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Ep 44: We B Streamin!

Pinball Party Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 47m·analyzed·Nov 28, 2023
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Live Pinball Party discusses secondary market collapse, Stern's remake strategy, and P3 adoption.

Summary

A live-streamed episode of the Pinball Party podcast featuring hosts Jason and Kale discussing the secondary market collapse post-COVID, Stern's strategy of remaking classic games and raising prices, the challenges of home collecting versus arcade operations, and the growth of competitive pinball streaming and home arcades. The hosts debate whether Stern is trying to serve too many markets simultaneously and discuss the emergence of P3 (Multimorphic) as an alternative to traditional pinball machines.

Key Claims

  • Lord of the Rings Limited Edition machines have dropped in secondary market value from ~$13,200-13,500 to ~$11,500, representing a ~$2,000 price drop

    high confidence · Jason describing his personal experience buying/selling LOTR LE machines in 2023

  • Stern is remaking classic games (Ghostbusters, Metallica, Lord of the Rings) and increasing topper prices from $400-500 to $1,500, while the secondary market for these toppers previously traded at $2,500-3,000

    high confidence · Jason analyzing Stern's pricing strategy and secondary market history

  • Nothing earns like a Stern machine in arcade operations; even premium non-Stern games like Godfather cannot match Stern's earning potential over time

    high confidence · Kale, who operates Electric Bat Arcade, discussing operator revenue from different manufacturers

  • Electric Bat Arcade has grown significantly over five years and is currently performing better than ever, with increasing visitor volume and coin drops

    high confidence · Kale discussing Electric Bat's growth trajectory and current performance

  • Galactic Tank Force has widespread manufacturing issues/quality problems that buyers will discover when opening machines

    medium confidence · Jason expressing frustration with GTF issues; Kale agreeing, calling it 'a piece of dog shit'

  • P3 (Multimorphic) machines get played more frequently than any other pinball machine type in personal collections

    medium confidence · TurboGrafx (a home collector) reporting on his machine usage patterns

  • Game Room Goodies distributor is experiencing record demand, primarily from home arcade/collector customers rather than arcade operators

    medium confidence · Kale relaying information from conversation with their distributor

  • Before COVID, secondary market pricing was stable with predictable ~$200-300 losses on resale; post-COVID the gap between new and used prices became unusually large

    high confidence · Jason reflecting on market dynamics before and after COVID

Notable Quotes

  • “I haven't owned a machine in two months, I think. It's been a long time... it feels fucking awesome, man.”

    Jason @ ~15:00 — Jason stepping back from home collecting due to unsustainable secondary market losses, setting up the episode's central tension

  • “Even at a good sponsorship price... I would lose money just moving the game on. So like why I can't justify right now having a game to let's say I will immediately lose 500 just for having in my house.”

    Jason @ ~16:30 — Core complaint about post-COVID market dynamics making hobby untenable for traditional flip-and-sell collectors

  • “Nothing earns like a Stern... They just have such a head start on anybody else. It's not just build quality and the way the flippers feel. It's just like gaming and making a game that's fun to play.”

    Kale @ ~35:00 — Operator validation of Stern's dominance in arcade revenue generation

  • “This is making it tougher and tougher and giving me pause... I don't even know if I can get a Black Knight for cheap for a little while if they remake it or toppers.”

    Jason @ ~48:00 — Secondary market collector concern about Stern's remake strategy eliminating collectibility and value preservation

  • “They're trying to do everything to everyone and that is not a good... the shotgun method... they got to pick a lane.”

    Jason @ ~62:00 — Criticism of Stern's strategy of simultaneously targeting home, arcade, and commercial markets without clear positioning

  • “We are growing and doing better than ever. And it seems like every year it's just like more people are showing up, more people are dropping coins in the machines.”

    Kale @ ~68:00 — Positive signal on arcade venue growth and sustainability despite broader market concerns

  • “P3s are so fucking cool... if I was me and I am coming into this out of nowhere like hey what the fuck I have ten thousand dollars to spend... that would seem like that is the way to go.”

    Jason — Recognition that Multimorphic P3 represents a compelling alternative entry point for new collectors due to software flexibility and value proposition

Entities

JasonpersonKalepersonRachelpersonTurboGrafxpersonSterncompanyMultimorphiccompanyJersey Jack Pinballcompany

Signals

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Jason, a historically active secondary market trader/collector, has exited the hobby entirely due to unsustainable resale losses. He now observes from afar rather than participating.

    high · Jason: 'I haven't owned a machine in two months... it feels fucking awesome, man' and 'I would lose money just moving the game on'

  • $

    market_signal: Secondary market prices for premium games (LOTR LE, toppers) have declined significantly; Jason documents $2,000 LOTR LE price drop from $13.5K to $11.5K. Stern's remakes and increased topper pricing are accelerating this deflation.

    high · Jason's personal pricing data and observation that secondary market toppers previously at $2,500-3,000 now undercut by new $1,500 remakes

  • ?

    product_strategy: Stern is implementing aggressive remake strategy (Black Knight topper, Stranger Things re-release, Jurassic Park LE, Elvira's House of Horrors LE, with Ghostbusters/Metallica implied) that erodes secondary market value protection for collectors.

    high · Jason: 'Going from the Jurassic Park LE to the Elvira's House of Horrors LE to rerunning Stranger Things to the Toppers... this is making it tougher and tougher'

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern has opened a new, larger manufacturing facility requiring increased output to support operational costs and expanded workforce.

    high · Kale: 'Stern's a business. They're growing. And they have a gigantic new facility that they have to keep operating and a lot of employees to pay.'

  • ?

    operational_signal: Multiple successful arcades in Phoenix area (Electric Bat, Lit/formerly Tilt) are expanding and thriving with increasing visitor volume and coin revenue; distributor Game Room Goodies reporting record sales primarily to home/arcade buyers.

Topics

Secondary market collapse post-COVIDprimaryStern's remake strategy and price increasesprimaryHome collector vs. arcade operator economicsprimaryArcade venue sustainability and growthprimaryMultimorphic P3 as alternative platformprimaryCompetitive pinball streaming growthsecondaryGalactic Tank Force manufacturing issuessecondaryNew construction home arcade adoptionsecondary

Sentiment

mixed(0.35)— Jason expresses frustration and resignation about the secondary market collapse making collecting untenable; however, Kale expresses optimism about arcade venue growth and sustainability. Overall tone is critical of Stern's strategy (unclear positioning, flooding market) while acknowledging the company's business necessity. P3 discussion shows cautious interest. The conversation reflects broader industry anxiety about post-COVID normalization and market segmentation.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.323

