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We’re Hosting the TWIPYs! | News with Colin | Kineticist

Bash Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·44m 15s·analyzed·Dec 31, 2025
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 (batch) · $0.021

TL;DR

Bash Pinball hosts Twippies; Pokemon/Transformers confirmed as Stern rumors; Cabinet Gate resolved.

Summary

Bash A A Pinball Podcast will host the 2026 Twippies awards ceremony in a new format focusing solely on commercial game awards. Colin from Kineticist discusses upcoming pinball rumors including confirmed Pokemon and Transformers as potential next Stern cornerstone releases, Dutch Pinball's DPX sub-brand bringing back Raza, and Spooky's rumored next title (Gremlins or Goonies). The conversation also covers Cabinet Gate controversy surrounding The The Walking Dead 3 cabinet design changes and George Gomez's response defending the engineering decisions.

Key Claims

  • The next Stern cornerstone game is either Transformers or Pokemon, with George Gomez confirming this in an interview with Cary Hardy

    high confidence · Colin from Kineticist reporting on George Gomez interview about Cabinet Gate / The The Walking Dead

  • Jack Danger was potentially working on Pokemon with George Gomez coming in to help finish it

    medium confidence · Host inference based on Gomez interview details, corroborated by credible rumor sources mentioned by hosts

  • The The Walking Dead cabinet design used a community-sourced mod (Woodbury street sign) without properly attributing the original designer

    high confidence · Colin explaining Cabinet Gate controversy; Stern addressed and resolved prior to production

  • Stern changed from previous cabinet joinery to butt joints held by brackets for Spike 3, raising manufacturing efficiency concerns

    high confidence · Colin detailing Cabinet Gate discussion; George Gomez addressed concerns in lengthy interview with Cary Hardy

  • Dutch Pinball's DPX sub-brand (fronted by Melvin Williams) focuses on smaller premium runs (300-500 units) vs. Dutch's typical thousands

    high confidence · Colin explaining DPX structure and Raza production run

  • Spooky's next game is rumored to be either Gremlins or Goonies

    medium confidence · Colin reporting on ongoing rumors; hosts acknowledge these have persisted for a while

  • Chicago Gaming Company next release is supposed to be Halo

    medium confidence · Colin stating this as part of rumor discussion

  • Spooky generated significant FOMO for Beetlejuice through quiet behind-the-scenes hype and selective leaks to content creators

    high confidence · Colin describing Spooky's marketing strategy; describes it as 'one of the most pre-hyped pinball releases'

Notable Quotes

  • “Backing up one second, there may be some folks who don't actually know what the Twippies are... the Twippies are an annual pinball award show... to celebrate the entire hobby of pinball.”

    Colin MacAlpine @ Early in conversation — Defines the Twippies for audience unfamiliar with the awards

  • “People in pinball just, they know it as the Twippies. They love calling it the Twippies. So it's like, yeah... May as well embrace it.”

    Colin MacAlpine @ Mid-conversation about Twippies branding — Explains decision to keep Twippies name despite rebranding attempts

  • “I'm more intellectually curious about how it performs and what it says about the state of the pinball market.”

    Don (host) @ Discussing Pokemon pinball interest — Shows analytical approach to upcoming releases vs. pure enthusiasm

  • “Every Stern release has some little community controversy, right? And so The The Walking Dead has kind of had a few of them... it's been kind of a messy launch.”

    Colin MacAlpine @ Introducing Cabinet Gate topic — Sets up Cabinet Gate as ongoing pattern in Stern releases

  • “George Gomez basically had to address it by going on a last minute kind of live with Cary Hardy for, I don't know, hour and a half, two hours... They talked at length about the cabinet design changes.”

    Colin MacAlpine @ Discussing Cabinet Gate resolution — Shows high-level response to community concerns

  • “I'll say that the boutique companies will not be anywhere near as successful as they are today without Stern. Yeah, Stern subsidizes the market.”

    Colin MacAlpine @ Discussing Stern's market role — Explains Stern's foundational role in pinball industry health

  • “Spooky did a pretty good job of generating FOMO for this release. So they've been kind of quietly behind the scenes hyping it for most of this year in community chats, like discords and Patreons and leaking details to friendly content creators.”

    Colin MacAlpine — Describes sophisticated grassroots marketing strategy for Beetlejuice

Entities

Bash Pinball PodcastorganizationColinpersonThis Week in PinballorganizationTwippieseventWormhole PinballvenueGeorge GomezpersonJack Dangerperson

Signals

  • ?

    announcement: Bash Pinball Podcast officially hosting 2026 Twippies awards ceremony in new format (commercial game awards only, video + audio, recorded/edited, not live)

    high · Colin confirms: 'It's happening. So can you tell us a little bit about the decision behind having us doofuses handle this task?' and discusses logistics of recording video and interviews

  • ?

    machine_intel: George Gomez confirmed next Stern cornerstone is either Transformers or Pokemon; Pokemon potentially designed by Jack Danger with Gomez assistance

    high · Colin: 'George Gomez was just interviewed by Cary Hardy about...he confirmed that the next cornerstone is one of Transformers or Pokemon' and 'Jack Danger was potentially working on [Pokemon]'

  • ?

    product_concern: Walking Dead Cabinet Gate: community controversy over cabinet joinery changes from previous designs (butt joints vs. previous joinery), concerns about cost-cutting and durability, material questions (HDF vs MDF)

    high · Colin detailed explanation of cabinet joint changes, George Gomez's defensive response in extended interview, community Reddit backlash about cost-cutting narrative

