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Ep 158: D&D, David Fix Let Go, Harry Potter Pinball?

LoserKid Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 21m·analyzed·Jan 14, 2025
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.040

TL;DR

D&D pinball impresses despite skepticism; David Fix interview signals changes at American Pinball.

Summary

Loser Kid Pinball Podcast episode 158 covers Dungeons & Dragons pinball's strong reception and market success, David Fix's interview departure from American Pinball, and the return of the Twippy Awards. Hosts Josh Roop and Scott Larson discuss their surprise at D&D's quality, the extensive voice acting and animation investment, and concerns about setting expectations too high for future releases. The episode features significant commentary on Stern's release strategy, code maturity expectations, and the risk of vaulting proven sellers like Star Wars and Deadpool.

Key Claims

  • Dungeons & Dragons brought new players to pinball from the D&D community who were previously unaware of modern pinball

    high confidence · Scott discusses how D&D's huge community brought motivated spenders into pinball who didn't know the hobby existed

  • Stern employed 5-7 additional animators beyond their core team specifically for D&D due to extensive video content requirements

    high confidence · Josh explicitly states Stern 'hired what they say five to seven more' animators because 'they had a lot more video content to generate'

  • D&D's three ultimate wizard modes represent a departure toward video game philosophy while maintaining pinball as primary driver

    high confidence · Josh analyzes game design philosophy: 'they made this—at least the philosophy—a lot closer to a video game while incorporating pinball as the primary driver'

  • Stern is deliberately vaulting proven sellers like Star Wars and Deadpool in favor of D&D

    high confidence · Josh references Seth Davis interview discussing vaulting strategy: 'when you're telling me you're getting rid of those titles in favor of Dungeons & Dragons'

  • D&D release represents the best Stern release execution in recent history with curated videos and coordinated media strategy

    high confidence · Josh credits 'perfect storm' of curated play video, George Gomez highlight video, deep-dive podcast content, and Friday media release

  • First two weeks of release are vital for game sales; second winds on games are unusual exceptions rather than rule

    medium confidence · Josh: 'most of your big sales come from day one. Like, that first two weeks is vital. And so it's unusual. It's unusual to have a second wind on a game'

  • Stern designers are required to have code at version 7.3 or 7.5 minimum at release

    medium confidence · Josh references media day conversation: 'they're required to have, like, 7.5 when they release, or whatever it is, or 7.3 or some point'

  • David Fix contacted Loser Kid Podcast requesting interview to be published by Friday; he messaged to say 'we need to do this interview'

Notable Quotes

  • “I'm getting a new game this year, because Foo Fighters is probably leaving. I'm looking at this game. I'm looking at D&D. I'm waiting for L1's in April. Sure. And I'm either going to go L1 or D&D.”

    Josh Roop @ ~45:00 — Demonstrates D&D's competitive positioning against anticipated Level 1 release; shows market confidence in D&D despite uncertainty

  • “They're certain they can make that risk. Stern's also in the position that they can make that risk. But I think they're starting to learn—like, the curated play video for the Premium, yes, where they made sure that they had a good presentation, because that means so much more than four drunk guys playing a game and breaking shots.”

    Scott Larson @ ~52:00 — Emphasizes Stern's strategic shift toward professional marketing and presentation for releases

  • “If you're paying six to thirteen thousand dollars for a game, that's a reasonable expectation [of code maturity at release].”

    Josh Roop @ ~60:00 — Frames customer expectations for code quality as proportional to premium pricing

  • “Dwight Sullivan, who's a huge gamer, by the way, and that's what Dwight does. So his involvement in bringing that expertise to a pinball machine and the coding is huge. I am super ecstatic for Brian Eddy because this layout seems to be a legit hit.”

    Scott Larson @ ~20:00 — Credits Dwight Sullivan's gaming expertise and Brian Eddy's playfield design as key factors in D&D's success

  • “So when you have that, and you also have, like, Metallica over my shoulder, which is obviously a complete code or at least as near complete as you can—because it's a finished game—you also have with Dungeons & Dragons coming out with a deep code set to start with. That's hard. So people are going to expect that from now on.”

    Josh Roop @ ~58:00 — Indicates D&D may have permanently raised community expectations for code depth at release

  • “Do you think Medieval Madness would be half the game it is without the castle? No, there's no way.”

    Scott Larson @ ~35:00 — Illustrates philosophy that mechanical toys/mechs are essential to pinball experience, not just visual elements

Entities

Dungeons & Dragons (pinball)gameDwight SullivanpersonBrian EddypersonDavid FixpersonAmerican PinballcompanyStern Pinballcompany

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: American Pinball content on Loser Kid Podcast consistently underperforms viewership compared to major manufacturer content; Josh initially hesitant to feature David Fix interview due to expected low numbers

    medium · Josh: 'American Pinball, the numbers aren't great when we have David Fix on... people are going to naturally go toward content that is catered around big sellers, right? American Pinball is not a big seller'

  • ?

    community_signal: David Fix interview on Loser Kid Podcast generated significant community discussion described as 'fireworks' and 'most talked about' despite lower viewership than major manufacturer content

    high · Josh: 'It was not our most listened-to or watched interview, but it was probably the most talked about... there was some pretty big fireworks'

  • ?

    event_signal: Loser Kid Podcast achieved 60,000 listeners/viewers in December 2024 with 400 new YouTube subscribers that month; podcast grew from 900 to 1,300+ subscribers

    high · Josh: 'In the month of December, from all of our content, whether you listened or you watched, over 60,000 people tuned in' and 'we gained 400 just in the month of December'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: D&D represents deliberate shift from score-based to adventure/quest-based gameplay with multiple wizard mode endpoints, designed with video game philosophy while maintaining pinball as primary mechanic

    high · Josh's analysis: 'they made this—at least the philosophy—a lot closer to a video game while incorporating pinball as the primary driver' with 'three wizard modes, like ultimate wizard modes'