is this it are we live yeah we could do the people coming soon oh yeah why why are we doing listen closely figure it out here we are pinball party welcome to the first ever streaming live pinball party podcast um don't have any yeah tell me what's going on here we we are live but people will be able to go and check out the vod yeah you can check out the vod on youtube or on twitch or you know uh probably those or audible you can uh just listen to it audibly do i'd love some uh audible audible i like but i have books behind me wait yeah me too we both got books we got books it's yeah Please, everybody, read. Read a book. Read a book. Take a break and read a book. It's good for you. It's good for your mind. Good for your soul. It's good for other people. It makes you a better person. And it's good. Yeah. That's me. Do we have comments? No, that's me. Yeah, sorry for the preamble. I mean, this is audio only. This is literally what happened. And it's during work hours. It's, what, Monday at noon 30. I was finishing a tabletop for an end table I'm doing for the basement. Because, you know, I'm 41 and I do woodworking on the side. Yeah, absolutely. Kale says, sup. He's like, nothing. And then, like, within two minutes, like, you want to go live and do a pinball party podcast out of nowhere? Sure, why not? So now it's, what, 10 minutes later and here we are. Here we are. Yeah, I miss you. What's up, TurboGrafx? I've just been out of town. You know, we went to Austin. Last time I talked to you, we had just gotten back from Expo, and we went over all that good stuff. Yeah. And then we went to Austin, and then after that, Tucson for Thanksgiving, and I'm back. And the first thing I did when I walked in the door was I thought about you. Ah. Stop it. here we are well no the first thing you did to send me the picture of you by that america car which right yeah yeah uh i don't know what that was all but i loved it thank you for sending it um especially without context just uh um what since the last time we have hold up we have a comment here from actually not us yeah right turbo graphics seven seven yeah can that person hear us yeah how does this work this is all new to me i love what you did with the graphics and bravo jason you like my my sign yeah i love it yeah yeah i made that i made that 100 turbo graphics can hear you and see you uh turbo graphics you need to add about nine to your last number to really make this thing a fish uh you know we want to get to 16 on that But yeah, since last time you and I talked about pinball, what have I done? I haven't owned a machine in two months, I think. It's been a long time. How do you feel? How do you feel? It feels fucking awesome, man. Have you played any pinball? No. No. No. Shit. What have I done? I've analyzed it and judged it from afar, which is what we're going to do here as well. but I might have played a little Godzilla or a little Mando here or there. But no, I've almost bought an Iron Man. Thanks, Turbo. Yeah, it's a high-quality sign. I thought I'd get an Iron Man Pro just to play it for a little while. But here's the reasons why I stopped. In the past, I think I might not say this, because like my thing in pinball is to buy games play them at home get bored of them sell them you know that's how i go while you run a very world successful electric bat arcade where you have a thank you a good billion yeah thank you um where you can play machines and make money off them i have to basically try to lose as little as i can to to enjoy the hobby but holy shit is that fucking hard now where the market is just like even at a discounted price where uh you know um i'm sponsored by flipping out pinball am i still i believe so i probably am whatever uh what's up zach um i get you know he hooks me up a little bit it's not like the game is free sure you know but even at that even at a good you know sponsorship price whoever's out there sponsored by whoever even that i would lose money um just you know moving the game on so like why i can't justify right now having a game to let's say i will immediately lose 500 just for having in my house but that's the kind of normal market for like if i would say a normal normal person like i'm not someone who's gonna own a game for like a few years and lose a few hundred bucks of course like that's true but for me where it's like it could be two days it could be a week and just like i lost 500 bucks on something i don't like that fucking sucks and i gotta haul you you were writing this at a very unique time right i mean i don't i mean i haven't uh been in pinball my whole life but i don't know if that what we saw ever happened and will ever happen again uh you speak of covid the the mark well yeah i guess that that was the catalyst for this market you speak of right yeah and let me show you uh you can see this but so this is my pinside favorite list hey now everyone can see like what do i have here oh surprise surprise a couple lord of the rings and an iron man pro so this specific lord of the rings nothing i mean i don't remember who I've chatted with in, you know, nothing against these sellers or whatever, but this one right here specifically, right before I stopped and I was getting a little, like, antsy because I hadn't had a Lord of the Rings in a couple weeks, so I was, you know, crack cocaine like, ugh, I gotta get a fucking Lord of the Rings. When this listing started, I think it was at 13 and a half, which was normal because I had a Lord of the Rings LE earlier this year. Wow. I would say February or March of 2023 with almost identical mods to this, as in like valuable stuff color dmd it was just in perfect condition and i sold mine for yeah 13.2 let's say and i bought it for roughly the same thing and this one started at 13 and i can i think i might even sent an offer of around like 12 8 or whatever but this 11 and a half thousand for a lord of the rings limited edition someone who's willing to ship is just like i mean this the same with like le's out the door now they just instantly drop like two grand um and it's just for me right now i can't do my thing and if i can't do my thing you know what am i gonna do you're not losing money i mean people are still coming in and playing pinball right yeah i'm in a completely uh different situation um yeah what what you do is is totally foreign to me um well first of all i wouldn't pay that much for for machines uh period you know you can't it's hard to make money back you were you were buying incredible machines at a at a premium and and playing them and actually you were able to sell them and and and not lose money which is important for what you were doing yeah hey yeah terrible you just bought your lord of the rings back from a friend who bought it from do you so hey man what is that how does that work like if i have a friend that i've bought a game from and sold it or vice versa like we try to just like either just equal it out or like you lose 100 i make 100 yeah let me know uh turbo how that worked out but so you wouldn't pay that much money for a pinball machine for the bat is what you're seen right um yeah because the the most expensive machine we purchased it would be godfather and i and i think that was 12 new is that correct there was 12 and then there's a collector's edition for like 15 we we got what is called the limited edition right yeah and um it's fine great game we're not having any problems with it um you know other than you know regular pinball stuff you know having to rebuild flippers, what have you. But it's just at that price point, it's hard to pay the machine off quickly, you know. But like a Stern Pro around six and a half? All Sterns, just no matter what it is. And those guys, I mean, they've got such a head start on anybody else trying to do this. And it's not just build quality and the way the flippers feel and all that stuff. It's just like gaming and making a game that's fun to play and you want to keep playing. Stern is the king. And they just earn, they out-earn every single machine no matter, you know, and there are some outliers. Like Rick and Morty earned incredibly well because it's Rick and Morty, right? Sure. The theme did it. Right. There are some outliers, but just nothing earns like a Stern. I know I sound like a shill. Why don't they say that? Nothing earns like a Stern. That's what I say now on our podcast. Yeah, that's cool. We are sponsored by Stern Insider Connected. Like your bat is, yeah. Did you guys do one last weekend? I haven't checked because normally you drop on Sunday. We haven't done one in a long time, and people are asking us about it. We've been traveling, and as part of our travels, Rachel and I got sick, and that's why I'm still a little congested and what have you. But, yeah, we're going to do one either today or Wednesday. Today's Monday. We have a tournament on Tuesday, so we won't do one then. Okay. Maybe this will satisfy people for a little bit, your voice. I mean, they need it. Oh, 100%, and that's why I jumped on this. People need to hear us. Yeah. But, yeah, back to the earning stuff. It's just nothing earns like a stern, and we see it. You know, and if I could have – I guess if we could have purchased Godfather used for, you know, eight or nine, that would have been better. But still, it just doesn't have that rate of earning like any Stern. I mean, it did right when you got it, right? I think it was – if I remember correctly. Oh, 100%. Any machine, the first two months are going to kill it. Sure. Because people are trying it out. And it's not that it's a bad machine. There are diehards that love Godfather and love. It is a very different machine with complicated rules. And you kind of really need to know the rules to have fun with it, which makes it different than most sterns. You know, a lot of sterns you can just grab it and start flapping around and, oh, shit. Oh, that's what she said. I'm doing stuff. Yeah. Just grab it, flap it around. look mom i'm doing stuff yeah yeah i said that around 11 11 years old but i didn't tell my mom you know uh who do we have we have another person here people are actually hanging out on twitch yeah well i think anyone uh you know if you're listening to this just the audio only like i think the right call and what i'm gonna do is stream during work hours because that seems to be the best use of time so bonus points if you watch this live during work like if you work at a software company which a lot of you probably do or work remote just turn this on during work you know put on your second monitor put an earbud in um you're not going to hear anything great uh just going to talk about random shit um per usual yeah might not even be pinball no uh we can talk about p a little bit because you mentioned before we got on here that rachel was concerned about your urination frequency. Is that correct? Yeah, but she thought I had diabetes. I mean, come on. Well, apparently maybe peeing a lot is one of the clues. But I live in Phoenix, man. I drink a lot. It has to go somewhere. Now, is this like throughout the day? Give you a spoiler alert from my end. I drink a lot of water. You know, just a lot. So like my main thing is like it's good i mean at night no shit every two hours i wake up and pee it's just how it goes so are you like what during the day what every 10 seconds you're peeing or what's the thing that's what people want yeah and it used to be it used to be worse when i first moved here because i was really trying to hydrate a lot my body was getting acclimated because i moved from south carolina which is almost always 80 to 90 humidity to here which is almost always zero and i was you know my my skin was like cracking and stuff and so i was i think i was over compensating i was drinking like gallons of water and uh yeah so you gotta pee a lot right and yeah yeah so it's a little better now but uh i've gotten it under control all the peeing but um it's not diabetes i had it checked i went and had a full physical and my doctor couldn't believe how fit I was. I tried to get some testosterone from them. Wait, wait, wait. I'm real. I googled it. Between 6-7 times I pee way more than 6-7 times. So your doctor first said I'm stunned how good in shape you are. They just lost their shit. Then you tried to get tea from them, which I get that. It's popular, right? Everybody's doing TRT. right and i am i participate in a combat sport which you know that stuff would help of course and uh so i asked him i was like um and this is a good doctor this is a young guy he's smart he does jujitsu also he's tuned in and i was like hey so you know could we check my test level see if i can you know get a little extra and the first thing he looks at me and goes are you having some kind of problem and so they told me too or asked me i was like no yeah i've said no he's like well you don't need at i think what you got to say is like you got to suddenly go like oh well yeah my my testicles are like the size of m&ms now and i i have an underection intent you say that and they're like jesus dude but but this is really the doctor you want he's he's not gonna just give you stuff just because right so i was like yeah you're right you know if i'm not having any problems i I don't need it. So I'm good. No diabetes. I don't need any testosterone. Well, I think good for you for getting your checkup. I have a checkup tomorrow. Fucking, I don't want the invasive, hey, let's check the, you know. And he always gives me, hey, you want me to check it this time? Like, maybe don't. Fuck. Are you getting a camera up your butt? Nah. What? What? You're getting to be that age, right? Yeah, maybe a finger or two. I mean, whatever. I'll take it. But I can take a couple fingers. uh speaking of fingers up butt or peeing earning stern um again i've been on a pinball break for a while and i guess i still am i don't know if i'll buy a game again maybe not i wish i could play i wish electric bat was like i'm pointing to the right was in my backyard um and i could play all day without buying games but i can't so um but stern man i am flabber fucked and gassed by what they are doing with like i guess i don't even know what's new since i've talked let's just go down a couple things in my mind the black knight topper thing so black knight sword of rage topper is getting redone and they're charging 1500 for it instead of i think when it initially came out it was like four or five hundred which you know of course is the people like oh how fucking dare you and then the people were like well in the secondary market it's been like $2,500 to $3,000, so they're like, fuck yeah, it's super cheap. And going from the Jurassic Park LE to the Elvira's House of Horrors LE to rerunning Stranger Things to the Toppers, I'm of two minds. One, I think it's the more accurate to myself. Like, yeah, they're a business. They want to sell pinball machines. Just keep making this shit. Remake Ghostbusters. Remake Lord of the Rings. Remake... Tell me if you're going to remake Lord of the Rings. Fuck you. Don't do that without letting me know. But the Metallica, Ghostbusters, just keep making the fucking games. But it's another nail in the coffin to the secondary market, which the secondary market, to me, was never a place to make money, but it was a place to somewhat safe have a hobby without losing your shit. And this is making it tougher and tougher and giving me pause. Like, oh, shit, I don't even know if I can get a Black Knight for cheap for a little while if they remake it or toppers. toppers