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Community sentiment shifted toward viewing Stern as cost-cutting despite company defending design efficiency; George Gomez had to proactively address concerns in lengthy interview

    high · Colin: 'I posted something on Reddit, and I was shocked at all the hate. People want this narrative to be true' and 'the discourse got intense enough, right, where George Gomes basically had to address it'

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Multiple unconfirmed Spooky titles rumored: Gremlins or Goonies as next release; has been in rumor mill for extended period

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.030

0:00
You better not shout, you better not cry, you better not pout, I'm telling you why, Kineticist is coming to Bash. Oh, that's good, good. Bash Pinball Podcast is hosting the Twippies! Yeah! Hey Colin, welcome to the Shed Cade and the Bash Pinball podcast. We did have you on the one other time at Stern, but we're working on doing something more regularly with you. It's a little bit different. And so I think the impetus for us getting together in the first place here was you asked us to potentially host the Twippies this year. Not potentially, to actually host. Actually host the Twippies at this point. Initially it was potential. Now it's a thing that's happening. It's happening. So can you tell us a little bit about the decision behind having us doofuses handle this task? I mean, I love the work that you guys do. I have been a big fan of your podcasts. It sounds so incredibly professional, especially in the pinball hobby space. It's like an NPR level podcast for pinball, which is amazing. Backing up one second, there may be some folks who don't actually know what the Twippies are. So maybe you can just tell us what the Twippies are and a little bit of background and then we'll get into why we're hosting it this year. Yeah, so the Twippies are an annual pinball award show. It might have been like 2016, 2017. It was shortly after This Week in Pinball was founded. I believe this is the ninth year. The whole idea is to celebrate the entire hobby of pinball. So traditionally, it's been commercial game awards, homebrew awards, content creator awards, and pretty much an award for like every facet of the pinball community. And this year, we're just deciding to make it a little bit different, make it a little more simple and just focus on the commercial game awards. Okay, cool. And I think the venue that you guys had last year is not available anymore, right? Yeah, so that threw a little bit of a wrinkle. So last year we hosted it at Wormhole Pinball in Houston, Texas, which was phenomenal. It was a great time. We had a whole extended weekend of pinball-focused events. And it was basically like a really intimate, fun pinball party. But unfortunately, that venue is no longer available to us. And so we just decided to do something different this year. Well, we're happy and excited to be a part of it. And I'm very excited, too. I think this is going to be different. We haven't actually talked about this, but I'm assuming audio focused or are we doing video? Well, go ahead, Don. We're doing it all. Oh, yeah. All right. All right. So, yeah, audio and video, but like not live. We don't know what we're doing yet, Colin, full disclosure. But here's the thing. It's like once we kind of get together and we just come up with ideas, man, we just do it all. We can. Yeah, I mean, I think Don and I have discussed at least we will do a video and some potential interviews and put together like a nice video for it. Not live. I think the live part is pretty. The live is very difficult to pull off. Yeah. So I'm excited for it to be recorded this year and edited. Yeah. Cool. We can do that. Yeah. You know, I'm stoked that you guys agreed to help out this year. I think it's going to be a lot of fun. We're so stoked that you picked us. Yeah, like I said, you guys are awesome. So you deserve it. It does feel like a fun project and it definitely throws off our entire schedule.
@ Discussing Beetlejuice marketing

  • “This is probably one of the most pre-hyped pinball releases that I can remember, or at least since I've been in the hobby.”

    Colin MacAlpine @ Assessing Beetlejuice hype level — Indicates exceptional community enthusiasm for Beetlejuice

  • “Look at Apple or any of these companies. The next iPhone comes out and it's lighter and they brag about how it's lighter... Turn it into a feature.”

    Host (Matt) @ Discussing Cabinet Gate communication — Suggests Stern missed marketing opportunity by not highlighting design changes positively

  • “I don't think Stern does stuff to intentionally screw the consumer. I just don't.”

    Host (Don) @ Concluding Cabinet Gate discussion — Reflects hosts' trust in Stern based on personal interactions

    • Cary Hardy
    person
    The Walking Deadgame
    Pokemongame
    Transformersgame
    Dutch Pinballcompany
    DPXcompany
    Razagame
    Melvin Williamsperson
    Spooky Pinballcompany
    Beetlejuicegame
    Chicago Gaming Companycompany
    Barrels of Funcompany
    Donperson
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Christopher Franchiperson

    medium · Colin: 'Supposedly the next spooky is either Gremlins or Goonies. Yeah, those have been rumored for a while'

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Chicago Gaming Company rumored to be developing Halo; Twilight Zone remake persisted in rumor mill with unconfirmed ramp orders

    medium · Colin: 'Their next one is supposed to be Halo' and 'they ordered a bunch of ramps or something like that' for Twilight Zone

  • ?

    product_launch: Beetlejuice by Spooky Pinball following Evil Dad cadence: announced ~November, pre-orders taken, shipping first quarter; first public showing at Pinball at the Beach

    high · Colin: 'Spooky announced Beetlejuice...following the same cadence that Evil Dad did...first show it's going to be at is Pinball at the Beach'

  • ?

    collector_signal: Spooky Pinball employed sophisticated grassroots FOMO marketing for Beetlejuice through Discord/Patreon communities and selective leaks to friendly content creators; described as 'one of the most pre-hyped pinball releases'

    high · Colin: 'Spooky did a pretty good job of generating FOMO...leaking details to friendly content creators...probably one of the most pre-hyped pinball releases that I can remember'