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.246

0:00
thanks for tuning in to loser kid pinball podcast we are on episode 158 i am josh roop with me my co-captain scott larson and that's got to be the first time in almost three months that i did not screw up the intro yeah well it's it's still good still good though yes and there has been a barrage of games between evil dead dungeons and dragons there's more whispers of games on the on the Horizon. Scott, you just got a Metallica. Where are you getting these games from? I'm reaching out to Zach and Nicole Mini at Flippin' Out Pinball. They're always good. Dungeons & Dragons is getting a lot of hot buzz. If you are interested, definitely reach out. See what they can hook you up with.
0:47
They'll be able to set you up. If there's accessories that you're looking for your games to, they can hook you up with that. Use games too. Always a good supporter of the show. Zach and Nicole at Flippin' Out Pinball. yes thank you to them also i'm really excited to announce scott we got new swag up on the store new swag uh baseball jerseys and and these are like legit baseball jerseys they're comfortable i've got scott's it's at my house and we got the new baseball caps these are snapback versions neil talked me into it he sent me a couple of these they're good they they are good they're And so I'm excited for those. We will have an actual promo code. I don't have it right now, but Neil's supposed to get that to me in the next day or two. If you buy a hat and a shirt, you get a percentage off. I'll push it out via the socials, whether you're on YouTube. And if you aren't on YouTube, come check us out on YouTube and hit subscribe and all that jazz.
1:42
We're actually doing really good. You were telling me the numbers recently. I want to say thank you. Listeners, viewers, holy crap. You gave us a Christmas present I was not expecting. in the month of December from all of our content, whether you listened or you watched, over 60,000 people tuned in. Holy crap. That's not including posts that we did and people commenting and stuff like that. That was solely just listening and watching our content. And I would like to thank everybody for inviting us into being, I guess, a vicarious friendship because that's how we view this. We talk this is you're getting a behind the scenes when Josh and I call and talk to each other. That's pretty much how the show goes. Yeah. So this is we feel very blessed that anybody is willing to hop in and find our conversations meaningful. So we appreciate it, whether or not we have guests, which we've had amazing guests. We're using this episode as a catch up episode. but we really appreciate everybody who's reached out to us the friendships and us being part of your pinball content that you are that you're consuming and enjoying so thank you so much it did make me chuckle because like there was a comment of like we're stern shills and i'm like oh finally our bad like we're man we're chill but it was funny because they were saying it because of the seth davis episode i'm like oh yes because the previous episode was the president of american And the episode before that was the president. What is Bug from Spooky? The owner, the president, all the above? Certainly the main driver. You know, here's the bottom line. We are a family-friendly show. Yep. We try to focus on the negative content. Sorry. Why do you edit that? We try to focus on the positive content because in any hobby, unfortunately, It seems that everything boils down to focusing on the things that we don't like about it. So we really do go out of our way to make sure we emphasize the positive things. Now, are there negative things? Absolutely. And we talk about those too. But if we tend to come across as overly enthusiastic, it's really because we are trying to give you a positive escape to your hobby because that's why you go and have a hobby. So, again, we appreciate everybody who's come on. We appreciate all the people who come in and allow us to interview them because that's a big ask. Yeah, it really is. So we do appreciate all that. Well, not only that. I mean, this last month was insane. This last six weeks. I didn't even think about before Bug, right? But people were pointing out we had Ray Day on after Metallica released. John Borg then joined us. yep and we had you know bug from spooky talking about evil dead we're pretty much on a release you know release episode for that for evil dead then then fix asks come on our show sure and we talked about american and we talked about american and then seth davis i don't know where's like let's talk and we're like you've been working with this we have been working with it this this was just a great time for us to meet up with seth and to meet him because a lot of people at least know who gary is yep but seth is someone who he's he's newish to our world of the the fan content but he's been involved in some way with pinball licensing marketing toys so it's really nice to get his perspective yeah and i don't think when i was doing our research there really hasn't been a seth davis interview no so it was kind of hard to do some some research because the man has worked at stern for three years but it i didn't know what to like what to Ask him. And that's the thing is like I do appreciate like I did highlight like one negative comment. We've only had like the rest has been pretty much positive. Yeah. And people want to thank us for not only being positive, but we were hitting the hard hitting question. We ask questions like when we do tell people when they come on, by the way, we said we will ask all questions if you want to answer them. That's great. And we're happy to edit things if you don't want to talk about it. But to be blunt, on all the interviews we have done, we've only edited one question of all the interviews. And so that shows that we really are asking the questions, and the people who are making the content want to talk to us. They want to talk to you, the listener. They want to tell you about what's going on in pinball. So it's been great. Well, funny behind the scenes. I can't remember. I don't know if you're talking about what I'm thinking about when you said we had to edit one question. And it wasn't a question. There was one where it was our interview with Steve Ritchie. And he's like, here's Jack Danger. He's working here now. And we're like, oh. Oh, okay. Like I'm just editing the next day. There have been rumors, but that's not official yet. I got one from Zach Sharp. I'm not going to name everyone. Yeah, what did you do? Again, we want to keep good relationships with people. We will still ask the hard questions, but we are going to maintain a positive influence on the hobby. So we knew at least six months before, before I think it was, it was still fun though. It was, it was great. And that's been years now. So I think we can talk about that. So, uh, but no, that's, it's, it's really insane. Like I said, that is insane. Thank you. I know that we're, we're producing content that you guys want to watch. So we just appreciate you tuning in. Like I said, hit the subscribe button. I mean, 60,000 people or 900 subscribers. Granted, We gained 400 just in the month of December. Yeah. So awesome. Again, thank you guys. Okay. Sorry, that's just you two numbers. Okay. We're done with the self-congratulations. Okay. Thank you. One thing we do want to talk about is Twippies are – it is Twippy time again. Okay? Yep. So I'll take this one because I think that I, for better or worse, I impacted the way Twippies went last year. You killed them last year. Way to go. Okay. I let's just say that I thought a few people crossed the line and I thought things were getting a little out of hand for something that should be a positive thing. Now, I'm glad that they were able to work something out last year. They were able to work something and we're glad to be a part of that. We are also excited that they are bringing them back and we just want to. Hey, we want people to support the Twippies because the bottom line is content creators really do care about this. We care about it. Other people care about it. And it does make it makes the effort feel like you guys are listening to us. And so if you feel so inclined, please go and and vote. Vote your conscience. I don't care. Obviously, if you vote for us, we'll appreciate it. But if you feel like, hey, someone else deserves to vote, go ahead. But just support Colin. Make sure that you're able to get this in, I think, by the 20th. Right, Josh? Yep. By the 20th. So we're five days away. If this releases tomorrow, we're on the 14th. We're recording on the 14th. So on the 20th, just have your vote in, just support. And we appreciate everything that Colin and other people, all the content creators who are doing things, we're appreciating for them to be involved. And we just want to keep it positive. So let's keep Pinball positive. Well, not only that, like last year, we kind of we went off on the fact that like there's a lot of drama that's created by the Twippy Awards. And so we were kind of like, it's not worth the drama versus what the program is. It was originally when Zach, many and Jeff Patterson got together and they started doing this and making into a bigger thing. It was an incentive to make content creators feel like they were being recognized for the work they were doing and to help incentivize them, making themselves bigger and grow the hobby. And it seemed like the last couple of years, it just become more drama than it was what it was originally meant to be. So we, we had suggested, shut it down. It's not worth your time. Yeah. And when you're getting berated behind the scenes, it's easy to agree, like, we probably shouldn't be doing this, right? And so Colin and Will decided, let's put the kibosh on it. They asked us just to do the video. They didn't ask us to do what we did. I felt awkward. They just wanted us to read the results originally for the 2023 Twippies. And we were kind of like, no, we're going to at least put some video to this. And so we got some congratulations stuff. But we thought last year was it. And it was funny because Colin did the media mixer at Expo, and he had so much positive response of, you know, please, we bring back the awards. And even like when they got shut down last year, you know, there was a lot of content creators that said, like, this really means something to us. We should keep this going. And so I applaud Will and Colin and Colin for bringing all these people back together. Making it work. Yes. And I know they're doing – it's not the Twippies. I think they're trying to change it to the People's Choice Awards or something like that, which is great. But I think it goes to show that our perception was that it wasn't worth the time because it's a lot of drama.

high confidence · Josh explains Fix 'did call us or he messaged me and said, Hey, we need to do this interview' and requested Friday publication deadline

  • “When they actually showed this thing—oh, this is pretty cool. The dungeon, the dragon's head is pretty cool. Then you start hearing the list of people that were involved. And then when we interviewed all the voice actors—talk about that! I mean, they spent a lot of investment to get the voice acting into this.”

    Josh Roop @ ~25:00 — Highlights unprecedented voice acting investment (11+ actors including major celebrities) targeting home player experience

  • “However, you're going to be comparing with other strikes, you're going to be comparing with other games. Yeah, at their release point. And so when you have that, and you also have expectations high.”

    Josh Roop @ ~56:00 — Warns that D&D's quality raises baseline expectations for subsequent releases, potentially creating unfair comparisons

    • George Gomez
    person
    Elizabeth Gieskeperson
    Josh Roopperson
    Scott Larsonperson
    Kevin Smithperson
    Brandon Smallsperson
    Gerard Wayperson
    Joe Manganielloperson
    Level 1 (L1)company
    Flippin' Out Pinballcompany
    Metallica (pinball)game
    Star Wars (pinball)game
    Deadpool (pinball)game
    X-Men (pinball)game
    Twippy Awardsevent
    Seth Davisperson
    Jaws (pinball)game
    Pokemon (pinball rumor)game
    Foo Fighters (pinball)game

    licensing_signal: D&D licensed with major celebrity voice talent (11+ actors including Kevin Smith, Gerard Way, Brandon Smalls, Worf) indicating intentional investment in home player experience rather than location performance

    high · Josh: 'if they're gonna spend money on, like, what, eleven voice actors at least? You're going to be expecting a home environment to hear that' since voice acting inaudible on location

  • $

    market_signal: D&D pinball attracting new players from tabletop gaming community previously unaware of modern pinball, expanding market beyond traditional arcade/collector demographics

    high · Scott: 'the community in Dungeons & Dragons is huge, and they have responded quite positively to this release. And they've also brought new people to pinball who were really unaware about pinball before'

  • $

    market_signal: Stern implementing coordinated release strategy with curated professional play videos, executive highlight videos, and third-party content creator deep-dives instead of casual gameplay footage

    high · Scott praises 'curated play video' and 'George Gomez going off about the highlights' noting it 'means so much more than four drunk guys playing a game and breaking shots'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Stern extended core animation team by 5-7 additional animators specifically for D&D due to unprecedented video content requirements, indicating unusual resource allocation

    high · Josh: 'they used pretty much everyone in Stern plus they hired what they say five to seven more. They hired more because they had a lot more video content to generate'