and and this stuff you know from the alvira house to dress park to this this does this do anything for you and rachel or you guys just like oh yeah keep making this shit let us buy it uh we're not even tuned into it because we don't we don't dabble in the the secondary market um i feel your pain and um yeah i i really enjoyed it when you were able to almost like it was like trading baseball cards almost. Oh, I don't have this one. It was a way for you to have a bunch of different games and not lose your ass, and that was awesome. But Rachel and I are just not in tune to it. We get the new Sterns when they release them, and then here and there, when a friend will be like, hey, I have this classic game at a good price. Do you want it? We do that. Yeah, so I do know from people, industry folks, that this is the new norm. Because Stern's a business. They're growing. And they have a gigantic new facility that they have to keep operating and a lot of employees to pay. This isn't going to change. This is what you're going to see. um which i think is oh sorry go ahead yeah no i wish i i think is is probably good for the industry um just there's more product out there you know um i think we when when you were in involved in this secondary market heavily heavily i think this is something we're going to talk about for years to come but damn do you remember that when it was like that you know i i just i don't think it's coming back no and i what i was gonna say is just agree with you of like i think this is the right call and it's the right thing to do but we're in this transition period now of going from pre-covid which was the normal i i think it might even go who can predict no one predicts the stock market on 100 accuracy all that kind of stuff financially So we don't have to get into, oh, he was right. I'm right. Who fucking knows is the answer. But my instinct slash gut would say it might even go below what it was before COVID. Because I think with, and by that, I mean like the disparity between new and used prices. Before COVID, it was very standard. And you kind of just knew, yeah, I'll lose a couple hundred. Secondary market is just whatever. And we're getting back to that, which is great and healthy. And I would think Stern, instead of making, let's say, I don't know, 5,000 of one game, will just maybe more make 3,000 of many games just to not... I just don't want to flood the market because if they flood the market, these used games are going to be dirt cheap and it's going to... People are going to drop out of the hobby, myself included, because it just doesn't make financial sense anymore. And the thing that is strange that I've seen from afar... and I haven't really played much or paid attention aside from maybe checking Pinside every few days and just taking a five-second look where I used to spend all day scouring shit like an obsessed fuck. It's like they're making more games, and they want it to be in the home, and they want it to be in an arcade, and they're putting commercials on the LCD to get it at home, which takes things away from the arcade, but they're raising the prices for home, so it makes more sense to go to the arcade. and like they're kind of not picking a lane they're trying to do everything to everyone and that is not a good uh that's what it sounds like yeah the shotgun method right and they got to pick a lane and if i'm this is nothing against electric bad but i think like the way of the arcades is like you either have to be a select few like you or it's not going to suddenly go back to what it was in the 80s and 90s like all right now there's tons of successful arcades i'm sure you and rachel hear this all the time and i do as well honestly from people who would reach out to the pinball party asking for like advice from you guys like oh we want to do that we want hey that that's just not how it goes where you just turn it on and suddenly you're great like you guys are you know lightning in the bottle over there i'm not to say it's not replicable but but it also took five years and we grew very slowly and from two people who were already pinball experts 100 right yeah that makes a huge difference yeah we're enthusiasts we know what's going on and you're the population of what you're basically phoenix right which is yeah like what 5 000 people i mean five five thousand five hundred people five yeah i think we have like five million people here um the greater phoenix area jesus um so like if i was to do that in my greater area maybe not not even a hundred ninety thousand yes rachel hey how are you she can't hear me and i can't hear okay see you later right um he said hello jason said hello um maybe 90 000 so if i took the electric bat business model and scaled it down to my town i don't know if it would work not because it's not great but even the like little subculture here of punk-rocky, which I'm very much aware of and love it. Not that it's your only clientele, but it's like a subset in a subset in a subset of a gaming market. You just need the numbers to do it. You're right. It would be hard. That's what she said. The point is that... Boing! I'm watching you. Twitchy, twitchy, twitch. You interrupted me scouring Pinside like a sick fuck. oh i i i'm glad and uh i i know what it feels like yeah welcome you're you're of like-minded uh crowd i guess it's the two of us a pin side jesus god places a cesspool or rattle as you say stern trying to be everything to everyone like the home pin was another try and i i don't think that was ever gonna work um i don't know i i'm not jealous of stern trying to figure out the like happy medium between all of this of i mean how many arcades are like electric bat that can sustain the volume how many homes have enough disposable income to sustain let's say i don't know what stern's you know um hope for each home is like well we hope every home not every but their clientele have what one game we hope they have two to five i don't fucking know in the past it was a multiply yeah they do multiply um i take minimum two not minimum two if i dip my toes back in the only way i could have one pinball machine is like if i had lord of the rings and it sat in the basement and i just played it like once a year um and obsessed over it and that's kind of you know where i'm always kind of at or i gotta have like two or three because it's a game like anything it'll get bored but i don't I don't know. So I can from from our end. We are growing and doing better than ever. And it seems like every year it's just like more people are showing up, more people are dropping coins in the machines. But it's it's not it's not just us. Just in the Phoenix area. There are a bunch of successful arcades. and you know we we know them all we're buddies with them we all talk that everybody's doing well and we talked to tons of other arcades in the area um you know you have lit formerly tilt near you that is in a new facility and they've spent a lot of money and and they're growing in popularity and we're seeing that around the nation i agree with you we are never going to see it at the level that it was in the heyday the 70s 80s and 90s we're not going to see that again um but i would love to be surprised but also just the the way pinball is growing um i don't hang out on on uh pin side uh you know i finally just made an account last month oh um i can't remember why um i think i'm electric kale but anyway yeah so well let let get on okay keep going i gonna get on this for all for all the people who have So oh that number there You saw the 1 million Phoenix Yeah, that was just Phoenix. That's just Phoenix. But Phoenix is Mesa, Tempe, the Valley. That's what I'm talking about. And that's where, you know, a lot of pinball stuff's happening. um but like on on ours on reddit r slash pinball i've noticed especially throughout covid you saw a lot of new people going on coming on buying their first machines talking about it our distributor um game room goodies i mean they're they're more busy than they've ever been uh with a lot of of course they're supplying arcades but mostly supplying collectors and and people with home arcades uh you know the quote-unquote man cave or it could be a woman cave whatever yeah yeah that sounds but but they if i googled woman cave let's not not lie turn off safe search which is always off yeah yeah okay keep going sorry woman cave the industry grow it really is there there are more streams i remember back in the day you would go to twitch and look for a pinball stream and it was jack danger and then one person you never heard of stream yeah with the shitty ass microphone you couldn't see shit and then yes you'd watch jack for sure yeah they're using yeah some little webcams um now i mean there are people all over the world streaming there and was more importantly tons of competitive streams you know people are spending money on these very expensive wireless rigs um we just had a huge three-day tournament and aimless pinball matt and amy uh they they came out and and streamed our entire uh you know tournament we had a three-day tournament they were here the whole time and i mean they bought thousands of dollars worth of equipment in and and wireless a wireless rig a telestrator you know people are really uh getting excited about this stuff um i what's a telestrator uh so like when you're watching a football game and and the oh your wi-fi shit wait okay you're back i'm back you're back okay what part of the telestrator did you get uh it's it and then i lost it okay so so it's like like when you're watching you're hanging out with your family at thanksgiving and you have and you're forced to watch football it's it's like like when the commentators they draw on the screen to show you like oh this was the path of the ball yeah so you know they're doing stuff like this this this thing's growing and you know i was talking to our distributor uh not too long ago about galactic tank force and you know we were having so many issues with all that games darn shit yeah yeah yeah yeah we'll talk we'll get into that okay but um you know we were asking them have you had any problems with any others you've sold they said they sold two but they're still in the box because they're supplying a lot of like what seems like new construction like people buying new homes and going oh i want an arcade so they're just buying up machines to to throw in here um unfortunately they got galactic tank force they're gonna get a little surprise when they open that thing up yeah it's just actually a piece of dog shit oh dude wait wait we gotta get to turbo graphics mentioned uh non-pinball people are shocked when they come to my house i've gotten several people into pinball to some degree but they didn't realize it still exists they can't believe the new technology in the games compared to what they remember i always make sure to tell them where they can publicly play it okay so he's one of the good ones yeah and and when people come to my house right now they're like oh what happened to pinball and i say don't talk about it we move on but when when it is here it's usually like oh i thought you just had this game and now you have these four other fucking games and what are you doing um and then you know i explained to them and they're like what the fuck's wrong with you that's what they say but then you know they of course they inevitably ask they say oh that's awesome how much does it cost and you almost like let's say you have a pro a stern pro and let's get weird a stern pro and a jersey jack standard like twelve thousand dollar whatever right oh how much does one cost well it can range from six thousand to fifteen thousand dollars bro what's up and they're like yes get fucked you know like i like i'm are you a stupid person for doing this and you say yes and um they aptly say that's the price of a car and you say yes um and then they kind of do that little judge thing like what do you do for a living you make are you better than me you know he's like ah fuck this So I actually, like, I don't, eh. But, I mean, TurboGrafx, how many games do you currently have? I think Twitchery, Twitchy, Twitchy Twitch, I know he's got, and he's local, and he's a few miles that way. He has, what do you have, four games kind of that stay there? But you're a, Twitchy Twitcher is a, he gets a game, fixes it up, moves it on, fixes it up. I'd say similar, I'm similar to him or he's similar to I, and like we, some games just last a little bit. but um uh 15 13 cabs one of which is a p3 get fucked are you serious cool i p3s are dope p3s are so fucking cool all the negative stuff i hear is from either podcasts or uh whatever essentially secondhand information to me if i was if i was if i was me and i am coming into this out of nowhere like hey what the fuck i have ten thousand dollars to spend and i heard about a p3 if i was only doing like a day's worth of research that would seem like that is that is the way to go a hundred percent and even i mean if there wasn't things that i knew about it i would totally be into that of just the software updates switching games around but i can't imagine uh let's see p3 gets played more than anything else i have far and away especially when non-pilgrim yeah I would think the same thing. It's kind of like cars are going to the electric vehicle thing long term. I mean, Tesla, etc. But I don't know. I'm talking about cars because I've been into cars the last few months. That's what I've been doing and spending money doing stupid shit. But yeah, P3 seems like... Maybe Stern should do what Multimorphic is doing, just do it better. and that might be the ticket where like stern makes a game but you can swap it i don't know man that seems like a lot to ask of a customer jesus the more i talk about it yeah do you guys have a p3 yeah yeah or have you toyed with it we don't um no but i've played them tons of times at conventions and they're super cool a lot of fun i mean i even we used to play him a lot back in the day before you know all the you know all the more modern stuff like scott's game and the and the uh what is the weird al he he had some kind of racing game i remember we were playing the car houston arcade is it and he had like four of them linked up and you could like you were battling each other like you were racing each other but you i mean you're playing pinball right man it was so cool it's fun um i mean we wouldn't we wouldn't get one for the arcade just uh because i don't know about operating it and i you know i'm not gonna risk it but i'd like to have one at home it's fun i'll tell you what you don't want is a galactic tank for it yeah let's talk shit about that for a while it's bad i mean it's just bad it is it is horrible uh please don't buy this thing we finally had to take ours off of the floor so you know just to recap you warned us and said don't get it yeah but we had already told our before it was actually released just by seeing videos and how you know campy it was and the story was funny we were like and most importantly we had a hot wheels and hot wheels was one of the most reliable machines we ever had so we were like this is great we'll have another super reliable machine so we told our distributor that hey sign us up so um and that was like a long time ago and so it finally he was finally able to secure a couple of them he's like okay we have it okay so we paid him we were excited we uh we unboxed it and it's beautiful it's a great machine great great job uh Christopher Franchi we it does look