  • ?

    design_innovation: Beetlejuice features Spooky Speak (voice assistant topper mechanic) and sandworm mech toy as highlight features

    high · Colin: 'Spooky speak...it's like a voice assistant. Like you could talk to the game' and 'the highlight mechanic is probably the sandworm mech where it's multifunction, it moves, it eats the ball'

  • ?

    business_signal: DPX (Dutch Pinball Exclusive) sub-brand established to focus on smaller premium runs (300-500 units) vs. Dutch's typical thousands-unit production, fronted by Melvin Williams

    high · Colin: 'DPX...launched it to be a premium, smaller than typical Dutch pinball run machine maker...Alice Adventures in Wonderland...500 unit run. Raza is a 300 unit run'

  • ?

    product_launch: Raza (Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland), failed Deep Root Pinball project, being revived by DPX with 300-unit production run

    high · Colin: 'DPX...bringing back Raza, which was a failed Deep Root pinball machine...came from the same storage locker that he bought in auction'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Dutch Pinball/DPX holds U.S. trademark for Blade Runner license according to Patent and Trademark Office database; no game in development announced

    high · Colin: 'they have the trademark on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office database' regarding DPX Blade Runner license

    • 4:06
    But that's fine because it's like it's going to be great. It's going to be really fun. And like Don was saying earlier, once we sit down and like start hashing out ideas, I think we'll get back with you. Well, what's great is that there's only like one major category of awards to cover this year instead of like 200. So that does simplify things pretty dramatically. Yeah, so we can narrow the focus a little bit. That should be good. Cool. Cool, man. I should say, do you know what it stands for? Yeah, why don't you go ahead and say what it stands for? It is the This Week in Pinball Yearly Awards. I wasn't sure about the why. Right. Now I know about the why. Just keep in mind that I did not found this. So it's like, I don't know why. I mean, that works. I think most folks who are into pinball on a geeky level are probably familiar with them. We sort of tried to rebrand it last year. We almost sort of put it head to head with the Pinball Community Awards because I wanted to kind of kill the Twippies brand too, right? Gotcha. And sort of completely start fresh. People in pinball just, they know it as the Twippies. They love calling it the Twippies. So it's like, yeah. Yeah. May as well embrace it. Yeah. I think it's good. Yeah. Okay. So our podcast doesn't normally have a lot of news and we tend to take some time to produce things. And so other podcasts tend to kind of cover new stuff like the minute it happens. Right away. And we can't really do that because it just wouldn't work for how we make our show. But at the same time, I think it'd be helpful to provide some occasional news stories. And like what better way to do that than have monthly news recaps with the king of news, Colin from Kineticis. Yeah, Kineticis is Colin. Oh, yeah. You guys can expect from us and Colin going forward to have some more regular news coverage. And this is going to be fun because Don and I are like oblivious to the news. So you will be telling us a lot of these news stories and we'll be hearing them for the first time probably. So that should just make it a little bit more interesting. Like there is stuff that I cover every week that is just if you're not in tune with it, it just sounds so ridiculous. Like stuff that people get worked up about, the drama. Yeah. It's funny. Well, yeah, I used to keep up with that stuff a lot more than I do, but via pinball podcast. But ever since I've been making a pinball podcast, my pinball brain is like spent on the stuff that we do. So I'm looking forward to actually like being a little bit more in the know because we're both pretty out of the loot. I don't read pinball news at all. Like oftentimes like I'll see like a new game pop up and it's a brand like news to me. Wow. Well, and the other the other thing is like with regard to new games and game announcements, I kind of like to not know what's going on because I like to approach a game for the first time. I'm like not really knowing anything about it and just walk up to a game and just be like, I don't think I could do that. It all hits me at once.
    7:13
    It's one of the first things that I noticed too when we started the show, Matt, was that's how I've lived my whole life. Yeah. And then we kind of started getting a little bit of like grains of info. Oh, this new game might be coming out. And then like it kind of changed the way that I consume pinball. Yeah. Honestly, for me personally, kind of in a negative way because I started to think about all these things, get some preconceived notions and ideas of what it was going to be and then it would come out and I'd be like, wait, this is not what I had in mind. Maybe it's not as good as what I thought it would be. Do you guys avoid movie trailers too? I do. I'm very spoiler averse to sort of a neurotic degree. I hate spoilers so much. I have this unofficial rule that I'll go into a trailer like 30 seconds and by then I should know if I want to watch it or not. And I'll just stop because nowadays the whole movie, basically the whole plot on the trailer. Yeah, I was real mad at Stranger Things for putting the very end of season four as the thumbnail. And I'm just like, you can't avoid this. Why? Why? The whole four episodes we know this is what's going to happen. So we should not cover rumors.
    8:27
