentlemen it's the pinball show it's episode 161 and it's big