great it's super cool the artwork i mean his art's always great so and then we start we play it for one day we're like this is great you know but we're just playing like one player games and goofing off and then we set it up in the arcade and man is this thing just riddled with problems and we're constantly having to refund people. Oh! Yeah, there are loads and loads of issues with this thing, mechanical and software-wise. And this is what's funny. The podcast we did right after getting Galactic Tank Force, we raved about it. We're like, man, this thing's beautiful. But we're like, more to come. We'll update you. And then the very next podcast, we had to be like, I don't know if you heard it, but we were like, man, this thing has serious, serious issues. And before we said anything like this, you know, we didn't, you know, maybe we got a lemon, you know. But we started talking to other operators who were dealing with the same issues. And there's a whole thread on Pinside, the Galactic Tank Force owners, you know, club or whatever. You know how each game has their message board, whatever. Oh, yeah. Keep going. I want to find it on here. Yeah? Yeah, and people are all having the same issues. This isn't an isolated thing. So they – the people – is that it? Yeah. Oh, yeah. So what's amazing, if you go to like 16, 17, 18 – I don't know what page it's on right now. Wait, wait. This comment from Rizmo on Pinside. I wanted to read some reviews about this game. Does anyone know why it's not showing up the top 100 page? I would think maybe because it's not top 100. It's a bad game. Anyway, keep going. The reviews are it's bad. There you go, Rizmo, if you're listening. Don't do it. Yeah. So if you – I think it's like 17, 18 or something like that. The page is on there. There's a guy that breaks down all of the issues he's having with it with really great write-ups. You can see them. They're great write-ups with photos. And so anyhow. Okay, I'll find it. Yeah. Somewhere in there, they dropped our podcast where we're talking about, like, man, we're having real problems with it. And most importantly, problems with customer service, just not really getting any help out of it. And so David Fix, who is the vice president there at American and also also works on he's on the board at Expo. He called Rachel. He actually called the bar. He called the bar, which is weird because I had already called him and left him my number. So he calls the arcade and then Rachel calls him back. He picks up and he was like, oh, I feel so bad about this. We saw your your we listened to your podcast and immediately had a meeting about it. And we want to fix these problems. Well, long story short, he hasn't been able to fix any of our problems. The machine has had to come off of the floor. It's just, you know, if we can't make money with it, what's the point of having it there? Yeah, that's that's the guy. The guy you're showing right now. And he's breaking down everything. And I want you to see this because this is an important part of the story. Okay. He's listing all these problems, and he's doing it in a good light as to kind of help people. Yeah. He's not meaning to trash it in any way. He's just like, these are the issues. Because if you look before he started doing this, people were asking, like, what's going on with this? Yeah. So anyhow, we've kind of, David's Fix has kind of ghosted us now. We're like, hey, we really need help. You know, last thing, he was supposed to send us some beta code and a new switch, and we haven't heard anything from him. Because I just, I don't, I don't know what's up with this company. Anyhow, very, we saw a very interesting interview on, are you familiar with 904 Pinballzine? No. Okay, so a guy, and I'm sorry I can't remember his name, but I've met him so many times at conventions. He has been doing this pinball zine, which I think is just online. It's not a true zine, I guess. He has a YouTube channel called 904 Pinball Zine, and he interviews a guy named Steve Cummings of American Pinball at IAPA, which I think was in Florida. Very interesting stuff going on here. so in the interview yeah that's it that's it right there and this guy's been in the scene forever i've seen him at conventions interviewing people and he he does it like quick and dirty gorilla sky it's just like him and his cell phone it's nice yeah yeah so um so this guy steve cummings he starts interviewing this guy steve and uh he tells a story about like how he started working with american he was selling radio ads and doing collections for like student loans and things weren't going well so he walked into american pinball because it was near his house and said hey i'm i'm this guy this is the this is my background you guys need any help and they immediately they immediately hired him for sales no he's i mean you can watch the video So he says it. So Americans literally hiring people off the street that have no pinball experience. And so, you know, I keep watching this thing. And I think at about like at about 13 minutes into it, this is a very interesting part. Is this the interview you're talking about? That's the interview. Yeah. OK. This is a really interesting part. this dude steve starts talking about all of the naysayers the people that say there and he specifically says all of the people on pin side are lying there are no problems with galactic tank force oh okay first of all you can tell he's never been in pinball because all fucking pinball machines have problems yeah no no company comes out and says there are zero problems with our machines yeah i mean so either you know he may be a nice guy but he is absolutely lying and for him to call the people on pin side liars it's just straight fucked up um because they posted our shit on pin side and we're definitely not lying and we've talked to the company about this so either you know i mean he doesn't need to be gaslighting people for sales you know um so this is this is really odd this incident combined with what i'm hearing from industry people about how american is doing their suppliers wrong like i talked to three yeah expo yep yeah where you know american is just like ordering parts and not paying for them you know and so i'm kind of and and and not only we're hearing this rumor and we're hearing this rumor from many places where uh the owner i guess i'm guessing it vasani is saying if you don't sell like two two or three hundred of these galactic tank forces before the end of the year which you know might be january for them or mid-january i don't know how they do their calendar um they're not going to green light the next one i just something something majorly wrong is going on with this company and they they need to shift things around and and fix this or i mean they really they just they bottom line need uh a new leadership uh but but do not buy galactic tank force because that thing's a piece of shit yeah do not uh good call um we'll find your past self and hear your current self talking about it um let's see owners of galactic tank force at least via pinside 28 pinsiders have this game in their collection 28 that's a big right 28 um okay let's see the le do they do they differentiate i forget i think right and now 39 full disclosure i always say because i don't want to just rag on a machine just to rag on machine but no you know it it pisses me off this asshole is calling people liars you know nobody's lying you know i mean there are issues with this machine and they're consistent from many people i talked to um but there are people in that thread who are saying they're enjoying their machine and i could very much see it if you have it at home and you're only turning it on for a couple of games here and there i'm sure it's fine i'm sure it's totally fine for the home user um but it's when when you put it on the streets and try to make money with it because one one of the biggest problems is multiplayer games that there's some bug in the software where it's it's makes it hard to play a four-player game because uh you know you'll like lock a ball and it'll move on to the next player you'll you'll lock a ball from multiball and it'll just move to the next player just out of nowhere and a lot of other stuff like that but uh anyway i don't yeah no it's not to rag on It's not like, let's turn on the shit on pinball machine stream. It is what it is. I need to pull up Knapp, K-N-A-P-P Arcade. For those out there, go visit Knapp Arcade for basically everything. That's kind of my news drip of the last couple months has just been Knapp Arcade. So I just want to go down this a little bit. See if we can shine light on something that's not trash in a game. So I'm just going to go down a couple of these news things. Chime in as you see fit. Actually, let's go reverse. all right let's go reverse um let's go from shit let's go to the bottom of the page fuck it all right november 14th sorry everyone stream pinball code updates anything yeah for like every game under the sun bunch of shit that that was a busy day for us i bet it was is there any standouts from those games that you know that people have said or that you're like oh this huge new thing everyone loves it uh or was it kind of like everything needed uh this is like the adding commercials to the games and that shit i think it was adding commercials it was updating node boards um foo fighters got some new stuff but you know we've been so busy i haven't had enough time to delve into it i think like some of the biggest stuff was bond foo fighters venom and stranger things maybe i think they've in some of those games they added uh you know how they're doing like options to go straight to mini wizard modes i think those may have been added in some of the games okay but but but most of all the games it was just uh i think they were adding those commercials and then updating node board stuff all right moving on merrill barrels of fun shares pictures okay that was a fun yeah arrows of fun labyrinth pinball production implements improving yeah fucking hey that's just that seems to be the uh the shining light of 2023 is labyrinth still yeah this company I am excited about this company they're great great guys they have the tools and the talent to be successful and we are going to see I guarantee we're going to see really amazing things from these folks and they strike me as the opposite of American Pinball's alleged response to thing of where like I bet if something is busted at Lab or you know whatever oh what can we do to help what we're going to do to fix it. I mean, even here, they're implementing improvements during production. Like, oh yeah, let's fix it. I don't know if ego, hubris, whatever you want to call it, people just think they're above the way that humans work. Like, oh, we don't need to do the good customer service. Our product will speak for itself. Right. What are you talking about? Then you shouldn't be doing this. It's just not going to work out well, bro. All right, Stern Pinball shows a behind the looks at how Venom is made. I bet it's made with wood and metal and lights and stuff. All right. The next three American pinball games are original themes. Next reveal February. Yeah. Let's just wait and see. FranchiArt? This is all new to me. This is what I like. I haven't paid attention to this. So the American pinball thing, let's just see if they keep making games. FranchiArt on Next Spooky. Yeah. So that's, well, let's assume it's Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Well, and I guess what I'm hearing from people is they're going to kind of do like what they did with Halloween and Ultraman. So same layout. One of them is going to be Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and the other one's going to be Looney Tunes. That is a – you know, they did it before, and it was like, that's neat. But Ultraman, it's like, what are you doing? But this, I would think, oh, but Looney Tunes is almost a better theme than Texas – no, not almost. It is. Looney Tunes is a better theme than Texas Chainsaw. So much kudos on you, Spooky, for a good double theme. New run, Black Knight Hopper. Oh, actually, I didn't see that. Hello. Thanks, Jason, for giving me all this news. So this sounds like they're giving it the Elvira treatment, right? Well, new run of Black Knight Hopper. So, yeah, knew that. Special LE version coming. Godzilla Premium on the line. Imagine that. so okay Rumblings of Stern is about to do a special limited edition of Black Knight Sword of Rage Machines please please please please stop your production if you're not doing this please do make a special LE but take the fucking upper play field off of it and make a special LE of the pro you know make the pro the game yes you have to have sales the pro is the game nine out of ten people will say the pro is the better game there's a few that like to say, well, you must have not played the old Black Knight. I don't care. It's a different game. If it was a remake of that game, sure. Nah, take the upper playfield out. If they'd made... Oh, I think that's the sweet spot. They take a game like this, similar to Ghostbusters Pro, which I think takes the edge on the premium as well. Take the pro version of a game that's better than the L.E. or premium, and make a special version of that pro. but don't they better not charge 13 grand for like a black knight sword of rage that game is not worth that much um make a pro version that's pimped out and charge premium price for it like i mean literally a premium price so what 95 9800 and add you need to add a smidge more code to black knight sword of rage i think as much as i love that game and coming from a music aficionado musician sound engineer like the music does get old even though it's great it just needs a little more variety to it um it's fantastic music just like you know um right and you bring up a great point since they looks like they are releasing a special le version you know we're going to get good code which that should make people happy the existing owners yeah because the pro god the pro is so much better the two god man i was just i was playing it yesterday dude it's so good it's so good bro it's it's not even the fact that the the upper play field slows it down um but it does full stop like the best shot in black knight sword of rage pro in my opinion is the center ramp which is like a very shallow ramp it whips the ball back that upper play field fucks up the best shot in the game as well not only does it add a catapult multiball that like yeah just it's it's too big it's it's not fun if anyone likes it i'm not saying you suck but i most people i know prefer the pro um yeah if they rerun just the pro though i that'd be a game with new code that's the game i'd buy because that that's that that game feels right at the right price like a similar to iron man where used or whatever it's like six grand 6.5. Black Knight Sword of Rage. Fast fucking game. Simple rules, but still fun. 6.65 as far as price. That's it. I'm sorry, man. I'm laughing at this troll, man, and I'm not going to feed him. We got a troll? We got a troll! Our first troll. We got our first troll! I don't think I had any idea what my life was like. Thank you. For all the audio listeners, both of your lives This is a chat on Twitch. Both of your lives sound empty and sad. All you have is this. Oh, man, I'm sorry. Appreciate you taking the time on your day to say that. That's a bummer. I hope that person has the best day and year ever. Yeah, man. And finds something else to do. I hope things start turning up for you. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it, man. Okay, so back to the news. What do we have? Back to the news. um oh oh and by uh by the way yes uh the 904 pinball guy is named cody great guy go check out his content thank you turbo graphics Thanks man So Stern launches app and it crashes I didn see that And it crashes. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, tell me about it. All I've read is this. All right. Well, I got to see it before it was released. I couldn't talk about it or anything like that. It's just like – it's nothing special. It's just like the website. It's – but now it's an app. But it looks exactly like if you use the website to log in, it was the same thing. What this will bring is now they will be able to do push notifications and more things that they can do within an app. Yes. But it's the same thing. And yes, we did crash the shit out of their servers. Everybody's trying to download. Good. Hell yeah, man. Right. Everybody tried to log in and do everything in the same hour. And yeah, they couldn't handle the load. But yeah, so it's a... Wait, what is with these couldn't handle these load? They couldn't handle the load. You said that. You said woman cave. You said grabbed it out of nowhere, start shaking. What was it earlier? Ah, rewind it. I don't know. Yeah, you're just thinking of... Or maybe I am. They launched the app. That's you. No, that's me. It must be me. Stern, keep doing it. Keep doing what you're doing, but hey, figure out who your audience is. You can't do everything to everyone. All right. American Pinball. Oh, here we go. Here we go. Okay, let's talk about this. We got to say it because not everyone can see what we're looking at. Oh, yeah, yeah. Go ahead. Do you want to? Nah, you take it. You take it. Okay, the next article. American Pinball reveals special features for Galactic Tank Force Signature Edition machines. it looks like what they did since they can't sell these things right they brought them brought them back to the factory put a new apron on there and had everybody in the factory sign it and then added a lunchbox and then added like three or four thousand dollars to the price nice correct something like that oh hey before we get too far um everything now show is saying i gotta play more galactic tank force i really admire the art and the theme yeah maybe you weren't here like 10 minutes ago and you're right it looks great it kind of sounds great it's pretty cool if kale as an owner of the game give him the warning you mentioned earlier um yeah no you're right you have to find a place no not my but don't worry about it man don't worry about it everything go ahead yeah yeah uh find find one and play it it's it's cool it looks cool it's a fun experience yeah but it's it's just not reliable and it doesn't uh it doesn't play in in our arcade and in in an r in a busy arcade where you're having multiple people play it all day long with uh you know two three four player games it's just not reliable at all but if you find one in an arcade drop some money in it yeah play it play a one play a game you're probably going to have a fun time yep i agree that's um uh there's one at a local pinball near me i'm lucky it's next to legends of uh yeah legends of alhela actually like um to which i've not touched but i'm curious i like legends of alhela better than galactic tank force but honestly like in my pantheon of every pinball machine i've played galactic tank forces up there in the like first impressions was so bad of what aside from no visually a plus looks awesome yeah theme a like to me you know original theme it goes and it's just it doesn't fucking play well and it doesn't work well let's let's move on we've we've given them enough uh barrels of fun labyrinth is now available to play at seven public arcades yeah so it's getting out there let me for those i guess listening uh here are oh my man all right i owe this this is where uh labyrinth as of six days ago is available to play probably more places uh i owe arcade bar in saint wait in saint madison wisconsin i live and was born and raised in wisconsin is saint madison a thing or is St. Madison Wisconsin? Is this a suburb? Now I'm doing this. Okay, I don't know. Anyway. IORK Bar in Madison. Lumberjack Johnny's. Hey, Lumberjack Johnny's. Good friends of the show. Appleton, Wisconsin. Another great place. 61 Pin Bar in Sunbury, Pennsylvania. Go play labyrinth there. Kickback Pinball Cafe in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Coin Slot, LOL, in Traverse City, Michigan. Wormhole Pinball in Houston, Texas. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Open for public play during IFPA tournaments. And Joysticks Classic Games and Pinballs in Houston, Texas. So go find Labyrinth out there and play. And when is Electric Bad? Also, On Tilt. On Tilt. AC Goji, On Tilt. In California, they have one, too. They just got one recently. so you can play there also uh yeah you were about to ask when are we going to get it um we are not um and wait wait wait just because you are not getting one is that what you're saying we're not that's correct we're not getting one um we played it we had a great time we know the folks that built it and man and we have a great relationship with them we just uh you know we we got really got burned on Galactic Tank Force. And I'm... These guys are not gonna... We're not worried about them burning us. We just don't... We don't... Right now, we don't want to risk that much money on a company who is putting out their first machine. We're just being cautious. Stop being... Okay. I got no rebuttal. Yeah. Shit. I'd do the same thing. This one, you know. But we might get, what, the fifth element? That's the next one? We might get that. Once we hear back from all of these arcades and that this thing can handle it, just, and we always stress this, the issues we see with machines, most homeowners just do not see. You know, if I had a home arcade and had a bunch of money, I would probably already have Labyrinth, right? um but uh you know i'm just i'm not willing to to test it out in a place like electric bat arcade that's open 20 hours a day i want to see i'm opening up chat gbt for all those listening uh fifth element i don't think that's a good theme for pinball i like the movie i even thought back in the day it was always the the epitome of like home theater test out your home theater on fifth element i'm gonna see if chat gbt knows how popular is fifth element these days now this is not usually the way to talk to chat gbt not a lot of details element movie or does it know um it knows i guess uh usually the more details you can give ai the better for it to get output but here's we here let's start with this jet chat gbt as of my last knowledge update of January 2022. The Fifth Element remains a popular and well-regarded science fiction film. Released yadda yadda. Film's popularity may have yadda yadda. So you ask, can you apply any numerical data to that? You know? He doesn't have real-time access. You may want to check platforms of... Yeah, so I've... I am not excited about this title, but it's just because I've never seen the movie. I'm not familiar with it. But everybody else I talk to is like, how cool is this, Fifth Element? So I think it's going to do well. There's a lot of excitement about it. But, I mean, it's pinball. Just think about this. I mean, Spooky, who is by all means a successful company, right? They keep building machines and selling them and selling out. I mean, they did titles like Alice Cooper. yeah i mean so so it's like when we're talking about the pinball industry it's not like you know it's not exactly popular fuck you jack yeah i think this title will do well uh you're saying labyrinth or fifth element sorry i was i was oh well i was talking about fifth element but i think well obviously that labyrinth is doing well i mean they're selling very well but i think at least 75 percent of how well barrels of fun is doing is is the whole package of great company great people there good response to consumers open to feedback came out with a great product i think if that game would have been fifth element probably is very like theme wise probably very similar i think outpouring of support verbally it just they're just fucking killing it we'll see could be uh six months six months from now they steal everyone's money they leave the country or countries i'm not sure where everyone's from and we all get burned yes these guys won't do that you never know but yeah doubtful doubtful at all yeah um all right so this this oh come on Okay, you tell me. Yo, yo, yo. This is the first I've seen of this. Please let this be real. Okay, so what he's referring to on naparcade.com or going up the list of some recent news ship. Don't stop believing Stern Pinball may have the license for Journey. Now, if you're a target market, you go ahead first. So this makes so much sense to me because I don't know what the timeline's like, but um borg john borg and he he said this in the open it wasn't like like i overheard him say it that he's working on two machines right now sure and uh you know i know what one of them is and if the other one is journey dude please bring it so need a little context of the two opinions here i'm 41 you are, Kale? I'll be 48 in December. So, Journey... That's next month. So I'm basically 48, is what I'm saying. So you're kind of... You're 50, I'm 40. I'm more 50, right, right. Yeah, I'm more 40, you're more 50. You're about to tell me you're not into Journey. I'm not. I mean, like, have I ever once... This is how I'm not into Journey. Have I listened to it and been like, oh, this is the worst music ever? No, it's like you hear it and like, oh, that's just the music that exists. kind of like elton john to a certain extent right have i ever like put it i've never purchased a journey cassette or cd or spot if i've never searched for it on spotify i i think for a lot of people journey fits into the oh i like it it's for people that don't really give a shit about music that again my opinion i'm not nagging it right because i'm sure this so so give me like when you grew up my turn right yeah yeah yeah wait i'm not done shitting over it wait i gotta shit a little more let me i i know you're very well aware of the like me growing up in the 90s the zeitgeist of like nirvana green day offspring you're well aware of the impact so for me that's kind of my first like right so was journey in an era for you like that where like it hit you at the right time and they were huge or i well when when i was a very little kid in the the early 80s Yeah, I mean, because this was on the radio and you'd ride around with your mom and dad and rock freaking Journey. And yeah, so me, let's just say the 50 year old scene. This is a big deal. This is a huge deal. And just as far as like music fans. I mean, these are some of the best musicians in the world. Yeah. I mean, they are unbelievable talents. also with the younger crowd just at the bar when journey comes on they they go fuck yeah you know they get excited about it i'm talking like 20 30 40 year olds i mean they are and i think yeah it was been in pop culture like in that's the thing that that's i think that's the thing for me and i can't sopranos like end with it or something like that well it was like a big deal I don't know. It seems to be, at least from my... I'm trying to separate my music-y, I'm not judge-y, but my kind of... Is that Zach? What's up, Zach? World's Apart. I'm not sure which one's harsh. We get machines from Zach. We're getting a Pulp Fiction. Yes. I don't have a theme song pulled up, but whatever. When I buy my pinball, yeah yeah yeah we gotta figure it out bye bye bye yeah bye bye bye uh yeah zach and uh nicole zach are you like dying or whatever uh i think of like um covid i think he's dying um oh no yeah this just ends act many dies of no no he's he's doing great but i think i saw something but um hope you're doing better man uh journey yeah what you're saying is the thing to me of like growing up in like the kind of i'll just say the skateboard punk rock kind of music scene i'm a musician through and through and i love all sorts but it was always that like that's the music that like yeah the mass is like at bars and they all sing along and it's like pour some sugar i mean that and it's like always kind of against it to a certain extent so i'm trying to like separate my like that side of me from that where like i think someone who's you know literally grew up in compton super into snoop or dre back then and then them listening to matchbox 20 would probably be like are you fucking serious for sure you know but at the same time like ladies yeah we're like fuck them but objectively they're pretty good I love Ed and Barenaked Ladies. Yeah, they're fucking great. You know what's funny? We went, side note, we went, Ed, when I worked at Marco Specialties, Ed came to the office. You know, he's a big pinball fan, Ed from Barenaked Ladies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's been on some podcasts, hasn't he? Yeah, I think so. But he came to the office, and I just met him. And he was so friendly and so much fun. He sat on my lap, and we took photos and had a lot of fun. and then he gave us all tickets to go to the show and we're at the show and there's like i mean i don't know like 10 000 people here it's a big venue it's a stadium right yeah and we're all rocking out and to journey oh no to to bare naked ladies he did did you know ed can play the shit out of drums and and they played some led zeppelin which was amazing they're great musicians um but then they gave us a shout out they he's like he's like listen guys i'm really in the pinball and they put a spotlight on us and said and i would like to thank my friends and family marco specialties and we're all sitting there we're like oh oh my god yeah it was a it was a great time yeah but just a little side note about our friends at uh the bare naked ladies bare naked ladies i yeah i like them it's kind of my sister she was two years older than me so she was always getting me into certain music she she turned me on to like smashing pumpkins and that there was oh that's my shit yeah there was this other side of music than just again to like shit like journey to me and again whatever so i just have this you're saying it's too it's too mainstream but i guess maybe that's i'm not thinking right you probably should do mainstream if you want to sell shit yeah you probably shouldn't make the offspring right you should but journey will be an awesome title why don't they just have uh make a bare naked ladies pinball machine and have uh bare naked ladies to you know eat some of the cost make 500 100 of them well they could do they could do that with uh you know like they did with primus you use the the woe nelly god primus we want to talk about first time i saw primus i was at oz fest and i there was a band playing naked on stage and i didn't know like i didn't know primus yet of other than like um jerry was a race car driver that was kind of like all i knew right but um be able to damn it yeah never did no checkered flag never did come and last but yeah um they're playing naked and the 20 of us roughly 20 of us um we were how old were we 16, I guess, first OzFest. This is when Ozzy was still playing it and I think Manson was there. System of a Down was just... Maybe System of a Down was naked. That era, for what it's worth. We all