    No, no, no. All that being said, let's cover rumors. Let's talk about this stuff. It's fun to talk about. It's going to be fun. I want to talk about whatever you want to talk about, man. If you think it's newsworthy, even if it's a rumor, that's what I want to know about it. Yeah, the rumors are interesting. They're sort of background noise for me. I'm always sort of aware of it, but I don't know that I find any particular one rumor newsworthy. In the newsletter and our articles, I don't tend to cover rumors that much. Every now and again I do. There's basically an ongoing tracker that I have on the website where it's like if I hear people talking about stuff in forums or on a podcast and it seems credible or a lot of people are talking about it, I'll note it there, but that's like the most that I'll do with that. But people are crazy for rumors in pinball. Yeah, so I guess since we brought it up, are there any notable rumors that you want to talk about right now or that you think would be interesting? George Gomez was just interviewed by Cary Hardy about one of our potential news topics, Cabinet Gate with Walking Dead, where he confirmed that the next cornerstone is one of Transformers or Pokemon. Oh, whoa. Which makes me think it's because that is the game that I think Jack Danger was potentially working on and the one that George was coming in to help him finish. Okay, that checks out for me. You know, we're not super dialed into like the rumor mill and whatnot. But that being said, I've also heard some pretty credible Pokemon pinball rumors from pretty credible sources that I can't divulge. So that one rings true to me. Transformers, what's happening with the Transformers world right now? So this is that weird generational split. You guys are younger, right? I think we're about the same age. Well, Don's younger. I'm almost 47. Yeah, I find that people who are older than us are pretty nostalgic for Transformers, specifically the G1 Transformers, whatever came out in the 80s. Optimus Prime. I think it came out maybe a year before I was born or the year I was born, so I have no nostalgia for that. But people who are older than us do. Like the actual cartoons right Yeah Or the movie I think I did watch the cartoon and have some of the toys when I was a kid My older brother had like the Optimus Prime and all that stuff But yeah I never been into the movies and I never I mean there already a Stern Transformers Yeah, the Michael Bay stuff was garbage. It doesn't seem like it is occupying the cultural zeitgeist, right, in any particular way right now, at least with the younger generation. So if you're going for straight Gen X nostalgic appeal, yeah, that checks the box. But if you're trying to hit some younger people, I don't know. It's not as exciting as I think Pokemon might be. Yeah, I mean, those two games are almost entirely on opposite ends of the spectrum age-wise. Pokemon has been evergreen since it came out in the 90s because they just keep cranking out games and more and more people keep getting into Pokemon. And there's also balls in Pokemon. Yeah. Right, right, right. There's so many tie-ins. Yeah, I mean, Pokemon is like an endless well. Did you ever play the Pokemon Pinball? I never played Pokemon Pinball, no. It was cool. Yeah. It had like a Rumble pack on it. I think I remember it having like a little like a Rumble pack on the cartridge or something like that. Right, right. So there is some Pokemon Pinball precedent already. There is Pokemon Pinball precedent. Yeah, I did play it on the Game Boy. Oh, really? Yeah. Nice. Were you already into pinball at that point? Sort of, yeah. Was that what got you into pinball? Can we say that officially now?
    12:30
    That would be great. This is your dream thing, Don. I've always been to pinball, man, forever. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's cool. Are you guys looking forward to a Pokemon pinball to play? I'm curious. I'm more intellectually curious about how it performs and what it says about the state of the pinball market. That's what I'm interested in. That's a good point. I'm curious, too, because it is not a younger brand, but it does appeal to significantly younger people than Elton John or something like that. Yeah, Jack Guarnari is not a Pokemon fan, probably. I'm curious, too, man. That's a good point. It almost seems like a Jersey Jack license, though, you know, just from like what they do. Yeah, colorful, like family friendly kind of thing. Yeah, I can see it. Yeah. I'm really curious to see how it performed, too, because like we talked about like a potential Wednesday pinball thing, like the Wednesday show. And I think that's in a similar boat where it appeals to like young girls. Yep. And is that going to also cross over to the average pinball buyer? Well, yeah, it's like when people were talking about doing like a Barbie pin when that film came out and what that would look like. Yeah, I guess it's always what percentage of the – how many can you sell to just the collector market who aren't even into pinballs? Yeah. I love the idea. I love the idea of it though. Yeah. If you could do like a limited run, you know, like Winchester style. Barbie? You could probably sell them, dude. Oh, they would sell some Barbie. Yeah, because it would be awesome, dude. Just get like a miniature Barbie house in there and get like the Mustang or whatever. Super pink. You could really do a world under glass with Barbie. Oh man. It'd be awesome, dude. Yeah, I kind of agree. That feels like a Jersey Jack because they did Toy Story. I don't know. Are there any other hotly rumored games that we're talking about right now? Let's see. I'm going through my list. Supposedly the next spooky is either Gremlins or Goonies. Yeah, those have been rumored for a while. Yeah. It'd be awesome, dude. Either one. Well, I'd be happy if they just check off that list. I know Beetlejuice was on that list. Now we've got that. Dutch has forever linked it back to the future. And then don't we have like a Twilight Zone remake, supposedly? Yeah, that's been talked about for a while with Chicago Gaming Company.
    14:53
    Nothing concrete, but it's one of those things that's persisted in the rumor mill. Yeah, like they ordered a bunch of ramps or something like that. Their next one is supposed to be Halo, I believe. Oh. So, yeah.
    15:05
    Dutch Pinball Halo. No, sorry, CGC. Oh, we're still... Yeah, Dutch is Back to the Future. But actually, before they do Back to the Future, so their sub-brand DPX, Dutch Pinball Exclusive, they had confirmed this at Expo, bringing back Raza, which was a failed Deep Root pinball machine, Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland.
    15:28
    So if you've ever seen... So was that like a Papadu Pinball? It was, yeah, yeah, Papadu. It came from the same storage locker that he bought in auction alongside Alice in Wonderland and a few other things. So real quick, Colin, DPX, Dutch Pinball Exclusive. Is it like a subsidiary of Dutch? Yeah, it's the company fronted by Melvin Williams. Have you heard of that guy? Oh, no idea, man. Basically, I mean, they launched it to be a premium, smaller than typical Dutch pinball run machine maker. So like Alice Adventures in Wonderland, I get it confused with the miniature one. But that is like a 500 unit run. Raza is a 300 unit run, whereas Dutch might be going for more of thousands of units at a time. That was their focus. They do some other things. If you saw the Pinball Legends figures that Planetary Pinball put out around Expo, they're like action figures of classic Bally Williams characters like Dr. Dude, for example. So they collaborated on that as well. Yeah, and I think last time we talked to you, the Dutch Pinball, I think you told me this, has the Blade Runner license as well or DPX? Yes, it's been a while since I've thought about that, but they have the trademark on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office database. Okay. So theoretically they do.
