Journalist Tool

Kineticist

  • HDashboard
  • IItems
  • ↓Ingest
  • SSources
  • KBeats
  • BBriefs
  • RIntel
  • QSearch
  • NName Review
  • +Health

v0.1.0

← Back to items

Episode 44 - Flippin' With The Fails

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 23m·held·Sep 24, 2017
View original

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

J-Pop returns with Deep Root Pinball amid concerns over Magic Girl remake plans and unresolved Zidware vendor compensation.

Summary

Tony and Dennis discuss pinball news including Heighway Pinball unclear shipping status for Alien Pinball, continuing legal proceedings around Multimorphic/VirtuaPin, Spooky Pinball's Alice Cooper machine art reveal, and a major development: John Popadiuk (J-Pop) has resurfaced with a new company called Deep Root Pinball after being dropped by American Pinball a year ago following the Zidware/Magic Girl disaster. Deep Root is reportedly attempting to secure rights to Magic Girl artwork and potentially remake failed Zidware games, raising serious concerns about repeating past failures.

Key Claims

  • Heighway Pinball shipping status is unclear with conflicting reports about Alien Pinball containers either being delayed due to hurricanes, returned to factory for defects, or never shipped at all

    high confidence · Dennis discussing multiple unverified claims from various sources including distributor Coin Taker statements and photos suggesting assembly line efficiency issues similar to Andrew Highway's era

  • American Pinball likely intended J-Pop to design games in exchange for compensation via product (Zidware games) rather than direct payment

    medium confidence · Dennis explaining the speculated arrangement after American Pinball never responded to their inquiry

  • Deep Root Pinball sent artist Zombie Yeti a contract attempting to give up copyrights to Magic Girl artwork for free despite never receiving full payment

    high confidence · Dennis citing Pinside discussion where Zombie Yeti publicly refused to sign the contract

  • Magic Girl machines built by American Pinball (approximately 20-25 units) have missing features and gameplay issues including broken shots and empty device placeholders

    high confidence · Dennis describing reports from players who received Magic Girl machines and documented defects

  • Gottlieb sued Paramount over Mel Gibson's 'What Women Want' for featuring Silver Slugger and Strikes and Spares and Spares in a movie scene without permission

    high confidence · Tony discussing a Facebook thread discussion where judge dismissed both trademark and copyright claims as de minimis

Notable Quotes

  • “Because supposedly there's supposed to be a container with like 20 plus of these things coming to the U.S. soon. But it also sounded like they were also supposed to already have left and gotten here.”

    Dennis @ ~6:00 — Illustrates the confusion and conflicting claims around Highway Pinball's Alien Pinball shipping timeline

  • “The assumption, I'd say the baseline assumption most people have is J-Pop was going to get some of his Zidware games made by them. And instead of paying him money, they'd basically pay him in product.”

    Dennis @ ~24:00 — Explains the speculated business arrangement between American Pinball and J-Pop that was never confirmed

  • “They put his name on the website, so I have to think they wanted it to leak or they thought it wouldn't be bad PR for it to leak. But to me, it seems like a really big slash stupid risk to team up with John Papadiuk.”

    Dennis @ ~32:00 — Expresses concern about Deep Root's decision to publicly associate with J-Pop given his troubled history

  • “I was convinced it was a hoax. It was a big joke somebody was pulling. And I was wrong. And now to see after that debacle, to see yet another company do the exact same thing is shocking.”

    Tony @ ~34:00 — Conveys shock at J-Pop receiving another opportunity after American Pinball's failed partnership

  • “From everything we've seen since they went out, Magic Girl is trash. It's complete junk. And the only thing going for it is its rarity. And that could be going away.”

    Tony @ ~38:00 — Reflects community sentiment on Magic Girl's poor quality and what remanufacturing would mean for rarity-based value

  • “They did have a good show. I really do enjoy it. But I had assumed that they don't listen... they do actually listen because I was going to try and sniff out who our spy was amongst our half dozen listeners.”

