Josh Roop - Loser Kid Pinball - Pinball and 2026 Predictions - Episode 84

JBS Show·podcast_episode·1h 25m·analyzed·Feb 20, 2026

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Josh Roop discusses Loser Kid Pinball Podcast growth, Stern relationships, and interview ethics in pinball media.

Summary

Josh Roop from Loser Kid Pinball Podcast appears on the JBS Show (hosted by Jamie) to discuss his podcast's growth, relationship with Stern, interview ethics, and personal background in music and pinball. Key topics include YouTube algorithm success, the responsibility of keeping industry secrets, maintaining journalistic integrity while having manufacturer relationships, and personal anecdotes about building trust in the pinball community.

Key Claims

Loser Kid Pinball grew from 700 to 2,500 YouTube subscribers in one year after launching on YouTube two years ago
high confidence · Josh Roop stated directly: 'Just last year we went from 700 on YouTube to 2500 it's incredible'
Josh and the Loser Kid team served as the reveal-day podcast for nearly every Stern game released in the past year, except Star Wars
high confidence · Josh stated: 'I think we revealed every single game except for star wars and that was kind of like a weird thought'
Stern initially required Loser Kid to submit all interviews for review, but now trusts them to proceed without pre-approval
high confidence · Josh explained: 'early on Stern with, they had us submit every interview and like they have to review it and stuff like that And then it turned into this like we trust you don worry about it'
Josh accidentally leaked non-public information about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles featuring Zombie Yeti artwork around 2019-2020, receiving a direct call from Stern demanding redaction
high confidence · Josh recounted: 'not even 24 hours later i get a call and it is why did you guys do that...he had received a call from someone at stern'
Josh was present when Steve Ritchie introduced Jack Danger on camera before it was publicly known that Jack worked at Stern, and Josh kept this secret until the official reveal
high confidence · Josh described: 'the next morning this was before he was revealed as a designer...zach sharp says anything danger related needs to go it cut it out'
Josh was in a pop punk band for 10 years that opened for Taking Back Sunday, May Day Parade, Spill Canvas, and Terrible Things
high confidence · Josh stated: 'i was in a band for 10 years...it was a pop punk band of the 2000s persuasion...taking back sunday uh may the spill canvas uh terrible things'
Josh owns approximately 10 guitars and recently acquired a custom Loser Kid guitar from Daniel Clark at Sathara Guitars with an Earthshaker playfield design
high confidence · Josh said: '10 i want to say...the one i just picked up from daniel clark from sathara guitars he made me a loser kid guitar so uh it's got earth shaker play filled as the body'

Notable Quotes

“the biggest secret to interviews is if anyone wants to do interviews, the biggest secret is answer the question, get out of the way”
Jamie — Jamie articulates a core principle of good interviewing that reflects on Loser Kid's approach to their successful release-day interviews with Stern designers
“I think that's just, I think that was kind of the pivot moment for us. Sam Stern...they had us submit every interview and like they have to review it...it turned into this like we trust you don worry about it”
Josh Roop — Demonstrates how maintaining journalistic integrity and respecting industry confidentiality built trust with Stern, shifting from pre-approval to complete editorial freedom
“it's not my place to like reveal their secrets. And so...it's their livelihood, right?”
Josh Roop — Articulates Josh's philosophy on keeping industry secrets, prioritizing sources' careers over breaking news
“I think there is an actual threshold where like pinball caps out at and it's just because it's pinball...there's such a learning curve to pinball”
Josh Roop — Discusses the inherent audience ceiling for pinball content due to the steep learning curve, not algorithmic bias
“Ralph must truly love pinball and the reason i say that is from a man that came from arcade...he said I went from making money to like now I pay to be in pinball”
Jamie — Reflects on Ralph's commitment to pinball content creation over arcade, highlighting passion over profitability in the niche

Entities

Josh Roopperson Jamie Burchellperson Loser Kid Pinball Podcastorganization Glenn WaechterpersonStern PinballcompanyZach Sharpeperson