    16:59
    I think I need to design a Blade Runner game and just get ahead of this thing and then sell them the design. Really? Because maybe if they're busy with other stuff, like this is an opportunity for me to actually make this game. Yeah, make their lives easier. Is that one of the games you'd be most excited about? Yeah, the problem is I have no idea how you would do it because it's such a slow, dark... Would you do just the first one or would you do the first one and the second one? I think just the first one, but I don't think it lends itself to pinball other than just vibe. It's a super cool vibe and it'd be like a dune.
    17:37
    But those games can be great. I just think they're harder to pull off. It's harder to pull it off, yeah, with that much depth and just storytelling. It's kind of, yeah, it can be tough for sure. It's very atmospheric, I would say. Yeah. I don't know. Barrels could probably pull it off. Yeah, I actually talked to Dave Vaness at TPF and I was trying to pitch him on doing Blade Runner. But that was before that I knew, because he was asking the same questions. Like, well, which one do we do? Do we do the first movie or the second one or the universe? But yeah, it sounds like kind of bummed that they, it sounds like they don't have the license. It does kind of bum me out when the wrong company has the license for Jame. I'm like, that's the game I want. I don't know. Maybe Dutch will do a great job. All right. What else we got? Do you want to talk about Cabinet Gate? Yeah, let's talk about Cabinet Gate. This is a Spike 3 thing. Yeah. So every Stern release has some little community controversy, right? And so Walking Dead has kind of had a few of them, I think. I actually wrote about this last week about how it's been kind of a messy launch. Okay. So when they revealed it, I don't know if you saw this, they had a like welcome to Woodbury street sign above the Woodbury ramp. But what was interesting about that is that it was actually traced back to a community mod, not the original machine that was released like just after the original machine was out. So apparently they had gone back to community sourced photos and whatnot of the game and used that as inspiration without really understanding where it came from. Gotcha. Tricky. Yeah. Not as bad as using AI. No. Right, right, right. Yeah, not quite. Still better. Similar type of issue, though. Yeah. It's, you know, the sourcing and the, I guess, the, like, fact checking of it. Dude, it's getting harder. It's getting harder with all the AI, like, summation. Yeah, man. It's getting tough. So has Stern addressed this? They did. Yeah, to their credit, they addressed it pretty quickly, pretty much as soon as it was brought to their attention that it was someone else's design. They worked with the original designer to work something out privately. I don't know what the exact resolution was, but they acknowledged that it was a mistake. And then they changed the design of the sign before it was actually produced. So yeah, as far as ways they could have handled it, I was pretty impressed. That sounds like a reasonable resolution. That's cool. What else about CabinetGate? So as games started shipping, one of the things that they didn't really talk about in marketing materials, but they've alluded to this in other releases, that the Spike 3 changes are getting rolled in over time. It's like we saw the larger screen with Star Wars and the sound system. Well, with Walking Dead, we're getting changes to the cabinet design. So different changes than we saw on the Star Wars, which was the first Spike 3. So it was Spike 3 in some of its guts, but the cabinet design is the same as the Spike 2 cabinets. So it's sort of like a hybrid, almost like a Spike 2.5 machine. Whereas this one has the upgraded hardware, the display, and it's got the cabinet changes too. And what people were mostly picking up on and including in on is some photos got released showing the cabinet joinery at the corner. Whereas previous cabinet designs, I'm not a woodworker, so I'm going to like screw this up, but they used a different joining mechanism where it seemed to require a bit more machining and people who were, you know, woodworking experts or whatever. Yeah. We're like, oh, that's that's a much stronger, more sturdy type of joint than what they're using in Spike 3 cabinets, which is more of a well, it's a butt joint. And it's held together by rackets instead of the like like joint itself.
    21:44
    So people were concerned about that. They looked at the wood and assumed it was cheaper. The community at the time was thinking it was plywood covered by MDF, where Gomes ended up confirming it was actually HDF, high density board, as opposed to MDF. Medium. Yeah So that ended up being wrong But people are concerned that Stern is moving in an IKEA direction where their cabinets are being more like flat pack designed versus something a little more custom Gotcha. So and we're just talking about the cabinet itself, not the playfield. Correct. Not the playfield. Okay. So I guess the concern is that machines are just going to be jankier and fall apart. People are concerned that it won't hold up as well or that if moisture is introduced, it will warp or something. Or that it's just, you know, more than anything, I think people are just concerned or looking for points that kind of validate the thinking that Stern is cheaping out. Cost cutting. Yeah, cost-cutting and engaging in anti-consumer practices, essentially, which I don't think is true, but teach it. There are people out there. I posted something on Reddit, and I was shocked at all the hate. People want this narrative to be true. And people were just like, they've been cutting costs for years. Dude, what are you doing? You're literally providing us with pinball every year, new stuff. Get out of here. Yeah, so like the discourse got intense enough, right, where George Gomes basically had to address it by going on a last minute kind of live with Kerry