    Dennis @ ~2:30 — Humorous acknowledgment of Slam Tilt Podcast listening to Eclectic Gamers and responding to their criticism

Entities

John PopadiukpersonDeep Root PinballcompanyHeighway PinballcompanyAmerican PinballcompanySpooky PinballcompanyZombie Yetiperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: John Papaduke rehired by new company Deep Root Pinball after previous controversial departure from American Pinball, indicating industry willingness to work with problematic figures despite reputational risk

    high · Deep Root Pinball website lists J-Pop as Lead Game Development; Dennis expresses shock at repetition of American Pinball scenario

  • ?

    product_concern: Magic Girl machines from American Pinball exhibit missing features, non-functional device placeholders, and broken shot geometry despite high secondary market prices

    high · Dennis describing player reports: 'There are features that are missing like here's the spot for the feature but the device isn't there' and 'There are places the ball's supposed to go where it can't go'

  • ?

    industry_signal: Artists and programmers remain uncompensated for work on Zidware games; Deep Root attempting to secure artwork rights from unpaid contributors

    high · Zombie Yeti received contract attempting to relinquish Magic Girl copyrights despite never receiving full payment; 'he refused to sign that contract'

  • ?

    supply_chain_signal: Highway Pinball Alien shipments experiencing unexplained delays with conflicting narratives about hurricane impacts, factory defect returns, and container status

    medium · Dennis: 'There's misinformation issue going on for sure' with reports of hurricanes, factory defects, and shipment status all contradicting each other

  • ?

    product_strategy: Deep Root's attempt to remanufa Magic Girl threatens rarity-based value premium that currently sustains secondary market prices

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.252

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, September 24th. It's episode 44. It's a lot of fours. I'm Tony. I'm Dennis. And we're going to talk to you about pinball and video games And a few other random life things, I guess What random life things, Tony? We talk about random life at the start Yeah, well, the random life things are the wonderful things Like the fact that I've played like no video games in the last two weeks I've played Cold Waters and not a whole lot of that And when I realized that I've literally played no video games in the last two weeks I bought a game last night to play and I played some of it but I'm not ready to talk about it because I'm not even through the tutorials yet and I'm still trying to figure it out so yeah, I'm not a very good video game guy this week well, that has happened actually I haven't really played a lot of it will seem like it because I'll have a few that we'll discuss in the segment but most of this stuff is just very temporary or is in a way a retread. I did pick up a couple new games. Well, I bought one new game, which I will talk about later, and then I finally this morning started Mafia III because I've had it for almost a year, but I'm in the first mission. Actually, it was time to set up to record, and I had picked up the car keys. That was the first task in the game after watching the intro. I picked up some car keys, and so I guess I'm ready to drive somewhere, but I'm not sure. We'll find out.
1:56
Let's see. The only other things that I can fill this intro with is corrections. Oh boy, do I have a lot of corrections all on me. Let's see. So last episode, we talked a bit, and I'll get into this, about the Freedom prototype, and I met with Nick from Nick's North American Pinball Tour. I misheard his last name. I called him Schnell because I wrote down his last name completely wrong in my notes. I just added consonants where there were no consonants. So I imagine it's actually pronounced Schell, but I'm not positive of that. But regardless, it's not Schnell. That's definitely for sure. So apologies to Nick for that. Then multi-time guest host Mike let me know that when we were discussing the Overwatch PTR changes, I misstated how D.Va operates. I had claimed that she wasn't allowed to do anything under these changes like she had been before when she uses her defensive ability called Defense Matrix. That is incorrect. She has a new mini-missiles mode that she can fire off, and she may fire those while using her Defense Matrix. And that's gone live now and is still in place, so she can actually attack while using the Defense Matrix. She has one attack she can do. So, correction there. and then another multi-time guest host don let me know there were a couple of misstatements on my part when we were doing our pinball themes segment the first was judge dread the pinball machine predates the sylvester stallone movie by two years so it was not inspired by the movie and second maverick was not a bomb at the box office it was the 12th best grossing movie that year so i just decided to call it a bomb. Obviously, I hadn't researched it. You just don't like it. You know what? You're a hater. You're a hater. You don't like Mel Gibson and you don't like who else was in that movie? Somebody else? James Garner? You don't like James Garner.
Dennis
person
Tonyperson
Slam Tilt Podcastorganization
[name withheld pending review]company
Magic Girlgame
Alien Pinballgame
Zidwarecompany
Gottliebcompany
Paramountcompany
Freedomgame
Nick's North American Pinball Tourperson
Multimorphiccompany
Applejuiceperson
Mel Gibsonperson

high · Tony: 'The only thing going for it is its rarity. And that could be going away'