  • ?

    product_concern: X-Men pinball released with incomplete code; started strong but lacks depth; moving up release schedule created unfair comparison to complete games like Metallica

    high · Josh: 'X-Men, it was released, and it started really hot. And unfortunately, the depth isn't there right now' and 'it was moved way up, and so that's not really fair'

  • ?

    product_concern: D&D releasing with extensive code depth including three ultimate wizard modes and quest-based progression, setting elevated baseline expectation that may disadvantage future releases

    high · Josh warns D&D's quality 'sets the bar too high' and causes players to compare subsequent games unfairly at their release point

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Hosts' initial skepticism about D&D theme ('puzzling', 'not excited for') completely reversed after experience; theme skepticism becoming pattern (also Hot Wheels, previously Godzilla rumor)

    high · Scott: 'it's a theme that I wasn't excited for... I wasn't super excited for this one, and I really was, like you said, surprised' and Josh calls it 'overachieved' and 'surprising'

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern deliberately vaulting proven bestsellers (Star Wars, Deadpool) to focus production on D&D, indicating confidence in new title over established sellers

    high · Josh and Scott discuss Seth Davis interview about vaulting strategy; Josh questions 'when you're telling me you're getting rid of those titles in favor of Dungeons & Dragons' then concludes 'After seeing this game, you're doing it right'