Hardy for, I don't know, hour and a half, two hours. They talked at length about the cabinet design changes, which is apparently a project that George Gomes spearheaded. I guess he's got a long history designing arcade cabinet, so it's something that he knows really well. But I mean, it does seem like some of the changes were made in order to gain some production efficiencies and some cost control. It's easier to ship the raw pieces of the cabinet and assemble them at stern. Makes sense. That's fine. But you seem pretty confident in the design. Honestly, man, like I don't I don't know a lot about woodworking or whatever, but just from like a menu for manufacturing. Yeah, like six grand man for like a pro machine. I think it's still a pretty good deal for like a brand new game. Right. No one else can compete with it. It's hard to argue that, right? You can complain about cost-cutting, etc., etc., but who else can make a game to sell for $6,000? I think it's smart for them to get ahead of inflation and tariffs and try to do something that's comparable that lowers their cost. Every manufacturer is trying to do that with every single product that they make all the time. It's business. It's business, right? Yeah, if you don't do that, you're just leaving money on the table. That's what I was trying to say. Right. But yeah, it's funny because with pinball, you think about the cabinet design and you're just like, whatever, it's fine, it'll be fine. However, if the weight of the machine changes significantly, it does change the gameplay. Yeah. George did talk about that a little bit in the interview where he acknowledged that like Sterm pinball machines, you know, they have a certain feel to them. Right. That the players kind of expect to be consistent. So that was factored into the redesign and they tried to preserve that feel and the weight of it, the physicality of it as much as possible. Yeah, I can see people being concerned if they're switching from, you know, a seven layer plywood to a five layer, something like that could change the density and change the weight and stuff like that. But honestly, when we were – I think when it was during the Star Wars launch at Stern, George was talking quite a bit about him spearheading the redesign of the cabin, fitting the larger LCD in there and stuff like that. And I mean I've got to say he seemed pretty sincere and pretty excited about all these changes and real positive about everything. So it inspired confidence in me. I was like this guy's got – he's got a lot of control. I mean, I don't think Stern does stuff to intentionally screw the consumer. I just don't. Yeah. You know, you've talked to a bunch of people there. I've talked to a bunch of people there. I mean, we spent time in their building. That's just not the impression that you get. At least me. I don't know. I agree. I mean, I think it's easy to paint this narrative that these guys, it's like big pinball, right? Right, yeah. But really, everyone there that we talk to loves pinball, wants to provide the best absolute product at the cheapest possible price to keep pinball going. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know what I mean? It's like ultimately they're they're keeping Pinball alive. They're the big dogs. And, you know, if they're trying to screw people. Yeah, I mean, I'll say that the boutique companies will not be anywhere near as successful as they are today without Stern. Yeah, Stern subsidizes the market. They facilitate market expansion. They're really the only company that does. And everyone downstream of that benefits from that work. I do think that they could have been probably a little more upfront or transparent with how they communicated that from the get-go. It probably should have been a part of the marketing appeal for The Walking Dead in the first place. One of the things that kind of gave me pause was that they published the manual for the game, the service manual, And the parts reference page for the cabinet specifically had nothing on it except for coming soon text. So it was intentionally left blank because they weren't ready to release the details yet. So I think if they had prepared themselves to a point where it could have been a talking point in their marketing, they never would have had any of this controversy. Right, right. Look at Apple or any of these companies. The next iPhone comes out and it's lighter and they brag about how it's lighter and then the one after that comes out and it's heavier and they brag about how it's heavier.
    28:03
    Turn it into a feature. Right, right. It feels like that was a missed opportunity. At least they could have put the positive spin on some of those kind of details. Yeah. I'm sure they will next time probably because you don't want any kind of gate to be associated with your product. Ben, what was it, Apple had the Ben Gate. I actually worked for Apple. Oh, yeah. Like right after that, yeah. I did it, yeah. It was bad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't want any gates. You don't want a gate. It costs you a lot of money. It costs a lot of money. I was going to ask Colin earlier, Colin, what are some of your favorite stories to cover, right? So we talked a little bit about rumors and headlines, et cetera, but what are your personal favorite stories to cover? I like doing interviews. I like when not everyone enjoys this based on the feedback that I get sometimes. But I love when Pinball intersects with larger cultural trends and I can cover the intersection of those things. So like some of the biggest stories that we had this year was like the IFPA OBX incident covering that, the Harry Potter AI stuff, talking a little bit about the impact of tariffs on the industry and things like that. Can we briefly just talk about Beetlejuice? Because we haven't talked about that on the show, not even once. Yeah, that feels like such old news, but yeah. Yeah, it is kind of old news, but it's new to this podcast. Yeah, I haven't even seen it yet, but dude, I've been going out of my way to not look at spoilers.
    29:30
    But Spooky announced Beetlejuice. Yes. Has it started shipping yet? No, it has not started shipping yet. And they've been pretty upfront about this. It's kind of using the same cadence that Evil Dad did. So just like Evil Dad, they announced it in around middle of November, took pre-orders, and I think they started shipping first quarter of this year, probably January. So Beetlejuice is supposed to follow that kind of structure. I think the first show it's going to be at is Pinball at the Beach, and I think it'll start shipping pretty soon after that. What has the response been to Beetlejuice as far as you've been able to talk? Insanely positive.