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Deep Root Pinball apparently planning to remake multiple failed Zidware games including Magic Girl, Raza, and potentially Alice in Wonderland

    medium · Dennis inferring from artwork rights request: 'What that does tell us is that deep root is interested in making more magic girls because why else ask for permission for that art'

  • ?

    regulatory_signal: Gottlieb successfully defended de minimis copyright claim over pinball machine appearance in film without permission; trademark claim based on actor's beliefs dismissed as frivolous

    high · Dennis explaining Paramount lawsuit: court dismissed both trademark claim about association with Mel Gibson and copyright claim as de minimis

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Highway Pinball assembly line appears to lack specialized component fixtures, suggesting limited production efficiency improvements post-reorganization

    medium · Dennis: 'Photo also seemed to suggest to a lot of people that the assembly line that they are running or is just as inefficient as it was under andrew highway they don't have a lot of specialty pieces'

  • ?

    community_signal: Slam Tilt Podcast responded to Eclectic Gamers' criticism of their game design preferences, confirming they do listen despite Eclectic Gamers' assumption they didn't

    high · Dennis: 'The Slam Tilt Podcast... called us out... At least one of them claims they do actually listen'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Discussion of J-Pop's game design emphasizing that his visual art packages are excellent but gameplay experience is subjective and often underwhelming compared to reputation

    medium · Tony and Dennis agree J-Pop's games have impressive art but none of his games 'jump out and scream' as wonderful; Totem and Theater of Magic look great but don't deliver exceptional gameplay

  • ?

    content_signal: Eclectic Gamers Podcast extending interview invitations to both American Pinball and Deep Root Pinball; neither company has substantively engaged despite offers

    high · Dennis: 'Deep Root... said they are, quote, not permitted to discuss anything' and American Pinball 'never bothered to reply'

  • ?

    collector_signal: Magic Girl games' value heavily dependent on rarity; potential remanufacturing by Deep Root would collapse secondary market premium pricing

    high · Tony: 'Magic Girl is trash... the only thing going for it is its rarity. And that could be going away'