    • 10:44
    And it's great to see that the rest of the industry doesn't feel like that. Okay, and to be blunt, we also feel that, again, the focus is on the positive aspects. And so anything that makes it positive, great. right now feels like there are positive vibes with this award so please go ahead and go and vote and participate we appreciate show your show your support so and like like scott said you don't have to vote for us truly i i do i do feel humbled because a lot of the the twippy posts i've been seeing a lot of people like so are we picking pinball show or are we picking loser kids like that's the two options this year i was like if that's how you feel cool like or triple drain I mean, come on, throw them out. Yeah, Triple Drain's amazing.
    11:30
    And here's the thing. We do this content for us. I do this because I like to see behind the scenes, and I felt like Scott and I have put ourselves in a position. I mean, heck, look at the D&D stuff. Yeah. When we were talking to Zach before the release, he's like, I'll get it lined up, and we'll get you good to go. And on release day, we're recording with Brian and Eddie. And a big thank you to Stern for being able to set that up, because that was – I know that they tried to accommodate us because we live farther away than Chicago and it, the media event was in the middle of the week. And so it would have been a big deal for me to take that time off work to fly out there. And I know Josh couldn't make it either because he had family, family health issues too. But I'm really grateful that Stern was able to work with us so we could participate in the launch of a product because we love products.
    12:21
    It's awesome. We love Stern. We love American. We love JP. We love, you know, cgc like hey obviously so i i have flipped around today if you're watching on youtube uh i usually have my my stern wall with uh walls on the side now you see the other side so that now is my cgc wall and i have metallic and beetles uh flanking it so uh doing a little bit of a uh work down here so it should be a nicer recording area so you guys should see that soon so speaking of dnd i think people have got the justice like you said we let's move on let's talk dnd because honestly we've done you and i haven't sat down and recorded just us since october yeah it's been a while yeah it's been a minute so let's give our thoughts what's our first impressions of dnd okay we've both how about this i want to play a game and i know i didn't tell you i was going to do this okay so i'm gonna say reaction to dnd and i want you to give me one word my reaction you just want one word for it one word how would you describe it uh overachieved okay okay what's your one word surprising and and and i i want that to be a positive by the way because and i would argue the same thing when when we heard you know the rumors that everybody else heard that godzilla was going to be a pinball machine i legitimately thought i'll probably skip this one yeah okay um raise your hand if you hate godzilla anybody no no no okay so that was i was dead wrong on theme alone okay so when i heard dungeons and dragons i thought hey i like that i i loved the cartoon as a kid by the way so just just fyi if you're my age and you're watching the cartoon it was only three years but they never recorded the finale but if you go and uh Search YouTube finale. I think it's called Requiem or something. But there are people who found the script and they read it out and did a radio thing of it. And it's really good. So just if you're a fan of that. However, I never played a lot of these role playing games. I played a few of them in in med school and single had time and I had people who were really involved. But it wasn't something that I was readily connected with. and I haven't played that kind of stuff in a long time. Now, come to now, and I hear pinball, so I'm a lot more connected with pinball, and I hear Dungeons & Dragons is going to be a theme. And I would argue, okay, if you were to ask me a few months ago, how would I describe my reaction to the theme Dungeons & Dragons? I would say puzzling. Yeah. because i didn't see the overlap of that you know i i felt the same way about hot wheels by the way like i i see it's a huge market however how is that going to incorporate into pinball yeah um i will stand corrected that the community in dungeons and dragons is huge and they have responded quite positively to this release yeah and they've also it has brought new people to pinball who were really unaware about about pinball before because most of the time and i've said this before people ask three questions when they find out you're in pinball the first question is they still make those second question is can i come over and play and the third question is always how much do they cost? So when you are able to incorporate a huge fan base who is really motivated to spend money on their product into the community, that's a huge thing. Now add to that Dwight Sullivan, who's a huge gamer, by the way, and that's what Dwight does. So his involvement in bringing that expertise to a pinball machine and the coding is huge. I am super ecstatic for Brian 82 because this layout seems to be a legit hit.
    16:29
    And that is a breath of fresh air because I think a lot of times he was relying on the fan layout, which I think was excellent for the 90s. But I think you need more now. And so for him to incorporate that into this layout is huge. And I'm ecstatic that it's been so well received and the people playing it think it's a lot of fun. Now, I have talked for like three minutes straight, Josh. now your turn you tell me about dungeons and dragons i i i'm right there on the same page with you of like it's a theme that i wasn't excited for i don't have like i do remember playing dungeons and dragons occasionally as a child you know as a child in my teenage years it wasn't something that i actually built a character and took with me to a friend's house it was one of those like i went to a friend's house and they just happened to be playing it and they said here here's a piece of paper let's you know didn't go much more past that you can play an npc yeah yeah i'm more of a like if i'm going to play those kind of games i like diablo i like playing balder's gate just those games that are kind of pretty much derivative of dungeons and dragons but it's in video game form um so i wasn't super excited for this one and i was i really was like you said surprised so when they actually showed this thing oh this is pretty cool the dungeon the dragon's head is pretty cool then you start hearing the list of people that were involved and then when we interviewed all the voice actors talk about that i mean they they spent a lot of investment to get the the voice acting into this yeah because you don't really hear it on location so they knew that they were targeting a home environment for this if they're gonna spend money on like what 11 voice actors at least yeah you're gonna you're going to be expecting a home environment to hear that well not only that like it shocked me how many big names were involved kevin smith you know jay and sam bob we brought the i'd brought that up with dwight and them you know brandon smalls one of your favorite guys he did uh uh the oh the brothers it's it's losing my mind now the uh venture brothers oh oh yeah oh my gosh i totally your brother yeah no metal apocalypse and you know he just i'm surprised you can say that every time i try to say met met a metal apocalypse yeah i i don't know it's like i i can't i i have a stutter metal metalocalypse that's how secretly i was listening to dennis and zach today and they were i was practicing in the van the whole yeah i i can't say i i can't say metal lock whatever now i'm hearing you yeah okay uh gerard way that is a big name for my teenage years he's the main singer my chemical romance he also did the umbrella academy which was a comic book that then turned into a tv series he's done plenty of stuff with marvel and whatnot we got wharf we got wharf wharf i mean there's a lot of i joked about joe manginelli is that mangelo is that how he says he's the dancer dude right who married sophia varga or something like that i remember him from how i met your mother he was always like oh was he okay i never watched that yeah yeah anyhow so i just remember him as like the magic bike or something yeah so but i mean there's so many people that are involved and so it made me think of a couple things like wow there is a lot of stuff they've thrown into this game the the teams that dwight was talking about like the here's my here's my concern of this is like this game is amazing like it really they've really went above and beyond my question is though is it on par with what l1 usually releases if that is the case like if you feel like jaws is at the same place as what dungeons and dragons is came play wise and and granted i comparing two games where like l1 kind of score based he rewards you for playing score This is more of an adventure You going through a story You trying to get to the endings It almost is like the score doesn really it plays into the gameplay right But it doesn't really affect the drive of why you're playing this game. You're playing it for the adventure, right? You can get scores. However, it seems like this code is intentionally driven so you will go through and complete the quests.
    20:54
    Yes. You want to level up. You want to do different things. You want to fight different dragons. There's three. There's basically three wizard modes, like ultimate wizard. So that tells me that they made this, at least the philosophy, a lot closer to a video game while incorporating pinball as the primary driver. So here's my concern. Dwight told us and Eddie told us on the interview that they've thrown so many people this game, right? Elizabeth Gieske, who did some of the modes in Jaws, I love Scars. It's very memorable. i love that she's on dnd because i think she can bring a lot to the table with modes right they talked about the animation team they used pretty much everyone in stern plus they hired what they say five to seven more they hired more because they had a lot more video content to generate correct and so it was starting to shock me how many people were involved with this project and the thing is is i feel like this project is where pinball should be right when we're releasing and i know i know that it's funny because they had extra time they did have extra time they did not confirm or deny whether the dragon mech was actually what was dragging them behind sure um i wonder if it were though if it were i would argue that's a good reason to delay the game third thing on that mech by the way we have had confirmation that is not the mech keith That one was talking. Yeah, it's a different. So that tells me Stern is the like they are the toy guys like they make cool stuff. And OK, when people come over to my house, the one of the first games they always play is Medieval Madness. And what do they always do? Do you think Medieval Madness would be half the game it is without the castle? No, there's no way. And that's actually that's a visual aspect. but the code is it's it's different like you could you could just put up a stand-up castle that just like has a flasher on it and it wouldn't be the same game so that tells me that that's part of the experience of pinball well the other thing too is is let's be honest like we're talking to seth davis they're talking about vault you know putting these games in a vault they say deadpool which gets good boosts it's it's still selling good star wars which is one of the top selling games ever shocking which is funny because like are putting star wars in the vault yeah absolute shocker uh i mean we're talking games that like are guaranteed sellers right like iron maiden still sells when they make another batch they only have to make they only can make it once a year but they still sell right so when you're telling me you're getting rid of those titles yeah in favor of dungeon and dragons i'm a little like are we doing this right after seeing this game you're doing it right my own okay i wish we could have went to me they're certainly making a calculated risk yes calculated risk now they could be wrong they could be right but stern's also in the position that they can make that risk i think this release has went way better than any other well not any other release in recent stern history but i think they're starting to learn like the manicured uh play video for the the premium yes curated one where they made sure that they had a good presentation because that means so much more than four drunk guys playing a game and breaking shots the five minute video of this is our game yep you know george gomez going off about the highlights with eddie and dwight with their excitement i might tune our on a horn right now but to have a podcast like us come out to give an hour plus long content of a deep dive of this game that way people can understand what's going on oh like so between all this it felt like just the perfect storm and then the media goes out on tuesday after friday release and they play this game and people are just smiling while playing this game and it's just it's it's all done so well i just my thought process is i'm getting a new game this year because i foo fighters is probably leaving i i'm i'm looking at this game i'm looking at dnd i'm waiting i'm waiting for l1s in april sure and i'm either going to go l1 or dnd that's that's kind of where i'm at this point which is which is crazy because i mean if if pokemon is really a thing, my kids aren't going to say no to that. Yeah, and you know what? You can play Pokemon. That's fine. That's not my thing. Not my bag, baby. How about you buy it, and then I'll just borrow it for a little while. Yeah. My Deadpool's on loaner right now. So, back to my concern, though. D&D, if this is throwing everything they've got at Stern, plus hiring people outside of Stern, to get to this level, does it set the bar too high? Like, L1's next, so I'm going to say L1 can hit the bar with just Team L1. L1's automatic. Yeah, Team L1, Rick Nagel, L1. That team can just knock it out of the park every time. And so I'm not worried about them. But what does it mean going forward for other releases?