Signals

?
content_signal: Loser Kid Pinball achieved significant YouTube growth (700 to 2,500 subscribers in one year) since starting YouTube content two years ago, indicating successful platform diversification beyond traditional podcast channels
high · Josh stated direct subscriber growth numbers and acknowledged YouTube is a bigger growth driver than traditional podcast platforms for their content
?
community_signal: Stern's relationship with Loser Kid evolved from requiring pre-approval of interview content to granting full editorial freedom, signaling increased trust and institutional recognition of the podcast as legitimate media
high · Josh explained transition from submission requirement to 'we trust you don worry about it' model
?
business_signal: Stern appears to have formalized Loser Kid as the official release-day podcast, providing exclusive access to designers on launch announcements for most major titles (Pokemon, King Kong, etc.), representing a strategic media partnership
high · Josh stated 'we revealed every single game except for star wars' over the past year, indicating systematic partnership
?
personnel_signal: Jack Danger's move from Spooky/streaming to Stern was kept confidential until official announcement; Josh maintained this secret months before public reveal, indicating sensitive hiring practices at Stern
high · Josh recounted Steve Ritchie introducing Jack Danger off-camera months before official announcement; Josh cut the footage and kept quiet per Stern's request
?
industry_signal: Ralph's transition from arcade to pinball content creation reflects the passion-driven nature of pinball media; described as moving from making money (arcade) to paying to participate (pinball), indicating niche community prioritizes engagement over ROI

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.255

0:00

On today's episode, Jamie interviews one half of the dynamic duo from the Loser Kids Pinball Podcast. Everybody put your hands together and welcome in my friend, Josh Rupp on the JBS Show.

0:21

Hello and welcome to another edition of the JBS Show and I'm excited. Josh Rube, Loser Kid Pinball Hanging out with me tonight, thank you so much sir For sure Pleasure for you to invite me on And come hang out with you man We have a good friend in common, Glenn Wechter Who does My intro music And my announcing now Yep Yeah he's kind of a secret weapon in the pinball industry And I wish like He would be utilized more But like he does so much for the podcast It's ridiculous Like that dude, if he ever starts charging, man, we're in trouble. We're in deep trouble. He's, he's fantastic. Great dude. I talked to him almost once a week and just bullshit with him and we have a good time. You know, he's a good dude. He is. I talked to him probably weekly as well. Oh yeah. Good. Yeah.

1:14

We both have something else in common. We both hosted the Twippies. Yes, that's true. We have, I totally forgot about doing that in 2023. and then like i got a reminder because for some odd reason like so we switched from soundcloud was our hosting thing and we switched to zencaster because that's what we were using anyway so it was like why why would you not so we switched to zencaster well it finally like renewed this year and it took all of our old episodes and re-uploaded them to youtube like all 180 some odd episodes and one of them that popped up was twippies because uh we had foo fighters music in it and YouTube's like, whoa, you can't be using this because it's copyright infringement. I was like, we went through this like a year ago. What is going on? And so come to find out, yeah. I totally forgot about doing that.

2:04

Loser Kid now produces YouTube shorts daily (previously every three days) while maintaining their podcast schedule

high confidence · Josh stated: 'originally...a short About every three days But now actually i'm doing a short Every single day of the week'

[name withheld pending review]person

JBS Showorganization

medium · Jamie noted Ralph said 'I went from making money to like now I pay to be in pinball' despite arcade getting more views

market_signal: Discussion suggests pinball content has an inherent audience ceiling due to steep learning curve and onboarding difficulty, not algorithmic bias; high barrier to entry limits potential audience growth across all pinball content

medium · Josh explained: 'there is an actual threshold where like pinball caps out at...it's just because it's pinball...there's such a learning curve'

regulatory_signal: Star Wars pinball release was disrupted by NDA complications and timing issues related to Charlie Kirk assassination attempt, causing delays and preventing scheduled Loser Kid exclusive reveal coverage

medium · Josh explained: 'Charlie Kirk was shot...there was a lot of turmoil, I think. So there were some people shook at Stern...our interview got pushed back and then stuff started happening with the license'