    • 3:55
    Let me give you the names of the actors you care about. I can't remember. Was it Helen Hunt? Or was it Jodie Foster in that movie? Was it Jodie Foster? Or was it someone else entirely? You see, you don't like this movie very much either. You can't remember who these actors are. Now, I've got an interesting aside that came up in a Facebook thread, one of the pinball groups this week that I got to weigh in on. Speaking of Mel Gibson, Mel Gibson triggered a lawsuit from Gottlieb on Paramount because of the movie he was in, What Women Want. there's a scene, it's about a three and a half minute scene where he is in a, like they're doing an ad pitch or something and behind him in the room is a Stern Strikes and Spares and a Gottlieb Silver Slugger and Gottlieb did not like that their machine was associated with Mel Gibson and they sued Paramount for not getting their permission to put the pinball machine in their movie and it was thrown out as being absurd but But that's fine. It was. Yeah, it was a two part claim that the trademark side was Mel Gibson has anti-Semitic beliefs. We don't want to be associated with that. The judge threw that one out saying that's absurd. And the other claim was it was copyright violation for having the game in. So in the movie, without their permission, that one was I think the phrasing is a de minimis. It was dismissed as de minimis, which is your claim is accurate. However, it's such a minute issue, the court's not going to waste its time giving you anything for it. Because the pinball machine wasn't referenced. It wasn't played. It wasn't used in the plot. It just sits there. You can clearly tell what machine it is, but it's not a big enough deal to actually warrant moving forward with a copyright claim. Even though, yes, technically they should have gotten permission for it being in such an extended segment. So, yeah, it was funny. But there you go. Mel Gibson has caused chaos in the pinball world.
    6:01
    But Maverick was an okay movie, yes. It's Jodie Foster. Jodie Foster, okay. Yeah, you can tell I haven't seen it in years. I like James Garner, though. I don't like that insinuation that I didn't like James Garner. So I'm going to throw that out there.
    6:18
    And the only other thing I thought I should go ahead and note, though we did note this on our Facebook page for reminding people, I'll just say it now, facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast. The Slam Tilt Podcast. They called us out regarding our call-out regarding their opinion on the Freedom prototype.
    6:36
    Okay. I think I've got that straight. Yes. If not, it doesn't really matter. It's all just a bunch of – it's just a podcast war of words, so to speak. They do have a good show. I really do enjoy it. But I had assumed that they don't listen. At least one of them claims they do actually listen because I was going to try and sniff out who our spy was amongst our half dozen listeners. But, you know, there's rebel scum everywhere. It's hard to say. And they say hi. So we'll say hi back. Hello.
    7:06
    And what it was regarding was I said that I didn't think they liked the Freedom prototype because they only like what I refer to as cookie cutter lower third play field designs. designs you know the standard sling flipper layout that we're used to now in the modern era they both say they like spanish eyes which does not have that layout it's a middle pop layout so that's a good defense so i'll i will yield the point that they don't just like cookie cutter layouts but i'm a bit confused still how anyone couldn't like the freedom prototype when spanish eyes has the exact same lower third play out i compared them side by side i've never played Spanish eyes, but I loaded up the images in IPDB. That layout down there is identical. What I'm assuming it is, is one of their hosts, I believe it was Bruce, said it was the spinner. There are two spinners on Freedom and the prototype, and that he couldn't hit them cleanly on the prototype version because of how the flippers are laid out. I wanted to ask you, Tony, because you've played Freedom Prototype several times. I've played it several times. he's played three different machines. I think he indicated he hasn't played Nick's restored version, but do you recall having a problem hitting the spinners? Not that I recall. I, I mean, I'm not a great player. So if, if a shot doesn't hit, I don't assume there's a problem with the geometry of the game. I assume there's a problem with my playability, but I don't recall it being one of those things where I took shots. I'm like, well, I just, it's just impossible to hit. I, I don't recall that at all. Yeah, I couldn't either, but I also don't remember just tearing into them over and over. I believe Nick's response would probably be, not every game just lets you exploit the spinner constantly,
    8:57
    and that this would be one of those said games. Again, looking back at the visuals, those spinners should be clean shots on either geometry, either the prototype or the finalized version. But I thought there was an implication that the issue with the flipper placement was why they dropped the prototype. And as I understand it, that is not correct. Europe, European distributors, demanded the game get modified because of the middle pop. They didn't like the middle pop. They didn't think the European audience would like it. And that's why Bally gave in and went back to the traditional layout. It wasn't actually the placement of the flippers. Specifically, it was the middle pop that was seen as the problem because they had to take out the slings to put that in. so anyway it was an interesting discussion and then they went on a rant of Atari games which I'm sure would have been lots of fun but other than Superman I haven't played any Atari games and everyone knows Superman's their best anyway it was fun it was a fun topic and speaking of fun topics we can go to pinball formally now I don't know if there's fun topics well we got the continuation of our system 11 tournament That's lots of fun. That'll be a fun topic. But that's at the end. I go through pain first. We will crawl through glass before we can skate on ice. I'm sure someone said that famous.