    26:17
    It's actually expectation high. I will put that out. And unfortunately for X-Men, it was released and it started really hot. And unfortunately, the depth isn't there right now. I think it will be, and I will point out Deadpool was very similar, and so you're still in good company by saying that, hey, if you release and people are like, well, the code's not quite done. Now, it has two strikes against him. One, it was moved way up, and so that's not really fair that we can't expect it to be a high thing. however you're going to be comparing the other strikers you're going to be comparing with other games yeah at their release point and so when you have when you have that and you also have like metallica you know over my shoulder which is obviously a complete code or at least as near complete as you can because it's a finished game you also have with uh with dungeons dragons coming out with a deep code set to start with that's that's hard so people are going to expect that from now on and like i said like i don't expect code to be complete when a release is i do want some flexibility i want to be full needs to be full enough though yes like ellen said though with like iron maiden it pretty much came out 1.0 code and there wasn't much to do that they could do to change it like they said the problem was it was so far along that they just it is what it is but with the other games moving forward after that and they all every software designer is like required i remember at the our media day when we went may like they're required to like have like 7.5 when they release or whatever it is or 7.3 years point some that's the thing is like code subjective so it's up to the coder yeah this is right yeah yeah it's far enough yeah uh but people playing will know like no this is not where it should be you can't um fake it yeah Because people who play enough pinball are going to recognize how complete a code is. And a lot of people, they're forgiving, by the way, they're forgiving if they're like, hey, things change. I mean, Dwight completely rewrote Game of Thrones code. Yeah. So they are forgiving. However, there really is an expectation of making a certain level when you release a game. And you know what? If you're paying six to thirteen thousand dollars for a game, that's a reasonable expectation. i agree well and people uh saying that they need to you know they're like well with x-men you know yeah it stinks they got it out and it wasn't ready but it can cook for the next year and then it'll start selling in a year honestly most your your big sales come from day one like that first two weeks is vital and so it's unusual it's unusual to have a second wind on a game it really is i think bond is kind of a um an exception to the rule uh stranger things at some point too however stranger things was also it was very similar to attack from mars and because it was rare enough because they didn't make a lot of them then that also contributed to it i think also like gardens of the galaxy so there are exceptions to the rules there are I will say eventually most games get there. Yep. So overall, I'm impressed. What do you think, Scott? I would give a thumbs up, and I'm certainly excited to get one. And I do want to have one in my home so I can explore it because there's a lot of stuff that I cannot do on location. I can't experience the way I want to on location. Yeah.
    30:04
    I think we've talked enough about D&D. We got plenty on this list. Let's talk about the hot interview. It was not our most listened to or watched interview, but it was probably the most talked about. Yeah. The David Fix interview. I think between the questions we asked and the responses we got, there was some pretty big fireworks. Some fireworks. Fireworks. I want to give a little, some background. It may lift the curtain a little bit on this one too. So like I said, David Fix did call us or he messaged me and said, Hey, we need to do this interview i said okay like we can have you on good and i'm not gonna lie american pinball the numbers aren't great when we have david fix on so i was like i would say that it's it makes sense anytime you have the monsters of sales out there yeah like people are going to naturally go toward content that is catered around big sellers right american pinball is not a big seller and so so the numbers do reflect that in our content so i was a little hesitant but i said sure you can come on and i think this was on like a tuesday i want to say and and he's like okay we need to i need this out by like friday and he said okay like okay let's do it sure when do you want to record and we all kind of agreed thursday at lunchtime i think it was or i think we took a late lunch was like one or two and so i kind of burned the midnight oil and got this interview up and going six o'clock friday morning our time mountain standard time seven seven and eight moving on and it was kind of funny because there was such a rush to get this episode out i get a message from fix like an hour after it really sees it yeah uh i need you to like retract it it's like hold for a bit and we're like it's been out most people auto download i'm like I don't know if we can because once we put it into the RSS feed YouTube I can set it to private or unlisted or whatever it is and it hides it you know but with RSS feed once it pushes out it can't pull it back right I don't have control over it and people download it and so that's why some people are like well I can't actually see the episode what's going on like you know but some people are like I and listen to it just fine that's what was happening i put everything on pause in hopes that we could pause it legit you did that for like an hour and then he well he basically said yeah he's like too many people have heard it yeah just just release the you know release the hounds so yeah we released the kraken uh it just such a wild interview especially now that like okay i don't know what was going on behind the scenes i don't know why it was like hold off things have changed here and i was like what does that even mean to me like you know i'm saying it's a peak though at these are real companies with real issues and real production goals and there are things that they need to meet to keep the lights on well last week we got the news that fix it and let go yeah i think he's listening back to the interview now i think he knew he was on the chopping block and that's why he came out which is fine and i actually i did reach out to him i haven't heard back as of this recording but i did reach out because hey we're still about positivity and making sure that everything's okay and everything's good with him i do i do have one answer to the question one question we asked yeah so we asked because fix talked about polycate a lot and i'm like what the heck with polycate why why is why is this a thing now like where where's this polycate thing coming from so come to find out you can look this up on linkedin i did not this is not like secret information or whatnot right so the gentleman that took Fix's position, Ron Lindman. I hope I said that right. Ron Lindman. You can Google him, whatever you want to do. He came from Polycade. He's actually only worked at American since February. Now he has David Fix's position and they're producing Polycade.
    34:16
    They're at least the middleman for Polycade. Now I will say this is American Pinball 4.0. yeah and i i hope that they find their lane because all you know pinball is good all you know the the tide rises all ships so to speak yeah and i'm excited when i hear about what the next game is likely going to be and what the likely layout is going to be i think it would be a big step up for them if they can get to that point and i'm just hopeful they can well let's talk about the next game we're not going to give names or details or whatnot right but there has been a couple questions that i keep hearing that are legitimate questions if they release this game are people going to buy it because you fired everyone that worked at american right there's already been a question of quality i definitely learned that after we recorded an episode there was people recording videos and tagging us in it saying i bought an american game i've had very no to little support you know on the episode fix just said just call us i've tried calling no one's answering i'm frustrated and so it was like oh like this is a this is a sore spot that i was not aware of and hey but that legit that it now i have heard that about almost every manufacturer i would say more i've heard it with american pinball yeah and there are other companies that tend to have more glitches i'll just put it this way if you go to an arcade just look at the games that are on and the games that are off yeah and you're gonna see which ones are more stable because people want stable games well and and the other thing too is after we heard fix was gone i didn't dare call him to be like hey i need i want a number to the new guy essentially you know so i've tried to get a hold of american they're not answering their phones you type zero i know it's different today i checked it again today but last week if you press zero for operator it would tell you invalid option if you did it twice it would hang up on you yeah that's not a great sign and so it's like yeah hopefully they're in a rebooting mode and hopefully i this is this is new news right um i'm hoping they can figure out what they want to do like i said there's a lot of information we were given behind the scenes we're not going to relay it here but i will tell you one thing that we were told that we could say uh american pinball will release their next game whether they like it or not they're contractually obligated to release the next game it's all i can tell you so all these people saying well will it release no it it has to release yeah and you can uh okay they're supposed to release it i guess i'll put it that way yeah i guess it'd just be more lawsuits on top of current lawsuits they have. But it does, I will say, it sounds cool. It really does, in all indications, that Ryan did a good job on the design. Now, how they're able to take it. Don's seen it. Kerry Hardy's now seen it. We've seen it.
    37:29
    Wink, wink. So don't ask us. We're not going to tell you about it, even behind the scenes. But point being is, everyone that I've talked to that has seen this game or had hands on this game has legitimately said that like this game can pull them out of the rut they're in and i totally agree um so yeah by far their best looking layout yep my concern is i just i think you need to hire back ryan mcquade like the dude that designed it should be on the line helping those people how to assemble that game yep who's coding it that's what they need to figure out right they need to figure out the code they need to figure out like tweaking you know fine-tuning the design now we do know designs can be fine-tuned without the primary person on we know that elvira uh you know the house of horrors was was not fine-tuned by dennis so it can be done uh it would be nice though if ryan were able to be brought back into the fold and so he could fix that yep get get bound back working on code i just it's really weird that you contractually obligated to make a game, you fire your whole team that makes the game? Well, okay, now, they weren't fired. They were laid off. Well, I will say that is the difference. There is a big difference between fired and laid off, because laid off implies that the revenue stream is not there to be able to maintain their employment.