content_signal: Loser Kid escalated YouTube Shorts production from every 3 days to daily, while maintaining podcast schedule and pre-producing 2+ weeks of content, indicating significant operational scaling of short-form content strategy

high · Josh stated: 'originally...a short About every three days But now actually i'm doing a short Every single day of the week...my edit day...has doubled'

community_signal: Josh articulated clear ethical boundaries for interviews: asks hard-hitting questions in non-release contexts but softens approach for release-day interviews with designers about their own projects, balancing journalism with community relationships

high · Josh explained: 'If we have Seth Davis on, I'm going to ask him hard hitting questions...When we have Keith Elwin on and it's a release day for King Kong, I'm not going to ask him why like the BOM is a certain way'

product_concern: Josh accidentally leaked confidential Teenage Mutant Turtles information (featuring Zombie Yeti artwork) from Jeff Patterson's private subscriber newsletter around 2019-2020, resulting in direct Stern intervention and demand for redaction; incident built into trust-building narrative

high · Josh recounted: 'not even 24 hours later i get a call...he had received a call from someone at stern...you need to redact that'

content_signal: Loser Kid's interview success attributed to: building long-term relationships with designers (Zach Sharp, Keith Elwin), exclusive access to release announcements, behind-the-scenes access, and willingness to keep confidences; reflects trust-based journalism model

high · Josh described: 'we really grew a trust with Zach Sharp and with Keith Owen...people definitely do want to see behind the scenes, and they want to see kind of how the sausage is made'

venue_signal: Jamie plays pinball competitively at Eureka Heights venue in Houston; IFPA rating 4,300 globally; plays for fun and to learn tournament strategy; maintains home collection of ~10 machines including World Cup Soccer

high · Jamie stated: 'I go to this place, Eureka Heights...I'm playing the games to have fun And I'm playing the games To learn what I need to do in a tournament...4,300 in the world'