    10:23
    Let's open with some what I call quick pinball news topics. Because I have three of them that I didn't really want to go into in depth on, but I thought we should go ahead and cover. So the first one is Highway Pinball, which made full throttle and is making the Alien Pinball game.
    10:42
    They might be shipping more Alien pins. I have to say might, though, because I can't quite figure out exactly what's going on. Some reports indicate yes, and some are more like no or slash I don't know. there's a misinformation issue going on for sure though because there have been claims some of this has to do with the their main u.s distributor coin taker has given comments that they're on a ship heading for the u.s and then there's statements that the ship was delayed because of the hurricanes and then there's statements that they were going to the ships but the pinball machines had to go back to the factory because there was a defect that needed to be fixed before they shipped them out to that they haven't been shipped at all and have never gone to the ship i i don't know there are photos or a photo at least that was posted online from highway which showed that they had a number of boxes which looked like they were ready to go with machines and that photo also seemed to suggest to a lot of people that the assembly line that they are running or is just as inefficient as it was under andrew highway that they don't have a lot of specialty pieces to allow them to easily work on the playfield. So that, of course, raised some mini issues about whether or not they'll ever be able to ramp up production faster than they currently are doing. But, you know, so I don't know. Because supposedly there's supposed to be a container with like 20 plus of these things coming to the U.S. soon. But it also sounded like they were also supposed to already have left and gotten here. What do you think, Tony? What's going on with Highway? I think that they were on the way, but alien pirates stole the container off the cargo ship, and now they're trying to cover themselves because the aliens like the game so much they stole it. But if we find out, they'll destroy the world. That's what I think. Now, what type of aliens? Do you mean like xenomorph aliens from the game? No, this would probably be more like predators. They like that game. It's all a game to them. It's fun. that's true and it would be hard to hunt for an alien pin because there just aren't very many that were finished and out in the wild and what is the most dangerous game it is interesting to me I mean it's been I guess it's only been a few months since their reorganization so it's not too surprising that they haven't gotten everything back up to speed and hitting yet so it's been what man how long I don't remember. It was May? Was it May?
    13:23
    Maybe. Yeah, I don't know when the takeover... Yeah, it doesn't feel like it was a long time ago. I'm trying to follow it. I'm trying to keep track of the issues. And, of course, we'll report back when we have something of more substance to go off of. And we did extend an invite through their contract artist on Alien to allow the new owners or a representative for them come on to the show. And that offer, of course, still stands, but they never reached back. So we don't have any sense officially from the company what's going on. I've seen a lot of people have received refunds, and we know that they dramatically raised the prices. We talked about that several episodes ago.
    14:02
    And so it's a question of – obviously, more cash was injected in because they're still going. And obviously, based off of what the expenses are, they decided they needed to raise the price of the product. But other than that, there's been nothing really that suggests they're any better about building them, faster about building them, than it was with Andrew Highway. So – and I don't know how long they spent building full throttles. The rumor mill is they're only around 100 full throttles out there. It wasn't particularly popular. So I just – I can't tell. I mean, they don't necessarily have to have a super efficient line if their costs are contained enough. And some of the issues under the past were that they weren't buying the parts in bulk. So they might be getting efficiency gains just not on the assembly side. And let's not go too far reading into one photo. But the bigger concern is the distributor saying the games are on the way. and then people closer to the company saying, no, the games actually haven't left yet. There's no reason for that story to be inconsistent.
    15:15