    39:01
    And that's always been everything I've said about American Pinball. like i i know how basic business works and you need to look at revenue in revenue out or sorry revenue in cost which is clues fixed costs like you actually have to make those balance at some level yep i agree i i don't know if there's anything else more we can say about american i am intrigued to see where they're going to go over these next few months i'm excited for the next game like seriously i want to play this game get my hands on it i just think that your biggest hurdle right now like ron mckesh if you're listening i i hope you are your biggest hurdle right now is people don't have faith in your customer service right you're gonna have to fix that correct and you need to do it now because when you release a product people are going to want to say oh if it breaks because pinball is mechanical it does break they're going to feel comfortable with people being able to answer phones and say, hey, I need you to do this, and this to fix it. And young companies, they are more prone to reliability issues. Yeah. But like Spooky's, I mean, they've been around for a decade. They're still a smaller operation. They're getting better. They are getting better. They've had issues with reliability too. However, they've also been responsive. Exactly. They've been very good at that. And they're constantly working on their quality, right? Like, obviously, there was a shift from Rick and Morty to Halloween, and we can all agree upon that, right? Halloween was – there was a bug at one point in time in Halloween that if you selected a mode that was not in the game yet, it freaked out the game. All the coils and everything would fire and then the game would just start like I know one guy that had the game and did that and he like I just want to see what happens And he like oh the game going wild right And he like it was funny until the game started smoking Then he shut it off So they not having those issues with Spooky 2 Spooky's done a lot better. And they continually improve. And so people are willing to give them a pass on, okay, they're willing to be optimistic about the direction of the company. but you need to start a trend line so people can be optimistic about your company. And just like bug said in our interview, you're going to have issues. It just is what it is, but they're taking those quality issues they've had in the past. They're learning from, and they're applying them to new games and it shows people aren't going to want to do that with a company that's not even responding or acknowledging the issue. So customer service is a big deal. And that's why people go with flipping out pinball because they got the best customer service in the industry. and so greg bone good man yes uh he's man he's messaged me i can't remember what game i was even have an issue on but he took something out his own game and sent it to me because it was on the recorder yep yeah so all right you want to talk about the rumor of harry potter coming from this is everyone else is talking about i'm like dude is there anything we have to add joe cam and cal set it out okay what what are you hoping for yeah yeah maybe maybe not is it even yeah yeah uh okay so what are you expecting with harry potter that's the it's a two-part question what are you expecting with it and is it possible for them to meet the expectation i will i will frame this question by saying i am the biggest star wars fan at least early star wars from when I was a kid.
    42:43
    So my expectations were sky high. I saw Stern Star Wars, and I was in on an LE, and I said, I'm out.
    42:52
    I didn't buy it. So that is the context of my question. Josh, I know you have a Sharpie tattoo on your forehead of a lightning bolt. I do not. Tell me about Harry Potter. I enjoy Harry Potter. I'm not going to dress up in my wizard robes. I'm not going to go. I've enjoyed the movies. I've enjoyed the books. I don't know if I've watched. I've not read the books more than once. I've not seen the movies more than twice a piece. It is something that means a lot to my children. My eldest has listened to the books on Audible every night since he was like seven, and he's 14 now. Wow. He loves those books. When he finishes another book, his go back to is Harry Potter. my i think i'm right there with you i think the problem is is the license is so huge i've tempered my expectations because i'm like there's no way they can meet every expectation of this of this franchise it's just there it's impossible so my i do and i don't have concerns because like looking at star wars like you said star wars is one of the top three selling games of all time for stern right um then i think just having the license alone for harry potter is going to be a smash hit for jjp yeah and criticism aside like they really like honestly if this is if this license is as big as seller as star wars or bigger they don't need to it doesn't matter what the criticism is because they're going to sell like hotcakes regardless however it's a way of setting themselves up for future releases though yes so if you get harry potter and you're a huge harry potter fan yeah and they meet those expectations you're going to say hey what are they doing on the next game if you're a huge harry potter fan and you still buy it but you're disappointed when you buy it it's going to affect their next game yeah my here's my here's my wishes first off you're probably we've said this before we've said multiple times on the episode is nothing against jersey jack they're just out of my price range i cannot buy into a box so i'm not your target audience but if this is eric i love eric's designs i think we need to get back eric to pirates of the caribbean days i feel like there was a lot of innovation there don't get me wrong i love godfather um i love his other games he's made guns and roses i think there's a lot of cool things in those games yeah but pirates just kind of hit on a different level right there's some really cool mechs um there was an enthusiasm there for that design that i haven't felt yeah and so for a little bit and it was i hope we can probably overly ambitious i i i will the criticism for pirates for me is it was overly ambitious and maybe what what i would point out is killed sales on pirates of the caribbean because the first feature that they talked about was a triple spinning disc which really in the grand scheme of things is not a big deal yeah but it is a cool feature but it's not really the layout of the game the rules of the game the flow of the game but when that was the first thing you were touting and then you end up taking it out of the game i think people were rightly concerned yeah well and it just but you know now i i still argue they've finished the code yeah re-up the license only make a thousand of these yeah and you will sell them you're a company you will make money sell these things well i think it goes you're a better company you can fix whatever issues there were with that big design so so my point being is just with harry potter i think a lot of people need to temper their expectations i think if this does sell like hotcakes like it is then i'm not worried about picking up one later for cheaper because jersey jack pinball has proved when they have small runs their games retain their value when they have big runs they drop in value so well any company to be blunt any company will be that so sell your 5 000 harry potters and uh awesome i'll pick one up in six months a year at eight grand nine grand i i'm hoping i'm optimistic because eric obviously is a seasoned a veteran at this point.
    47:34
    He will likely do something that is a mix of experimentation but safety. Because you still want this game to be played a lot. You want some level of Steve Ritchie flow in there. You're going to want that. Steve is actually at Jersey Jack now. And so for him to be able to help mentor flow. Cause that's the one thing that Jersey Jack games have not had aside from Elton John. Yeah. So if there's a way that Steve Ritchie can, Oh, Godfather shot pretty well. Like Eric did a great job with God. Eric did. However, there is an element of fast combo shots that a lot of their games don't haven't had aside from Elton John. So I'm hoping they're going to be able to incorporate that because you're going to have a quidditch match in there yeah and you're gonna want that's a fast mat you're gonna want something that you can uh you can combo shots to get the was it the snitch the golden snitch snitch yeah and so you're gonna want that kind of thing um so i hope there's a level of speed i won't say predictability but at least familiarity with a with the design and so So I know it's a lot to ask to say you want to take some risks, but you want a lot of it to be safe. But I would suggest that's the best way to go on this game. Well, can we say the quiet thing out loud? Yeah.
    49:09
    Keith Johnson, I do appreciate what you've done for pinball. I think Lord of the Rings and Simpsons Pinball Party, awesome. I think they drove pinball into a new direction. Yep. I don't feel like the code's very samey-samey from Keith at Jersey Jack. Okay, I think it's encyclopedic too. And I think you need to figure out how to streamline things a little bit. Because I understand that you want people to see something new a lot. But people want to feel like they understand a game. And if you had a game, like, okay, I've had Wizard of Oz for like eight years. I still don't really understand what I'm supposed to do in that game.
    49:54
    Okay. But my point being is when you have multiple multiballs in the game, and they're literally the same rules, you've just named them different multiballs.
    50:06
    I mean, it feels like we're phoning it in, right? Like we're just – I don't know. Don't get me wrong. I enjoy the code on most of these games, but it feels very samey-samey. It doesn't help that I feel like Stern is pushing pinball into a new era of pinball, right? and l1 is doing that because it's not just modes it's the under like with jaws i love jaws because jaws it's got it's got your modes you've got your shark battles or your your shark hunting trips or fishing trips whatever maybe that's underlining that you're working towards while doing modes plus there's also the beaches that you need to close that's its own thing there's a lot of like nuance inside the nuance right the overall arching game is easy to understand there's a lot of nuance underneath that i'm not saying you're not getting that with guns and roses what i'm saying is it's like there's not enough of it or not guns and roses with keith l1's game keith johnson's games right keith johnson's games i feel like we're we're focusing on modes and multi-balls either or and that's about it there's not much outside of that i still love playing these games these games are beautiful they're wonderful games to have in your house but i feel like jersey jack that was once innovating and pushing the industry is resting on its laurels at the moment, where Stern is no longer resting on its laurels and is pushing the industry forward. And so that is my recommendation because you got Joe Katz and you've got Keith Johnson. That's what you got at Jersey Jack. And there's probably some other coders down there helping flesh out the code. That's what you have. And I feel like Joe Katz is doing a really good job. Keith, it's Johnson. It's time to stop pressing on your laurels it's time to streamline it's time to streamline and and that's uh i i don't think anybody feels like they need 21 options they they need like seven or eight great modes yep with uh with stretch modes so start with eight core modes and then when you complete those to a certain level go for the mini wizard so four other ones on top of that and then you go down to two and then you go down to the to the the final wizard mode okay do you do you think that jersey jack is going to consider we haven't heard any rumors about this but consider dividing the license and making a harry potter book one through three or one through four and then doing a five through seven i think it would be smart i think it all depends on that license entails and what they're allowed to do i it would be smart it's hard the books on my shelf are that big and if you're holding it up it's about a foot and a half like how long those books take up on the shelf if you're listening and not watching scott just hold up his hands from edge of screen to edge of screen Yeah. So that's a lot. That's a lot of information to put in there. I mean, think about it. Star Wars. Imagine putting episode one through nine in there. It's hard. So even if one through three, four or five, six and seven or whatever, dividing it up, I think that would be super smart for them. and if they had two or three Harry Potter games, that would be a brilliant move for them and a home run. Yeah, I agree. Because I guarantee if someone's buying one and it's a hit, they're going to buy two or three. They will.