thought, would it be funny if we made a joint from Cheech and Chong up in Smoke the size of Cheech and Chong? So we did. We all put our weed together, which back then, 20 bucks for an eighth, so it's just the worst. It's just seeds. It's just shitty. We all put it together. And we had this, you know, large dildo-sized marijuana cigarette. And we smoked it and got completely fucked. And when Rob Zombie came on, was it White Zombie or Rob Zombie? I started getting really, like, anxiety lightheaded. I'm like, holy fuck. I had to skip Ozzy because I was too fucked up from that huge joint. I went back in the SUV we drove and passed the fuck out and woke up when everyone came back. Yeah, so I don't know how we got there, but let's use that scenario. Are people going to Journey concerts and getting down like that, or are they just like, oh, my mom's drunk and singing to Journey? I've never been to a Journey concert, but I'm sure they're freaking awesome. I mean, they haven't been separated, no pun intended, for a while. ACDC, I get, for sure, Zach. Yeah, yeah. I mean, ACDC, let's not fuck around. And you can't bring up Journey, Foreigner, Styx, and ACDC without a little Toto. Come on. Journey, Foreigner, Styx. Styx, make a Styx game as a lull. That'd be great. Mr. Roboto. All right, so Journey might be coming from Stern. We'll see. Cool. First, I've heard about it. Two thumbs up. Now, what is this? Major Canadian game distributor sold. Jersey Jack begins sending showroom Elton John to distros? It's a little blurry on my screen. This morning, Canadian company Cineplex announced that it's selling its huge arcade and pinball distribution business Player One Amusement Group for a whopping $155 million. The business was purchased by an international investment company called Open Gate Capital. It's part of the deal. A bunch of shit. In other news, Jersey Jack This is an arcade. I guess like one of those big like mall type arcades, right? Like a Dave and Buster's maybe? I don't know. Right. I guess. I'm not familiar with them. Same. In other news, Jersey Jack Pinball has begun shipping its new Elton John pinball machines to distributors. Yeah. Okay. What? Yeah. Cool. Elton John. I'd play that for a dollar or whatever cost. I wouldn't buy it. Yeah. It's a cool game. I want to play it. New prototype part for spooky pinball game revealed. Okay. So they're doing some guerrilla marketing. Yeah. for Texas Chain. I think this art that Cale was talking about, for those just listening, a little skull and some flippers, it looks more like Elvira art. Looks like some Donny Gillies (Dirty Donny). Them sold. What are you saying sold, Zach? The spooky parts or the Elton John? Elton John. Oh, Canada has two large dealers, them and Nitro. Yeah, I think you're talking about Tommy at Nitro. And then, yeah, it's, man, be happy you don't live in Canada if you are a pinball fan. Because it's a pain in the ass to get machines, get parts. You get taxed. I'm sorry, Canadian friends. But the fishing up there is phenomenal. That's what I hear. Hockey, maple syrup. Whatever else they have, like truck rallies. or anti-COVID truck convoys and all that stuff. Pinball Brothers announced a new L and R. Can I just... I saw this thing at Expo. I'm going to just... I was about to say, can I just say something, but literally I'm just fucking saying why am I asking? Putting so much effort into it. I'll give you permission. I appreciate it. Alien. Now let's do a real perversion. Now let's do a new translate. I mean, maybe they're making money on it, but is there enough volume of Alien out there for people to give a shit? I don't know. Twitchy Twitchy, yeah. Sorry, he mentioned that that sticker looks like Don's Pinball Podcast. I'm not with the times. Dude changes his stuff. Let's go back down. We'll get back to Alien in a second. Yeah, he's right. Don's Pinball Podcast. Oh, it is Don's Pinball. Okay. He's a big spooky fan. He lives closer to them than I do, and I think he does some shared promotion stuff with them and all that. So that's a A little prototype probably upper playfield kind of thing For those just listening We see a hand holding a piece of wood Lol It's got a few notches in it lol And I mean Whoa sorry We got to zoom in on this back here You see this What is going on Yeah yeah yeah We got to go back to this now Is this Charlie's house What is this I don't know, but Zoom is not working. Oh, I've got to get it. I've got to get it to work, everyone. I don't know whose house this is, but we're looking at a picture of someone laying down on their elbows and putting elbows up. Kind of like a photobomb portrait in the back. Yeah, yeah. In the back of someone looking George Costanza-ish from Seinfeld, but with clothes on. Hey, Don, if that's your house, that's awesome. If it's not, whoever, that's awesome. and it's also weird. This is Don's place. I think so. I thought it might have been Charlie's. I don't know. Now my Zoom's all messed up. It could be Charlie's. Well, I'm thinking because of the sticker. Sorry, everyone, for just listening. What the hell are we talking about? But let's move on to Alien. Are they doing too much with Alien and Aliens? Or was the translate that cool to make an announcement? This game, I like playing this game. Have you had a chance to play it? I've played it, yeah. I love the mood. Yes, very cool. All that, yeah. But they don't 100% work. Yeah. Like, I have two friends who have them, and one's at home and one's on location, and they always have some, they consistently have some little problem. That's the only thing that's a bummer about them, but they look freaking cool. And, I mean, if this is, I mean, I think it's time for a new game, but if this is all they can do to kind of get people excited, I mean, whatever. Yeah. Just a lot of Alien stuff. Just more like little additions to Alien. All right. American Pinball announces Black Friday sale. Oh, here we go. Can we just move past it, or do you want to talk about it? Thanks, guys. We're moving past it. Executive decision. Okay. Stern Pinball confirms Black Knight Topper production. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We talked about this earlier. New Black Knight Topper. Hey, rerun the pros. please uh the special le that you may be making please just have it be a pro that's just a little more pimped yeah that's it don't don't make an le this is my favorite this is my favorite stern topper this thing is so cool said everyone yeah yeah it's so good it's amazing the animatronics so good very very cool machine so so this is the best stern topper i think second is the the fish tank from walking dead oh oh wait what's okay keep going are you gonna keep going yeah no because that's it no no they're all cool you know we just got um uh courtesy of stern we have amando topper now and people are loving that thing it is cool yeah man people are and the the funny thing is It's actually like people are going back now to revisit that machine to play it with the topper because it has like this bonus meter and all this stuff. I don't really – I'm still trying to figure out everything it does. But you can – one thing I didn't know, you can change the default lighting within the menu. You can – Of the topper. Of the topper, yeah. You can, instead of like, I think the default's like this blue glow, but then we put it in what's called sunset, which is very cool. It feels like it more matches the machine. But yeah, so if you do have a Mando topper, go in the, it might be kind of cool to give it something fresh. You know, go in there and change the lighting scheme. I want to see what Google says, because I feel like, I'm just Googling best pinball topper. Pick some random, here we go. Pinball, what the fuck am I looking at? I don't know. What's the most expensive one? Probably Ghostbusters. Doesn't it sell for like four or five grand? Because of the used market. I mean, for a while, it was Ghostbusters or Black Knight. Yeah, that's what I mean, like on the used market. I'm just, I need a visual here. I mean, Black Knight seems to be the right answer. But no personally I know what my favorite actual topper is It the Godzilla topper but the fake one I don know how to Google um it the one that dude made that this was like carbo with a little towel looks like shit because they thought that the the real one was seen this you haven't seen this it's by far the best one probably on pin side it mimics the actual real one with the cloud breath or whatever how do i find it but they they made it look like just trash and i think it looks way better uh all right i'm googling it and looking let's see if someone posted it somewhere i gotta all right i'm gonna keep talking while i'm looking and sorry for like whiplash of me googling this but we did we did just get a um we won a bond topper through our project pinball um and and the the le1 is the same as like i mean the standard right i mean this is just one 007 topper. Right? Oh, yeah. It was the one... I'm sorry, I was looking at all the photos you were posting. I'm trying to find them. Keep going. It was... Yeah, it's the same one that came with the Bond 60th. And it's a cool topper. You know, it fits the feel of the game. It kind of looks like Las Vegas-y with all the changing lights. You really need to see this thing in action. But it's a very cool topper. I can't find it. Hard to get from what I understand. I think they're going for like a couple of grand now. If you can find them. Yeah. I can't find the picture. Those who know what I'm talking about, the Godzilla topper. I'll try to find it and I'll send it, text it to you, Kale. But it is fucking great. That is honestly my favorite topper. The fake Godzilla topper. Honestly. So looking at the list, Black Knight has to be it. Yeah, Black Knight's the best hopper they've ever done, hands down. Yeah. That Stern's done. Right. You like fishtails, right? You like the flapping fish? No. I mean, but no. I'm thinking of like most impressive might be the Jersey Jack Godfather. that that one's very cool um and i was about to say i don't you i don't know you probably haven't seen this one in person the labyrinth topper no man the the just the the art the the the sculpting the that is is a very cool topper i you know what else is cool the um uh medieval madness that oh yeah that was a great topper all the remake toppers fuck yeah they're very good like high quality stuff attack from mars is real good the remake topper oh we gotta get back to nap quick i'm going all over the place now we have access to all this technology on the stream focus focus trying to nap where are we welcome to nap arcade okay here we go what is this you go lebowski man these guys are dutch pinball guys did i tell you we when we left exp we were like some of the stragglers that were leaving uh leisurely leaving expo we were in no hurry so we were like hanging out in the lobby in front of the hotel and all these dutch pinball guys roll out did i tell you about this and they got this gigantic limousine no that's cool yeah they they look so cool were they dutch i don't know i think so but i'm sure they got in a private airplane and went on home are they like rich over there am i missing something are they what now rich are they rich they must be i mean they're they're they're building these cool machines just take some money right sorry sorry someone who's watched the stream sent me a context the world cup soccer topper solid and it's this fucking piece of shit just i wish i could share it i'm not going oh man if i can get that it's it's bad bad awesome but what you're referring to a nap arcade dutch pinball issues last call for big lebowski yeah and get this game this is a fun game uh we don't have one in the arcade but i have some friends who own it and it is it's a cool game very great i have nothing bad to say about and uh side note for all you folks on twitch head over to aimless pinball if you haven't already and give them a follow subscribe if you can you know you can subscribe with your amazon prime account it won't cost you any extra money they did a great job uh streaming our big fifth anniversary tournament oh yeah and um the the odds are up there and i tell you if you if you want to see some incredible playing watch the most the latest one i think it's like six hours long where walt wood that's it walt wood ends up winning this whole thing and man if you want to see some amazing skills there he is right there there he's awesome man he absolutely destroys it it is worth a watch um he took everything man and some of the most amazing i mean he crushes it here and then he had great commentary so uh you know if you don't know the rules or what he's doing it's really amazing how he'll do something he'll take major risks to get the big points um and actually every game he's playing uh so this this is a really good watch go follow those guys and and and sub if you if you if you can yeah go to aimless pinball on twitch and uh if you go to their videos their latest uh vod about yeah what are we at about four hours in yeah what was just smashing through foo fighters yeah and then his his game of scared stiff is absolutely mind-blowing um that's the last game And he ends up winning it, and he hits 55 crate jackpots in a row, which is just unheard of. I mean, this guy's flipper skills. He's a top-five player. He just doesn't travel as much as the other guys, so he doesn't have all the whopper points that those boys have. But he can hang with anybody, and it's just really fun to watch this guy play. Okay, back to the news. back to the news what we haven't done in a long time is get to know someone's balls and i'd love to get to know his balls uh and i mean that in the most heterosexual way possible yeah um yeah okay uh wax they were criticized heavily for spending money lavishly at launch when they spent all the early achievement money and almost been broke uh then spending money on limos tracks with poor money management you're talking about talking about dutch dutch oh i'm sure i mean these guys they have to be loaded i mean yeah yeah uh at least it shows in the game uh in big lebowski at least i believe my opinion all right back to nap now we've got brothers shares pictures of entire cabinet of ripley more just alien let's just talk about it when it waxes but is this is this actually you know art that they can put on the game or is it subject to licensing agreements i don't know there's a van in the background though cool so yeah we see a picture of i mean this looks like i could have made this no offense i mean really but but i guess it is a movie from the early 90s you could put on a onesie and a wig and hold a machine gun sure uh that's a cat um but yeah i could um we're looking at a picture of alien on the side and ripley it does look cool don't get me wrong um i mean yeah i've seen it in person it looks great i bet this is supposed to look 80s all right wax i know you owned alien i don't know if you still do i think you got rid of it what do you think of all the ripley stuff yeah i like it um so more alien from alien thanks alien yeah what's next all right pulp fiction please give me that shipping by the end of the day yeah it's just saying hey ship by the end of quarter four micro you know i'm not i don't even care because you know they were they were supposed to ship this year right just i mean don't even give me updates anymore just when you when it's ready ship it what do you think actually because initially you were told october right yeah didn't