    Yeah, well, and how much of it is rumor and how much of it is just something somebody somewhere has put out. I mean, there's too many. There's nothing really solid enough to comment on, I think. I mean, there's just too many conflicting claims without a source that would be considered reputable. that I have seen. That doesn't mean there's not one out there, and that doesn't mean somebody doesn't know the truth. I've seen, like you said, so many conflicting claims that it could be. There might be machines on the way. There might be machines. They might have a whole bunch of machines done. They might be slow. It's just, I don't know, it's just all up in the air still. And it looks like the reorg was three months ago. Mini update number two, skit B. the process of the legal shenanigans or happenings, depending on your view of them. They are, yep, the wheels of justice. They continue to churn slowly, but they are churning. No major decisions have been reached. I think I've listened to, since the last episode, maybe one hearing, and there's nothing of concern to the listeners, I feel, to bother delving into on it. There's been a lot of paperwork that's been going on, And so I know things are moving forward on the various what I call sub players. But the only real interesting thing is you've got some of these sub issues going on. Plus, there is a counterclaim from the VirtuaPin lawsuit involving a defamation against the trustee. So that's going on at the same time. But again, that's tangential. That's not really skippy per se. So I'll keep my eyes on it and probably report back when I finally see what the decision is on it. Those are kind of fun hearings to listen to because they get to be very passionate because it's an accusation against an attorney being made by another attorney that one was behaving inappropriately. So, of course, there's a little bit of drama involving that, but it's not at the core of what we're interested in following as podcast. And nothing major involving the Kulik family itself over the last podcasting period. So that's why I don't have anything else to say. Other than there is activity that is still going on. Attempts to claw back assets are still happening.
    17:32
    Last mini issue. The Alice Cooper pin. We really haven't talked about that since our Texas Pinball Festival episode because all the attention coming out of Spooky Pinball has been on total nuclear annihilation. But some of the art was revealed in, I believe it was a magazine. I forget the name of it. I've not taken a close look at the art. I just saw people note. I saw the thread was bumped up, and so I looked, and it's like, oh, look. It was kind of a surprise because no one gave him a heads up. Check out this magazine and see our art. It was eventually someone noticed it, and it's like, whoa, cool. And I say some of the art because I think it had to do with, like, the cab art and stuff. I don't think it was the play field.
    18:08
    No, there may have been some of the play field. I don't think there's anything comprehensive with all the art put together. Let me rephrase that because I'm sure I'll get a correction after making that mistake.
    18:19
    That's it for the quick pinball news. Have you seen that art? No, I haven't seen it. I hadn't even heard about it being revealed.
    18:30
    So that is completely new to me. And I am so... I mean, yeah. It's Alice Cooper, Tony. Tony, it's Alice Cooper. I know. Arguably your 26th favorite band. I have not been real happy with my games I've played lately from Spooky. I'm sure I will play this one at some point, but it's just not up there. It's not something that I'm deeply looking forward to.
    19:04
    Yeah, I have no built-in enthusiasm for it. But yes, I'm sure we'll end up with one on location, and we'll see. I'm hoping to see continued improvement. I really want to see the total nuclear annihilation on location because I have played that gameplay and I know it's good. So I'm more excited about that. But that's kind of unfair because I've actually played it. Yeah. Well, I think that's the thing is so often you look at stuff and it's like, wow, that looks really nice. That looks really interesting. And then it's like, oh, no, it's not.
    19:37
    Yeah. So there's a lot of disappointment. I mean, I was really excited for Rob Zombie. You were. You loved the art. You still love the art. I still love the art. But, yeah, no, I was less than thrilled by the game itself.
    19:57
    So... Well, it's gone now, or so I've read. It's not at our location anymore. I complained about that last episode, actually. And then that day I saw it was announced, I put in a Star Trek instead. Oh, I bet you're looking forward to that. Some tournament time on that. Star Trek is one of those games where while I do enjoy it the problem is there are a lot of people who have kind of mastered how to play it and so it's like Attack from Mars I really like playing Attack from Mars I don't necessarily like playing it in a tournament though because so many people know it but bottom line I'd rather play a game I know than a game I don't and I'd always rather play a game that's fun even though I'm not good at it than a game I don't find fun so yes I am pleased with the decision. Speaking of pleased with decisions and talking about opposite day, let's talk about John Papaduke, aka J-Pop. We're going to the real news now, Tony. Yeah, I hear that sigh from miles and miles away but that ain going to save you from this segment Nothing can save us Wasn it about this time last year that this stuff started Wasn it like September or October last year Yeah, it was. It was in the early fall. The whole American pinball Houdini J-pop debacle started.
    21:14
    That's a good point. Actually, before we – let's do that as part of the segment. Tony, can you give our listeners, because we haven't really talked about J-pop and his relationship with American Pinball since February when we found out he wasn't going to be involved anymore. So can you give kind of a summation of what that was? Because some of our listeners may not know what we're talking about, the newer ones. Well, back in the fall of last year, I don't remember the exact days. I think it was, like I said, it was September or October, something like that, maybe just a hair earlier even. American Pinball started having stuff pop up on the stage. They sent out a little flyer and they made some announcements, had a little website pop up. They were making Houdini Pinball. And it turns out that J-Pop was going to be the designer.