    53:54
    Well, and I think that's as much as we can talk about with Harry Potter. It really is. We haven't heard a ton of stuff with it. My understanding is, you know, nap arcade did uh allude to it might be next month that they're showing this it would make it would be smart it makes sense it makes a lot of a lot of reveals are in february slash march because of tpf and they're in you know september october because of of expo that's just that's it's how the cookie crumbles so uh if i and i'm hoping that we're i'm hoping that we are going to be involved in some level to be able to see it and talk about it early on because that would help both us and jersey check so i've got on our notes stern media day um but honestly you you and i kind of talked about this before the podcast and really go check out our brothers from another mother triple drain triple drain yeah they had retro ralph on which all four of them went to the stern media day okay by the way i kind of hate retro ralph and i'll tell you why he's good looking he's smooth and he has really good content and i it just shows everything that i am not in podcasting and so go check him out he's really good he's really good and honestly he's slumming in with us in pinball yeah he was making insane numbers on arcade and he up to pinball and they're like yeah he's rebuilding he's rebuilding yep and honestly dude's awesome we got to meet him at media day back in may really nice dude he lives in arizona we might have to it's warm down there right now we might have to go take a trip yeah we'll have a trip so yeah so they did like a two-hour episode it was great uh really go check out triple drain if you haven't they're on the pinball network i want to move on so there's there's two things i've heard over this last couple weeks that i feel like people don't understand and since scott and i have kind of a behind the scenes better working knowledge what goes on in the industry i feel like we could talk to both of these okay the first one is uh we're seeing a new trend with licensing i'm not going to point at specific licensing because that um yeah sure but we're finding out more and more that pinball isn't only just a research and with the home and with and location and stuff like that. But a lot more people outside of pinball are coming to pinball companies saying, we want you to take our product and make a pinball machine. Okay. Now this, it is common knowledge. At least they talked about it, that Metallica approached them. Yes. Yep. And said, and so this is not behind the scenes. They have talked about it. Metallica said, Hey, what you guys do with rush? Can you do that with ours? Cause that was great. So my question is, because I know that not only that, but Supreme did this, but there's been this weird divide where it felt like the licenses that Gary Stern was out going to get was the Cornerstones, and then people were approaching Stern to make a pinball machine. They were making, I think they called it White Label, or was that Fix that called it White Label? I think that was Fix. Okay, basically, you look at Stern, and they had the Star Wars that game. They had the Spider-Man Home Edition. They had Supreme, and so they were all... woe nelly was being turned into paps crown crush yeah they were all kind of re-skins of a very basic layout but we're talking like custom games that are being made for people who have approached them yeah so people are approaching it's not just stern it is all the they're kind of getting into a bidding war over like what pinball company do i want to go with pinball companies or you know they're going to say, well, can you produce my games faster? Blah, blah, blah. You know? And so my question is, you know, the old days Gary told us about how like he took like a third of a play field and a briefcase up to a high rise in New York. And I was like, I want to make your theme into a pinball machine. And he said the guy that owned the license, like who's this guy? And what's this big piece of wood with weird thing that you're putting on there. Yeah. We're going from that where you had to go out and obtain a license to where people are like i want you to make essentially my love letter of a franchise in a pinball machine so i would assume if someone's approaching stern are they paying less money to do that or if they're approaching american or if they're approaching jjp so with metallica maybe does metallica say hey we're not going to charge you what we would for our our normal product that we've franchised out our license out because we want this product from you guys i know metallica is a different story because they made that in the past right like it's not much of a leap but it's like it you're let's compare that to harry potter right we know that harry potter was was paid for in the millions it was a coveted license yes i think jack when area had kind of confirmed well he didn't confirm that they have harry potter but i think he at one point said this is one of the most expensive licenses they've ever paid for and one of the most expensive million this is millions yeah like four million i think was the number that was thrown out there it was four to five something like that okay so that obviously and and jk rowling had to be convinced that pinball wasn't a gambling device that these weren't going to like my understanding there are stipulations around the license on this one so we'll wait and see and the rumor was is there going to be a coin box i mean that's the big rumor the coin door yep yeah so so i guess my question is is it more advantageous let's say let's say uh dungeons of dragons starts newest release let's say that dungeons of dragons approached stern and said hey we want you to make a dungeons of dragons versus harry potter where we know it's going to be guaranteed sales but we know for fact they went out and got that license right like they chased jk rowling for that license okay which one do you think's more worth it where you've got dnd has proven with all the voice actors and everyone willing to throw the ring in the hat and and all that jazz versus harry potter where it's been pulling teeth to get stuff approved and you're paying more but it's a more recognizable recognizable license what do you think is the better option here i'm going to give a qualified it depends OK, because there is some level of can you make the product that will reflect best on pinball and the license holder? Because those can be either aligned or they can be competing. Yeah. Right. And we've heard behind the scenes, especially one license where they basically just said. I don't think that what you're asking us to do is going to be beneficial.
    60:50
    And so therefore, I think we're not going to, we have already started this process, but I think we're going to part ways. OK, now the we know the best products that are produced in pinball are when the pinball company has more freedom to make something right. And you could argue Metallica Metallica said make a good pinball machine. And the first iteration of it was amazing And the second one even better Iron Maiden we know that the band was very supportive of their process going on Rush, same thing. The band was very supportive on what's going on. You can see when Bond was a notoriously difficult license to work with. Yeah. So I would argue that the bond product was inhibited. And I know people who have bought L.E.'s and sold them because they're like, it's just not what I'm looking for. Yeah. So, however, my first the first time I met Steve Ritchie was at a Rocky Mountain pinball show and his his shtick was he got up and said, hi, I'm Steve Ritchie and I sell pinball machines. okay so if you can sell a certain amount of machines and still make a lot of money then that's that's the ideal situation but if you also have if if the license is inhibiting your ability to sell a lot of machines then i would argue you should look for a different license yeah so um now even if a license is very cooperative it still may not be a huge seller yeah so i'm sorry if wu-tang came to me and said hey make my machine i know a lot of people have said they want a wu-tang machine but i'm not sure there's enough market share to make a wu-tang machine yeah so even if they gave you that license for free are they going to sell 4 000 games on that i would say no so finding that balance of you know that ideal nexus but is there a situation where you can have someone who is particular but you can work within those limitations yeah and still put out a good product then great but there are challenges i i beatles i don't know if Beatles sold as well as they wanted it to make up for it because at the time that was the most expensive license. It was like a million bucks, I believe.
    63:45
    So the most they could make on that was 1964. And I don't think they made them all. Yeah, they still made some like this last month. And so was that worth it? And I was like, maybe not. I think they thought Beatles was going to be a bigger seller and they didn't you know there's 10 songs on how many songs are beetle do beetles have oh well the white album itself is a double album isn't it okay yeah so so i'm just pointing and actually a lot of people don't realize the great singles didn't even make it on albums yeah like so we're talking so many songs but you're also limited by that led zeppelin i I would argue did not need expectations because they didn't, you know, there wasn't a lot of options there even. And I know, I know the reasons, but stairway to heaven didn't make it in the, in there. Yeah. And would you buy a, would you buy a Harry Potter game that doesn't have Voldemort in it? Just curious.
    64:55
    I want a star Wars game that doesn't have Darth Vader. I mean, that's like the thing you're known for. And if you don't put the thing in there, then that may be a walkaway moment. Now, back to the future without the DeLorean. Yeah, kind of weird. Or without Marty McFly, things like that. So there are things that are deal breakers.
    65:16
    I don't necessarily think – sorry, this is a long answer, and I'll let you take it. But there are constraints that make it difficult to work with. I don't think it necessarily matters whether or not you approach the license or the license approaches you. is if you can get enough assets to be able to put forth the license in the most favorable light, that's what's most important. Okay, Josh, your turn. I talked way too long. I guess, sorry, D&D is a bad example because I do not know if they paid for that license. My assumption is with D&D being D&D, I don't think that Stern went out and got the license. That's just my assumption.
    65:56
    I would think they did, actually. Really? yeah i i argue they probably did reach out but i guess and granted like i said metallica it's hard because it's like they did approach stern and say hey we want another metallica and and metallica's already a proven seller right like but i think if if you've got i i think if the licensor comes to you and you're able to do it right that is more beneficial to you than if you go out and spend the four million dollars on harry potter um i just that's a lot of that's a lot of dinero over however many games you're making that you have to almost guarantee you sell and i'll give you the example the the example is jeff bezos at the time richest man in the world yeah huge lord of the rings fan and he wanted to make the rings of power so he bought the license and paid for this because he wanted to see it.
    66:59
    Okay? That's a big difference between Peter Jackson coming to James Cameron and saying, hey, I want you to make a series for me.
    67:10
    You know? And James Cameron's going to say, how much am I going to make? True. But Jeff Bezos is like, I got more money anyway, so I don't care. I just want to see it. And just do it.
    67:23
    So like I said, I think overall, it does come down to that passion. right like you can obviously tell there's passion in in metallica and and it oozes through the game i i it's hard to i think there's less of a risk on if a licensor is approaching you because i think they're more willing to work with you right i think that's also another reason i was looking at dnd because there's so much from outs there you can't tell me that stern paid all these actors i I swear they just won't. That's a good question. That's a total good point. Like it may have been people like, I just want to be on the product. How many people do you know ask Hollywood to be involved in a project because they're fans as opposed – they're personal fans as opposed to I would just want a paycheck? Well, a good example, let's use this one. So I know this one gets brought up a million times. People are probably going to grumble.