    30:11
    Well, so Spooky did a pretty good job of generating FOMO for this release. So they've been kind of quietly behind the scenes hyping it for most of this year in community chats, like discords and Patreons and leaking details to friendly content creators and sort of getting the word out. If people are interested in it, they should get on a list with a distributor sooner than later. So this is probably one of the most pre-hyped pinball releases that I can remember, or at least since I've been in the hobby. Obviously, very few people have played it yet, so it remains to be seen what the actual game ends up being like, but people seem really positive about it. So were there any like big features or toys or things that... There's a lot. Yeah. So the big marketing gimmick, at least early on, was spooky speak. Did you hear about that? No, no. So it's part of the topper. So you only get it if you buy the topper. But essentially, it's like a voice assistant. Like you could talk to the game and have it react. So like you can say, what is it, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, and it boots up, right? That kind of stuff. So that was their big sort of marketing gimmick. I mean, the thing is pretty loaded with toys and sculpts, like a typical spooky game. I guess the highlight mechanic is probably the sandworm mech where it's multifunction, it moves, it eats the ball. Is this the sandworm that everybody was hoping Dune would have?
    31:55
    Maybe, yeah. Well, I think it's more the shark that everyone was wishing was in Jaws. I think it's probably more a response to that than the dude's handworm. But Christopher Franchi art, people love his art. Yeah, I did see the cabinet looked pretty great. Are they doing a limited run like they usually do? Yes. Have they announced the number of units? 999. Wow. So that is the other thing, right? It's a pretty safe theme, right? They could have made more and they hyped it probably more than they needed to. So it was basically sold out before they announced it, which means they left a lot of money on the table. Yeah, it seems like, I don't know if this is a trend, but Barrel's doing such a limited number of Winchester and those selling out super fast. It does seem like FOMO is part of this marketing strategy for a lot of these companies. It is. Yeah. It's been a part of how you market pinballs for a long time. Yeah. I mean, I guess it works as long as you maintain the quality. Right. But if Beetlejuice turns out to be a turd and everybody already paid for it and then they get it home and it sucks and it breaks then it an issue for their next game They not going to be able to do that again Yeah exactly That the risk right I mean he sort of like you have to knock the game out of the park or you going to have trouble Yeah, well, I mean, they're doing a great job. I really feel like, really since Texas Chainsaw Looney Tunes, I think Spooky has been firing on all cylinders. I've always loved their games. My only thing was, like, they just weren't maybe as flowy or as fast or whatever. But, like, I feel like recently they've had that. So yeah, this is, I'm excited to play Biddle News for sure. I feel like that's when they started the Texas Chainsaw era is when it started getting more fun to shoot. Like Scooby, I hated Scooby. I haven't been a big fan of like any of their prior releases except for Total Nuclear, which, you know, really isn't their game. So definitely seems like they're, you know, they're starting to figure some things out as a company, which is good. Yeah, that's exciting. Aesthetically, man, I've always just, they're awesome, dude. Just like the visuals and the colors and just like the little figures. They nail vibe, yeah, and usually theme integration to some degree too. Yeah, too bad they don't have Blade Runner. They probably do. They would kill, they would kill in a good way. I think you have to be a little more restrained, I think, to pull off Blade Runner, right? That's why I think like barrels could do it because of what they did with Duda, right? I hear you. It has to be a little subtle. I'm thinking visuals exclusively. Yeah, who knows, man. I don't know. I've got to design it now. But yeah, I don't know if you guys have a location near you that gets all the rare boutique games. I don't really. But I don't know when I'm going to have a chance to play it. It might take until Expo. Our new local spot does have an Evil Dead, and they got the new Adventures in Wonderland. Adventures in Wonderland, yeah. I actually really like that game. Oh, you do? I did. I did not like it at all. I do not get along with that game. I get it. I actually really enjoyed playing it. I don't get the upper play field. It doesn't feel right. Like the magnet thing. That was a fail for me. I loved it.
    35:16
    I kind of thought you might like it, but it's like my least favorite game in a while. I agree. Yeah, not my favorite either. Well, I think we're probably good. Yeah, I think that's it. I mean, we're out of time. All right, guys. It's been a pleasure. Just in that hour, man, I am like thoroughly informed. I'm way more informed than I was an hour ago. Wait, did Colin freeze?
    35:41
    Colin! Oh, his internet died. Do you want to just like end it? Yeah, hang on. I'm texting Colin. Colin got booted off, but right as we were wrapping up. So we're going to just wrap it up and not make him get back on because who knows how long before his router like resets and yada, yada, yada. Yeah. Okay. Well, so bye, Colin. Bye, Colin. Bye. Thanks for coming on. We're going to continue to have Colin on as a regular news anchor, right? Yeah. He's going to be our official, I guess, maybe will be his arm or he'll be our arm or arm and a leg. Content creation body. Yeah. Audio video. Yeah. We can work together and have the news. So Colin does pinball full time. Does he really? He does pinball full time. Yeah. I didn't know. And so side note, I wanted to mention this earlier, but I forgot. But for folks who don't know Kineticist or anything about Colin, how the Twippies or how Kineticist relates to this week in pinball. If you're interested in some of that backstory, want to get to know Colin a little bit better. Check out Dirty Pool's number one episode, I believe it was. Was it? Yeah. Dirty Pool. Jeff did a interview with Colin and he covers all that stuff. We're not going to cover it again here because probably half of you have already heard that. I think there's also a wormhole interview with Colin from about a year ago, which is, I guess, the JBS podcast now. So check those two interviews out with Colin if you want to learn more about Kinetist and This Week in Pinball. And there was a pretty good one which featured Colin a little bit, a little bit of his backstory, but then also covered AI with Harry Potter on the Nudgecast. Right, right. Totally forgot about that. Yeah, that's not so much his backstory, but another interview there with Colin. I think this wraps up our first-ish next news episode. WBPP Action News will be coming at you with a little bit more officialness than this one. Yeah, I got to, you know, get my fit right for the news. Yeah, so just to recap, 2025 Twippies will be February 7th. 2026? Well, it's the 2025 Twippies or the 2026 Twippies. Covering 2025. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The 2025 Twippies. Okay, so yeah, the 2025 Twippies will be here on the Bash Pinball podcast and also on the YouTube video. But yeah, it'll be February 7th on the Bash Pinball podcast, also on our YouTube channel. Public voting will start January 3rd and run through January 20th. And then the results, that'll give us a few weeks to get the episode ready for the February 7th video. This is going to be more limited categories than in previous years. There's going to be Game of the Year, Best Theme Integration, Lyman F-Sheets, Best Rules and Code, Best Art Package, Best Playfield Layout, Best Audio Package, and Best Animation. So those are the things that you're going to be able to vote on. And yeah, it's going to be fun. Solid. It's nice and concise, man. Yeah, yeah. Looking forward to it. Keep it simple. So stay tuned for that and have a happy holidays. Holidays, but this is probably our last main episode before. Scheduling has been tough these last few months. Yeah, I mean. This time of year is rough, man. It's always rough. And then other stuff happens and then everybody gets sick and then it's just like, wait, what? Yeah, no, we haven't been able to follow up with our Swords of Fury acquisition. Oh, yeah. We got to get back into that, too. We got a lot of stuff coming and a lot of stuff kind of half done and on the back burner. Anyway, but this is going to be fun. We're excited to do the Twippies and be involved and doing more stuff with Kineticist and just kind of expanding a little bit what we're doing. And I'm excited too, man. Colin's great. Like what better dude to partner with on this stuff? You da man. All right. I think that's it. Oh, yeah. We should say subscribe, follow us on YouTube, do all those dumb things that we hate asking you to do. Just do them. Do them. Just do it. You know what's funny is I have I think one subscription like on my YouTube, my personal YouTube. I've had it for years and years. I think I'm subscribed to like one channel.
    39:48
    I'm subscribed to like 25 YouTube channels. That's fine. But I do like pair them down pretty regularly. Yeah. Smash that. Subscribe. Like button. Follow. Thumbs. Thumbs up. Stars. Dude, what's the benefit of the bell icon? Like who wants notifications? I don't. But click it anyway. Why do people want the bell icon? So they know when new stuff comes out. Like instantly? I mean, yeah. Jeez. You got to know, man. How else are you going to know? You're going to miss it. You got to click that bell. It's a little too much, in my opinion. I mean, it just depends. Like I have notifications turned off on my phone entirely. I like to, so here's what I like. Check this out. This is maybe similar. So on YouTube, I'm a big fan of like scary YouTube videos. There's this channel called Nick Crowley. Okay, Crowley is a good scary last name. It's basically like, for example, just like a clickbait title, like the darkest corners of the internet, part one. Is this where you hang out most of the time, Don? No. You're not buying pinball? No, it's not, which is why I enjoy these videos because I get to see a little bit about what's going on without actually venturing into those dark corners. Oh, okay. But yeah, he's amazing, dude. His videos are great, the production, the storytelling, everything about it. And I love he puts out about one video a month. I love when I just randomly open up YouTube and the first thumbnail it's like recommended for you. It's like Nick Crowley and it's not a notification. It's like it's more of like a surprise. You just you want to stumble upon things. It's like opening a cabinet and seeing like a snack that you forgot was there. Yeah. But if I had something notify me that, oh, you have a chocolate bar in your cabinet all day, all the time, I don't think I would enjoy it as much. Well, that's true. You can subscribe to a channel without the notifications and it'll still like you just click on subscription. That's how I use YouTube. I just click the little subscriptions button and then it's just got everything there and it doesn't actually notify me. Well, that's what I mean. Like guys out here pushing that hit that bell icon. I think that's a little greedy. I mean, I don't know if it's the dad blasted algorithm that that helps with. I have no idea. I don't know. Anyways, what I'm getting at is, you know, don't hit the bell unless you absolutely need to. Unless that's how you roll. Like, that's fine. If you subscribe to stuff, do. Or if you like notifications. Absolutely need to get notified that we're putting something out. Yeah. Yeah. Otherwise, I'll forget. And you do. You definitely do. We personally don't, but you do. You do. I get stressed out, man. I have basically all notifications off on everything all the time. Yeah. I've kind of been rolling that way, too. I just feel my heart rate. My phone's buzzing. I'm just like, oh, God. Responsibility. Yeah. It's a nightmare. It's a living nightmare. That was fun, man. Nice job on that. I think we got a pretty good idea of what's coming up with Colin and what to look forward to in the future. And I'm actually really excited to get to talk to Colin a little bit more and kind of also be more informed through Colin. Yeah. Yeah, me too. All right. Well, Don, it's been fun hanging out in the shed cade. Peace out guys or whoever's watching or mom or whoever you are. Bye. Happy holidays. Oh yeah. And happy holidays and Merry Christmas from your friends at Bash Pinball. Keep playing pinball, having fun and being awesome and being awesome. Stay warm for sure.
    43:28
    Leave this territory now. Return to your home. Evacuate all personnel.