    22:09
    And everybody was up in arms because of the whole Zidware, Magic Girl, Raza fiasco thing going on. and they had a really, really bad showing in Chicago, and pretty quickly they dumped John and brought in another designer and basically started over on the machine. And here it is a year later, and John's suddenly back again, and it's really disturbing. That is a very good summary of what happened with American Pinball. So why is John back? Well, let's see. We now have another company called Deep Root Tech LLC, and they have a division called Deep Root Pinball LLC. He's listed on their engineering team. I believe the title is Lead Game Development is his job title. I have a link, incidentally, in the show notes to their engineering team website. At least it was, last I checked, functional. So what's going on? We know Deep Root does have a Pinsight account. They've had it for years. They actually had some negative statements about J-Pop when the stuff involving his original company to make games, Zidware, that whole mess was going on. And there was an attempt by a company called Pentasia to bail it out. That goes further back than even this podcast goes. So the nutshell of that is Tony's talk about the American Pinball thing. J-Pop got into trouble with game design with his own company before that called Zidware. And it looked like there was an attempt by American Pinball to make some of those games that J-Pop. The thought was, and we don't have any confirmation. We reached out back then, incidentally, to American Pinball, and they never bothered to reply to us. So, you know, when you don't do that, we get to speculate. That's the rule. That's how it works here. So we don't know what the deal was. The assumption, I'd say the baseline assumption most people have is J-Pop was going to get some of his Zidware games made by them. And instead of paying him money, they'd basically pay him in product. And in exchange, he'd give them new designs to make and sell for themselves.
    24:28
    Those designs he needed to get paid with were the ones for Zidware. So anyway, there was an attempt to bail out Zidware, and that didn't work. So no one knows what's going on currently. Again, there's all sorts of speculation, but there are some there have been some clues. And incidentally, much like with American Pinball, I did submit an offer to Deep Root. They'll say, if you want to participate in an interview, we'll do one. Or if you'd like to provide a written statement, you know, I could just read it out on this episode. But I did say we'd be talking about them on this episode and they responded right away. But they said they are, quote, not permitted to discuss anything, end quote. so you know maybe they said maybe in the future so okay so here we are speculating again just like we had to with american pinball uh i can say what we've seen from pin side is the artist on a lot of the magic girl stuff who goes by the moniker zombie yeti he also did the art for stern's ghostbusters that's probably what he's best known for in the pinball world uh he indicated that he received from Robert with Deep Root a copy of a contract written up by J-Pop and J-Pop's legal counsel to give up his copyrights on the Magic Girl artwork free and clear, claiming that he's essentially saying, I've been fully compensated for my art, and it may be used for whatever purpose people want to use it for, even though he never got all of his payments he was supposed to receive. And Zombie Yeti stated publicly that he refused to sign that contract.
    26:04
    Well, I would hope so. Well, it's, you know, because, I mean, there are a lot of vendors who got burned in the Zidware debacle. The main two that people know of are the programmer who, I blank on his name, his handle on Pinside is Applejuice, and Zombie Yeti, who did the art, they were supposed to get paid monetarily and also receive magic girl games as part of their payment and we know they didn't get the magic girl games um they might have received some partial monetary payments but not in full so yeah but but what that does tell us is that deep root is interested in making more magic girls because why else ask for permission for that art and that's interesting because of the three games that were supposed to be made by Zidware. Magic Girl, Raza, which is like retro, Atomic, Zombie Adventureland, and Alice in Wonderland. The Magic Girls, quote unquote, technically have been satisfied on the customer level. American Pinball, I guess, as part of their breakaway with J-Pop, gave him the materials to build. It was a very limited build. The number of customers was around 20, 25-ish, I think. so I guess those have been built and sent out so that one's kind of done like if you were trying to get out of legal trouble you could try and argue here I did it even though those games don't really play and that's part of the scandal with everything that's gone on with J-pop is the magic girls finally went out they started trading around for crazy money and then people started to play them and were like there are features that are missing like here's the spot for the feature but the device isn't there to make it do anything sort of stuff. It doesn't shoot well. Of course, it's a J-pop game. It naturally doesn't shoot well, but it doesn't shoot well beyond normal. There are places the ball's supposed to go where it can't go. There's all sorts of madness like that. So that's sort of what limited news we have on this right now. Tony, I'd like to explore what your thoughts are on this regarding Deep Root and working with J-Pop. They put his name on the website, so I have to think they wanted it to leak or they thought it wouldn't be bad PR for it to leak. But to me, it seems like a really big slash stupid risk to team up with John Papaduke. I don't know. I was so in shock when this came up. I remember last year when we first started talking about the American pinball thing, I was convinced it was a hoax. It was a big joke somebody was pulling.