didn't they say and i did not believe this when they said that um because we still haven't received our cactus canyon jeez louise they said uh like start they were going to start building in the third quarter i believe i believe that was initially what they said if zach's still in he could correct me but um yeah i didn't i didn't believe it i knew we'd see this in you know 2024 that's next year right so the news uh yeah it's about a month the news is paul fiction hasn't shipped yet and then it might by the end of quarter four whatever what do we expect what's causing oh is mirko is causing delays is that what it says yeah because of the playfields but don't use those places anyways this is recent That post is just from yesterday. Yesterday. Yeah, because Moms is closing. I've never been to Moms. Are you familiar with Moms? No. Okay, so it was an arcade in a grocery store. And it was like, so it's just, I think the grocery store is called Moms. Okay. And I think it's in Maryland. Does it say that? Does it say in the article? I don't know. You keep going, I'll confirm. It's called Mom's Organic Market. And it doesn't advertise pinball. There just happens to be a room in the back that would be like, you know, any grocery store you go into, they have a break room. And you always kind of see the people back there doing stuff, you know. But this place, you know, instead of a break room, there's an arcade. and it had a bunch of machines that were very well taken care of and I don't know if they did tournaments or anything but it was just kind of interesting but it looks like now there's a neighboring business that's going to take that unit so yeah, no more moms but moms was a legendary place in the pinball world I had never heard of it yeah, anyone listening or watching a little bit of the video of, yeah, it looks just like a grocery store, and then keep going, keep going, and it's a room off of just a totally different room. Yeah, but the room off of the grocery store does not look like a grocery store. Yeah, it looks like a nice arcade. Holy shit, they got a lot of fucking pinball machines. Right? Wow. That's a pretty nice place. It's closed, you know? And this is only what I've heard. I don't know this for a fact. People have told me that the owner of Mom's is a collector and this is just where he kept his collection the games look like it at least from this video they look pristine game of thrones hot tip um cool walking dead all right uh let's move on with news a little bit here uh where are we that's sad i hate to see you go uh thank you whoever owns moms for doing that for so long speaking of toppers electric playground launches new topper for the big Lebowski pinball machine. Cool. Which, yeah, looks great. Really milking accessories. That thing's tall. Yeah, it's, for those just listening, it looks like kind of the, well. Looks like a sign outside of a bowling alley. Yeah, that's the best way to describe it. And these one, two, three, four, five lights on the bottom, they look like probably mode lights. They probably stay lit or kind of like the gem. they look like the gem lights in the avengers topper but on the big lebelski underneath the bowl um bowling sign yeah fits but very tall jesus yeah that's huge right well there's a better picture just the angles throwing it off it looks giant which is fine and it has a little plaque this says the dude abides zero one out of a hundred so what are they making a hundred of these probably without reading i'll go by the picture um yeah and those lights look like i don't know the game well enough to know the Folgers tape lightning or Viking helmet ring dog tags this must be modes cool yeah limited to 100 and individually numbered I gleamed that from the picture your progress on five characters and five bowling balls okay yeah progress the dudes no pun intended or pun intended cool topper good job oh does it like does it have the price let's find out if it has the price um if it's above one dollar shit i already saw it oh is it a grand a little more than a grand yeah 1100 um for cyber monday oh shit today if you're listening it actually seems kind of reasonable i know and that weird is not exciting it's like oh yeah that's a normal price fuck well we can't react to that come on guys uh cut that price in half or double it otherwise it's just yeah it's normal look at this more alien shit um pinball brothers share a glimpse of updated ripley code from this is five hours ago as of today the 27th oh more code um is this the latest geez even more oh okay let me man this can we give it let's give a shout out to nap dude's always on this has to this has to be the hardest job in the world i mean just find finding this much news and he's very successful at it he is very successful at it um nap arcade if any of you aren't subscribed to get the drip of news from him it's fantastic k-n-a-p-p arcade.org um he you'll get a notification anytime he posts some news and honestly it's always it's just a great way to stay up to date with the world of pinball so we're looking you can't hear this. I'll turn up a little bit for anyone else, but we're looking at some code update for Alien. And I don't know the game well enough to know if some of this was in it, but I think, obviously, Ripley footage is new to the game. Yeah, Ripley's in it. Man! This game is one of those that does the mood top tier, kind of like, well, Lord of the Rings. Labyrinth, I think. Big Lebowski, where a game just nails the theme. Would you say Stranger Things? Oh, yeah. That's a moody. Yeah, and that might be actually the number one correct answer. Yeah, Alien, New Code, New Ripley's. It's weird that it's like the reverse of George Lucas doing Star Wars. What I mean is the more edits George Lucas did to the original Star Wars, to a certain point were kind of dog shit. I think after the special edition of adding No from Vader and doing some of the stuff, like, hey, stop, just leave it alone, it's getting worse. Where Pinball, when they were doing Jurassic Park stuff, or Elvira's, or Alien, they just keep getting better. But it's like, you can't really do that to this market, to where you've already spent nine grand on something. Why don't you do it again? On the same fucking game. I get it, and it's better, and it's awesome, but... I don't know. We're ready to see something new. Yeah. Wax 13 brings up an interesting fact. Big Lebowski is legit, almost 10 years old. It scrolled up a little bit. Anyway, launched in 2014, about the same time as Stern Mustang. Mustang. Wow. And I've heard from dealers back in the day how hard it was to sell that Mustang pin. and then like a few years after it was released everybody with that was in the cars and muscle cars wanted the mustang pin i haven't you rarely see that game anywhere i um wanted to go back on one more comment he mentioned that um wax on twitch that alien is grossly underappreciated because it came out a long time ago but at eight thousand dollars it presents infinitely better value than a stern premium and i wholeheartedly agree um eight thousand us dollars um figure it out usd thank you thanks for the follow we got a new follow yeah thank you alfalfa alfalfa eight thousand dollars seems like a steal for alien isn't that crazy it's fucking wild so if they come over go ahead yeah we we used to it's just crazy it wasn't that long ago rachel and i would be on the road um you know at pinball conventions and we could pick up brand new stern pros for four thousand dollars i don't want to talk about that it is just god stop doing that yeah we paid four grand for iron maiden i would definitely buy iron maiden right now if it's only four grand um but alien eight grand is it is alien still um let's look alien uh alien i'm gonna go to flapping bird pinball flapping out pinball flipping out pinball uh alien flipping out pinball what does it even cost now did the price go up it's still the same in stock limited edition oh that limited edition is even the limited edition is a steal an le of alien is uh about $300 under 11 grand. So 10, seven versus is like Elton John at 13. Stop it. Um, no, this wax is right. This is a great deal. Yeah. Um, what is, I got to find a price of, of alien. You know, Jason, you have the best logo in the biz. Oh, thank you. Elf, Elf and kale. I wonder if that's Matt who did the logo. Um, Matt Andrews, fantastic artist also did the art on um weird al final destruction didn't he do that final resistance what's that thing called did he do that yeah so for anyone watching i guess or listening and watching let's see what i'm doing this is who did the pinball party um logo fantastic TNA. Honestly. Art. Matt Andrews, or Matt Draws. Mandraws.com. Pretty sweet. He's done a lot of good work, and keeping the pinball family is pretty great. He did a lot of work for Weird Al, and Backglass for TNA, Total Nuclear Annihilation, and stuff like that. He's got good shit. Alright. So, yeah. Alien, great. They make a thousand versions of them. They keep coming out. It's cheap compared to Stearns and Wax Loves It and David Thiel. Yeah, David Thiel, fantastic music. I don't think there's anybody better with audio in the biz than David Thiel. Nope. Don't get me wrong. 45 minutes ago. Jesus, man. Nap does not stop. Jason, man. 45 minutes ago. That's what I'm saying. I mean, does he have a job? I mean, what is going on here? He's just killing it. Instead of actually preparing, which we did not and never do for Pinball Party content, I'll just turn stream on and go to nap and just let the news... He'll just make the content and we'll just read it. So as of 45 minutes ago, a cool new playing piano mod for Bally Twilight Zone pinball machines. Interesting. Yeah. A new mod from Trent Kennedy. What happened to... I thought we were supposed to get a new Twilight Zone. What's going on? What happened? um well i'm taking a look at that piano mod first that's fucking sweet uh you can't hear it kale but everyone else can the um the piano plays itself he's moving it goes in the scoop oh yeah or is it just uh lights the keys are moving holy shit yeah i don't know if i want to put any more strain on my uh yeah that's cool that's very cool yeah it's very very cool but yeah a remake from chicago gaming company of this this is supposed to happen yeah so i guess it kind of looks like they backed out of it and maybe some other guys are going to do it okay from what i've heard and what have you heard like there was work done to it so maybe there's still some assets that they can move on to someone else and not let it the remake of twilight zone die um yeah okay done with news i think we're probably wrapping this up let me take one more brief look at kind of the market because i i've uh i pride myself on knowing it pretty well and in people that i text with we kind of just often talk shit about prices positive or negative and i like how some people are still holding on to like covid pricing on stuff and you know that i know what i got uh listening to rax park premium for 10 grand that's dumb what is actually moving that's can you tell i'm not familiar with the marketplace is it kind of like ebay where it says this sold at this price yeah you can see like if we take a game let's just take godzilla why not because everyone owns fucking godzilla um you can see like a suggested price in the used market that takes some data um it's never i would say like this is fucking that's not accurate uh it's i'll show you what i couldn't see was that a premium we're looking at a premium godzilla we're looking at estimated value per pin side which estimates between 8,900 and 10,000 for it's not right i mean the actual probably price for a used godzilla premium right now is a good price is about 8,500 you're going to probably expect to pay between 8,500 and 9 but it's i mean during covid godzilla was like 11 which is stupid um but you can you can get a new one yeah right right yeah so that's what i mean And some people still forget that... You have to remember that a lot of these people are not insane people like myself or some of us that are just monitoring this stuff. And just, you know, they're like, Hi, my name's Tim. I bought a pinball machine. I don't know what it's worth. Let me list it for what I paid for. I don't know. And, you know, in my head, I see someone listed. I'm like, oh, they're a fucking idiot. They're just not as obsessed about it. I mean, there's a lot of graphs and data you can find on here. and you go to pinball prices and get a little more. But honestly, the best way to know is just to do it a lot. And now with the prices, I'm probably not going to be doing this a lot. Yeah, here we go. This is a good Godzilla Premium loaded with $2,000 in mods for $10,500. I mean, it's not going to happen. It's not going to happen, guys. Just buy a new one. And don't put... That's it. and just scroll a little, spend a thousand dollars less, get free shipping for a brand new one. Which one do you want? I don't know. All right. I think that's it for today. Um, for a good, or for a first stream, not bad. Yeah, this has been fun and totally unplanned. We were just like, Hey, what's up? What are you doing? Nothing. All right, let's hang out. Yeah. Let me turn on the stream. Thank you so much for inviting me. This has been an absolute blast. and looking forward to many more. I agree. And when is Electric Bat? Are you guys recording soon? Where should people go? Yes, we're going to do a much-needed episode this week. We've got to catch everybody up on anything tomorrow with all Tuesdays at 6.30. We have a big pinball tournament. Come on out and play with us. And if you want to go to our website, There's the shop where you can get all kind of good quality. Look at all that new stuff. I'm looking at it. We got a pin towel. We got a knit hat. If you have somebody, a pinball fan, or just a fan of cool shit on your shopping list, grab them some Electric Bat merch. Look at that. It's a good Christmas present, actually. It's right in that sweet spot of a price where you just, oh, a friend of pinball. You can get it for somebody you don't care about. Yeah. I have two of these shirts. They are great shirts, really. Just go to electricbatarcade.com. They glow in the dark. They glow in the dark, and they look real sweet. I have a couple stickers as well. I think the stickers are the shits. The hats. I've got to actually buy one of these hats. Okay. I'm going to... Okay. Buy one of these. But yeah, podcast stuff, website stuff, tournament stuff, just go to the website. It's all there. electricbadarcade.com Kale, thanks for joining. You know, that's it. I got nothing to say. Thank you for having me, Jason, and all of you guys. Thank you for joining in the chat. Be sure you like and subscribe and mash the buttons and all that good stuff. There's Rachel. Please, for anyone listening, we are streaming these podcasts on Twitch, so So go to twitch.tv slash pinball party. Yeah. And will this be on the regular podcast apps and all that stuff? Or how are you doing this? Yeah, I think I'm just taking the audio, putting it on and then adding some music. We'll see. But yeah, it should be audio as well. Yeah. Cool. Well, thank you for inviting me. I hope you all have a fantastic day. And Jason, it has been an absolute slice. Always. Thanks, man. See you later. All right. Have a good day. Bye bye. Bye. Thank you.
@ ~85:00
  • “The secondary market, to me, was never a place to make money, but it was a place to somewhat safely have a hobby without losing your shit.”