Yeah. So they just added to it. Did you watch it? I skimmed it. I'm not going to lie. It was really good, but the problem is it came out on Valentine's Day, and I didn't really watch it that day. and then i kept forgetting and then during the work week like people kept asking me like what was the results for the twippies i'm like i don't know so i finally what i do is i while i work i put a youtube episode on so when i say skimmed it's more like i have it on the background while i'm fixing a furnace or a water heater whatever it is so yeah i watched they did a fantastic job bash like yeah above and beyond of like the quality yeah it was just fantastic they're both audio engineers and they're amazing so yeah you know you can see that they're good at what they do we did a little review on the round table on the twippies and then i got myself in trouble again so you guys don't get in trouble at loser kid we do um it's just not very public okay we get in trouble the pinball round table with me and kale and retro rough we get in a lot of trouble and uh we have it for a bit and i'm assuming because um i'm not i'm not gonna hash all that oh no you're not trouble with um but uh yeah i get you though i i there it's weird um especially when you say something that you don't mean offensively or whatnot right call or you get the message and you're like like i think i think i talk about this opening now because the game released and everything like that when teenage mutant turtles was being rumored that was a dream theme for me and i was so excited i had loser kid at the time and it would have been 2019 2020 somewhere around there and it's when jeff patterson was still running this week in pinball and uh he was doing a news article but like on top of that if you paid for his extra stuff he was giving little juicy secrets behind the scenes and i got mixed up that one of the secrets he'd given was not public yet i thought it was part of his new les news letter and uh the rumor was that zombie yeti was doing artwork and which made me ecstatic because i love zombie yeti so we announced it on the podcast and not even 24 hours later i get a call and it is why did you guys do that what's i'm like dude honest mistake i didn't realize that was not public knowledge i'm like i can go redact that real quick it's not a big deal i guess he had received a call from someone at stern yeah that was like yeah you need to redact that you need to do it now you know and well you seem to be uh you seem to mend those fences pretty well since you have such a good relationship with stern right now yeah that's true well patterson still doesn't talk to me so i don't know i actually called him last week it was and i know it's his phone number because i left a message and say hey jeff this is jeff patterson dude's probably busy he probably doesn't have He doesn't have any time for pinball left, you know? Yeah, that's too bad. But all the other beefs I've ever had, they've all been squashed. We're good. Okay, that's good. They're all misunderstandings. They really, really are. Okay. You know, Gail and Ralph and I are good dudes, and we're not trying to cause really any problems. We're just three idiots having a podcast. So, anyway, Glenn told me something about you. He says you're a big guitar player. Yes. And you've got a ton of guitars. How many do you have? 10 i want to say do you have a favorite one uh the one i just picked up from daniel clark from sathara guitars he made me a loser kid guitar so uh it's got it's got earth shaker play filled as the body it's got the actual logo uh and the fretboard at the 12th fret uh it plays smooth it's exactly what i've wanted it's i don't know it's just it's a great it's got the dual humbuckers with a top humbucker you can split the coil so you get like that single action like you would like it's a Fender Strat or a Tele. Yeah, it just sounds so good. I love it. So I got into acoustic playing during COVID. That was my thing. Nice. Trying to loop a couple of LBs and play the guitar. And I'm stuck on GC and D songs. That's it, dude. You know? I grew up with, like, I wanted to be – I don't know if your fans like some 41 or blink 22 or yeah, they have a lot of that, like finger picking it's it's single notes played in succession really fast. And so I liked a lot of that. So that's what I learned it. Learning the actual chords didn't come to much later. Cause I was just more like three chords in the truth. Like I learned the power chords and called it good. And so it's funny. Cause even like when I have to, like, I have to really think about it. Glenn was playing guitar with me at expo and he's like, give me an E and like, give me a second. Okay. Yes. you know what i'm saying but yeah if you give me single notes and stuff like that i have a blast with those i was in a band for 10 years i actually was let's talk about it what kind of band was it it was a pop punk band of the 2000s persuasion so and you opened for some pretty good bands didn't you yeah um taking back sunday uh may the spill canvas uh terrible things I mean there was a handful of them that we just had a blast with yeah that's awesome dude well you see you're younger than me so I you know your music love is going to be different than mine right I don't know so my stepfather when he moved into the family he brought his record collection and his CDs and stuff so I grew up on ACDC I grew up on the 80s metal all that stuff I love the 90s and 2000s is my pocket but like i have an appreciation respect for the earlier stuff and even some of the older stuff or the newer stuff that's come along too so i can talk music with you i listen to about 35 to 40 minutes every night before i go to bed nice just on apple music just rocking something trying not to do too much metallica because i'm trying to go to bed but uh uh, my algorithm is intact. It's really good. Speaking of algorithms, you're like a guru with the YouTube algorithm. All right. I don't know about that. I think that's pretty good. You and Ralph, those are the guys. Like, have you studied it? Are you a studier of the algorithm itself and, and views and that sort of thing? I just take the numbers that I see through loser kid. And I, I mess with stuff. Like I, I'm always trying something different with it and whatnot. And so I don't know if I'm a guru, but I think I found a groove. That's definitely – I know there is a lot of people that's like, I'm always seeing your content. I'm like, I don't know how because I'm just doing what I've – I don't know. We started on YouTube about two years ago, and so it's been like a learning curve. But what I do find interesting is there has been a ton of growth in YouTube for us versus even just like our normal podcast. Granted we do have plenty of followers Via our old school podcast But it's like Just last year we went from 700 on YouTube To 2500 It's incredible I've had a good YouTube run We're doing okay right Yeah For starting a brand new channel two years ago Because I had to start over you know But yeah you're killing it I love the reels Keep the shorts coming They're fun I'm trying to keep up and they're great I love them It's fun and it's been interesting So originally What I was doing was a short About every three days But now actually I'm doing a short Every single day of the week I wish I had the time I started a new gig and it's just I'm working my ass off It can be exhausting but my edit day Usually my edit day Used to be only about an hour or two At the most It's now doubled but then again I have content for the next two weeks So like we're running the Pokemon Stuff right now and that's still Booked out until the middle of next week I think If I remember correctly Can we talk about Pokemon a little bit You get So you do have a phenomenal relationship with Storm because you get to Get it all you're the get You get all the interviews Of all the The new game right How did that come about? When did that start?