    68:15
    Well, let's talk Eric Mann. You're on Guns N' Roses. It's that whole Beatles thing and they were having a hard time with Live or Let Die. and he gets on the phone you know flash calls him up and he says we're having issues with liverlet die and 15 minutes later paul mccartney's on the phone and all the red tape got cut through i mean who is it wizards of the coast i can't remember who owns dnd probably called up the people was like hey hey hey kevin smith uh we're making a dnd pinball machine you want to be involved he's like you know it when and where you know i'm saying yep there's you look at like ben Stiller made Dodgeball because he believed in Dodgeball and he wanted to see that movie made and he took a big pay cut. It was under a million dollars to do that movie for him. That's a bold move, Cotton. Let's see if it works out for him. It's still a cult classic to this day.
    69:04
    It's a funny show. It's stuff like that. When it's a passion project, people are willing to take a cut because they want to see the project come to fruition.
    69:14
    That's why I'm saying I think it's more advantageous if someone's approaching you because you're going to get more doors open i think you're going to have them as a reliable source versus if you go to someone you say hey we want to make your product in a pinball machine they might not be as forthcoming i bet you well it's been proven with dnd like they shared their resources who are wizards of the coast or i think hasbro is the one that actually owns it now i'm saying all this hasbro was like we know these people we know that people let us call our people and we'll send them your way you know i'm saying so i i agree by the way i like everything you said i totally agree with and uh i think we are saying the same thing but in different ways yeah because if i'm going to stern to say hey i want to make a loser kid pinball machine i'm not going to have many constraints yeah do what you want do what you want you know yep but if you know if they come to us we're like you know well okay well maybe we can get something out of it so the diehards have probably made it this far i've got one more note on my okay good on on our episode uh my last note is is i put so i'm hearing some terms thrown around and there's some people that don't understand these and like i said i don't know why but scott and i feel qualified to talk about this so zach many was talking on the pinball show if you've not listened to the most recent episode go turn it on right well after you finish our episode great episode but zach was talking about game selling out and game selling through and people hear these words and they i don't think they understand exactly what it means to sell out versus sell through versus sell in so scott when when a manufacturer makes a game why don't you kind of tell them how the the tree works with how the game sells so there's basically a business um okay there's always third party involved in most things right yeah there's most of the time it's a manufacturer that is a business that sells to a business that in turn sells to a customer. Yep. Okay. And so it depends on how far down that chain you go. And these are very simplistic terms, by the way. So if it's sold out, that typically means it is sold from the manufacturer all the way to the end part. So they are in customers' hands, or at least customers have ordered them. So a great example would be Metallica LE. All those distributors have sold their LEs. That is a sellout. And if a middle person has not sold it, it's because they have chosen not to sell it. I'm sure there's one or two people who are holding a Metallica LE in box. But that's not because they aren't able to sell it. It's because they choose not to sell it. They're speculating. So now sell – so that's sell out. Okay, so sell through, at least my understanding, is the manufacturer has made what they say they're going to make on it. And they have sold them at least to the first step. So like with X-Men LE, what did they sell, like 88? Was it 888 or something like that? Yeah, it was – no, it was like – was it 860 or something like that? Something like that. Yeah. Okay, and with Dungeons & Dragons, they did 740? Yeah.
    73:04
    So with – so for them to sell that – now, I don't – did they sell that through? I want to say Dungeons & Dragons sold through. Okay. But again, it's known as the pinball. I wish I would have paid a little closer attention. It's hard because these are terms we're not super familiar with. But some things that I guarantee did not sell out at all. They didn't even sell through. I guarantee they didn't make all of Venom LEs. I guarantee they didn't even make them.
    73:41
    Stranger Things LEs. I guarantee they didn't make them. A lot of the other ones. wick i don't think they they probably didn't sell through on those those maybe yeah maybe or maybe not i okay i i know they didn't sell out um i doubt they sold through but even if they did i guarantee i i you could call up a distributor and find an le very quickly yep okay um dungeons and dragons there is a likelihood a high likelihood that this is sold through at a minimum but i i I would not be surprised within, you know, within two weeks or a month that is completely sold out. Yeah.
    74:26
    And it's just funny because. Hey, why is that important, Josh, though? Why do we bring this up? Just because we've heard a whole lot of manufacturers, a lot of people saying we sold out. Right. And it's like, no, you haven't sold out. You may have sold through to your distributors. But you sold out your door. Yeah. So, like, I don't know if it was, like, with the Funhaus remake, with the limited edition, where Pedretti was coming out and was like, we've sold out. And it's like, no, no, no. They may have sold through. They're still available. Yeah. But the problem is, is when a manufacturer comes out and says, we've sold out, which, I mean, I guess if they sold through, they've technically sold out from the manufacturer. Yeah, but that's not the right term, though. That's not the right term. You shoot your distributors in the foot because then people are like, oh, well, they're all sold out. This is not available. Yeah. So either, either going to call in a panic and say, do you have any more? And when everyone's like, yeah, we got like five of them set in their shop. I think I'm like, well, are they creating artificial panic? Yeah. Like, it's just funny because like, I think some of the manufacturers don't even know exactly. I think they do, but I, I would argue they're probably, uh,
    75:40
    there is something about the FOMO. Yeah. And so maybe there, I would say they're being a little fast and loose with what selling out versus selling through means. Correct. So just something I wanted to bring up. I know that the words get thrown out around a lot, and I don't hear much people talking about it because it's just – I don't know if people don't know. We just – play the little cue for me, NBC. The more you know, do-do-do-do. Yeah. Again, if you really do want to know, though, if you think something sold out, call Zach because he'll tell you if he has one on. And most of the time he has one available or if something comes up, then he'll put you on a list. I mean, that's just a an example of a distributor who will tell you exactly what's going on. So I find it interesting if you go on Pinside because I was looking up the numbers of like like we were talking X-Men. It says in production actually doesn't say like the final number. right but with like dungeons and dragons that actually does seven say the 740 but even with like john wick le it says in production i thought they were all done with the production on those i could be wrong so i think i wonder half wonder if that means they haven't produced them all and so pinside's just like yeah we're holding off on this till we get like yeah i guarantee if they sold if the sell through sells out and there's enough for 20 le's they'd make them like as long as they still have le's it says a thousand was produced so they sold all those that's that is a sell out no stern doesn't does doesn't officially announce things and so this is i guess an educated speculation well and here's the thing so if someone actually receives one thousand out of one thousand that's confirmation that they made all one thousand well it's not linear yeah they don't make them linear like my my metallica i think it's like 460 something yeah you yours was pretty high when you did your video you're like oh this is like one of the last run ones this is 486 and actually i wouldn't be surprised if mine was one of the last ones yeah because i i got it a little later than other people yep all right we've ran almost an hour and 20 minutes yeah yeah uh people are either turned off or i don't know they're listening to us on double speed it's fine you know you know yeah you know um we talked about the twippies earlier because of like the community recognition and stuff like that after we did twippies last year i know i've been terrible at this but i have been trying to do a spot where we do content creator of the episode because i feel like there are a lot of great content creators out there that don't get recognition. I've probably double said some, and I do apologize. I do appreciate those. I reached out and asked us to look at their content. I've been more than happy, like to talk about your content on our show and give you a content creator. I just, I want, you know, like, I'm not saying we're the, like the end all be all of content creators. There's definitely people that have more numbers than us, but we have a platform. There's more stars in the sky. It's fine. Correct. I feel like we have a platform that we can share with others. and I don't mind pushing content. So one content creator, haven't heard in a while, does great content. Abe Flips, if you have not seen his tutorial videos on YouTube, they are insanely cool and they will help you with your flipper skills and whatnot. So go check out Abe Flips on YouTube. That's the content creator I am saying for this episode. I'm actually going to jump on too. So we've mentioned him before. check out retro ralph he's great okay yeah and you know obviously retro ralph does not need our numbers he doesn't need ours he's good he's good and also i'm excited because i just got an invoice to finalize my sithara guitar yes so we and we are going to have him on too but i'm excited because he he even has some suggestions on there's like hey do you want the loser kid logo on the neck And I'm like, yes, I do. Yes. So, so we're going to have to talk about that after we shut this off. Cause I, I want to know what you put into yours and I'll tell you what I put into mine. Okay. No, no. Sounds good. But absolutely check him out. Um, definitely it's a C I T H A R A guitars. Um, and the great stuff, but we, again, thank you so much for the year. What an amazing year we're looking forward to this year. And definitely go. If you've played Dungeons and Dragons, tell me about it and tell us, Tell us if you were surprised, if it was what you expected, or if it didn't hit the mark. I have a feeling that it'll be exceeded expectations. Once again, thanks to the 60,000 plus people that viewed or listened to our content. Also, Silver Ball Swag. If you've been watching on YouTube and you saw this baseball jersey, it's in black. It's in white. If you want one, hit up silverballswag.com slash loserkid. And send Neil Shelton a little thank you. he bought that like a year ago he's a passionate man when it comes to pinball he's got some great things in the pipeline I'm excited for him to reveal to all of y'all I'm excited like Neil is just a great dude I've always been a supporter of everything he does he just he takes it to the next level so there is that if you want to get a hold of us we are loserkpinballpodcast.gmail.com we're on all the socials Facebook, Instagram, X Threads Someone the other day is like, I heard you said you were on Threads, so I came to check you out. And so they're seriously one-on-one commenting. I just barely installed Threads. Okay, so I'm getting there. Well, we're on TikTok. If you want to see our video that blew up that almost got 14,000 views, go check it out.
    81:31
    Anyhow, Scott, give us our final words. Okay, thanks again, guys. And we'll see you. I'm heading to Guatemala on Saturday. I'll be gone for a week. And so I'll see you when we get back.