    Jason @ ~47:00 — Definition of secondary market role for hobby collectors—risk mitigation rather than profit

  • Electric Bat Arcade
    venue
    Game Room Goodiescompany
    Flippin' Out Pinballcompany
    Lit Arcadevenue
    Aimless Pinballperson
    Jack Dangerperson
    Black Knight: Sword of Ragegame
    Lord of the Rings Limited Editiongame
    Iron Man Progame
    Godfathergame
    Galactic Tank Forcegame
    Stranger Thingsgame
    Jurassic Park Limited Editiongame
    Elvira's House of Horrors Limited Editiongame
    Rick and Mortygame
    Pinsideplatform
    Phoenix metropolitan areavenue

    high · Kale: 'We are growing and doing better than ever... more people are dropping coins in the machines... There are a bunch of successful arcades... everybody's doing well'

  • ?

    content_signal: Competitive pinball streaming is professionalized with expensive equipment (wireless rigs, telestrators); Aimless Pinball streamed entire three-day tournament with professional broadcast setup.

    high · Kale: 'Aimless Pinball... they bought thousands of dollars worth of equipment... wireless rig... telestrator... people are really getting excited about this stuff'

  • ?

    product_concern: Galactic Tank Force has serious, widespread manufacturing/quality control issues; Game Room Goodies distributor has units still in boxes due to problems, and new buyers in home construction will encounter defects.

    high · Jason and Kale discussing GTF issues; Jason: 'It's just actually a piece of dog shit'; context of distributor holding inventory due to problems

  • ?

    design_innovation: Multimorphic P3 platform gaining adoption as preferred home machine due to software flexibility, frequent updates, and playability; outperforms traditional pinball machines in actual usage patterns among collectors.

    medium · TurboGrafx: 'P3 gets played more than anything else I have far and away'; Jason acknowledging P3 as compelling entry point for $10K investment

  • $

    market_signal: New home construction buyers are integrating pinball machines into homes; distributor Game Room Goodies seeing increased demand from new construction residential buyers.

    medium · Kale: 'They're supplying a lot of like what seems like new construction like people buying new homes and going oh I want an arcade so they're just buying up machines'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Stern is simultaneously targeting home (with affordable Pros, price increases for premium), arcade operators (with earning-focused design), and collectors (with remakes and LE editions) without clear lane positioning, creating customer confusion and market friction.

    medium · Jason: 'They're raising the prices for home, so it makes more sense to go to the arcade... they're not picking a lane they're trying to do everything to everyone and that is not a good'

  • ?

    community_signal: Pinball collector community sentiment negative regarding post-COVID market normalization; fear that secondary market will eventually drop below pre-COVID norms due to oversupply from remakes, potentially driving collector exodus.

    medium · Jason: 'My instinct slash gut would say it might even go below what it was before COVID... I don't know if I'll buy a game again maybe not'