    28:46
    And I was wrong. And now to see after that debacle, to see yet another company do the exact same thing is shocking. But what's even more shocking is the way this is being played out, the way this is being, I mean, And since I've seen this, it sounds like they're going to make more Magic Girls. And they're going to make more games that are just not like Raza is a possibility. I know nothing's been said because nothing's been said about nothing. But with the way they're trying to get information out about, like, the Zombie Yeti to get that release just makes me think and makes it look like to me that that's what they want is they want to make more of those games. Which, from everything we've seen since they went out, Magic Girl is trash. It's complete junk. And the only thing going for it is its rarity. And that could be going away. which is just senseless. But to ask a zombie Yeti to give up his rights when he's never been paid, when he's never been compensated in any way is insane. And I wonder if other people have gotten the same things and they haven't said anything.
    30:18
    It's just, I don't know. I just can't believe it. I cannot believe a year after the American pinball thing, we're doing this again again well his you know his bally williams days j-pop's got a number of games that are in the top 20 still he he's loved a lot of people love his designs love him over any other designer as shocking as i find that to be yeah i i can't understand that because his games are at most okay none of his games jump out and scream to me as oh this is a wonderful game i don't know if any of his games is in my top list i mean i will play them i enjoy several of them but they are definitely not some sort of giant full-on wonderful glowing hallelujah a chorus of pinball to me. And I know they are to some people. But for me, they're not. I mean, Totem is a pretty enough game, and it's kind of fun, but it's not, it doesn't scream at me the way it apparently does to some people as just the perfect game. I don't know. But hey, I mean, I like weird stuff too. I mean, I get that. I agree that most of his games have a really excellent, and Magic Girl included, have an excellent art package. His choice on visual art for his pins is impressive. I would say it is the most impressive of any of the, I don't know how much of a say he gets in that versus, you know, going back to Toten, as you referenced, Theater of Magic, Circus Voltaire, they all look great. magic girl looks great what i saw sketched up for raza and alice in wonderland look great but he's not a he's not the artist he's not the one drawing all that stuff uh so you know i guess maybe in those uh and again referencing back when uh nick from nick's north american pinball tour was in town we were having a discussion and i mocked that that phrase it's a phrase i hate i guess i'm not criticized i might upset a few of the listeners so apologies up front that world under glass i hate that i hate that expression i hate it because i don't believe in it i don't believe that you feel like you're the pinball exploring the world under glass and that's not what pinball is about you never have that in the em era and i think it's silly to go and judge the game by how much of the world is under there and how many toys there are like i'm a three-year-old dropping a marble in a in a you know whatever those little things are where they just roll around and you don't actually play anything you're just watching that's to me what world under glass means and that's not a game that's just a spectacle so i've never been impressed by it i like games to look nice but i'm not about world under glass and that's what i always recall hearing about with j pop is he builds such a beautiful world under glass yeah but it sucks to play i mean they don't all suck theater of magic shoots fine i enjoy toad in it fine circus voltaire if i'm not playing it tournament is okay but it's as ugly okay world cup soccer you can say the best to play yeah and it's definitely not the prettiest of them but it is the funnest of them yeah it's really moved up a lot in my in my listing but yeah so all this yeah i i don't get it i mean i guess if you want if any advertising is good advertising then this was a great way to get noticed is to tie yourself to j-pop that's what i had assumed american pinball was doing when they got into bed with him initially i still don't understand how american pinball was so stupid it was it just because it all ultimately did not work out well for them i mean you know i don't want to i'm not in the market for houdini but i'd still i'd have a lot of trouble honestly buying from american pinball because of that mistake yeah i thought that that was a smart move i'd i'd still be i mean no no offense to those working on Houdini now. I believe that they're respected designers, programmers, artists, and I have nothing against them. But that company deciding that it was okay to work with J-Pop, I'm not over it. I won't consider buying their, I don't recommend their products to anyone because of that. No, I agree wholeheartedly with that. And I mean, that's the same way I'm going to be going with this, is I'm not going to have any, I'll follow it. I'll look at it I will comment on it but I don't I do not see how a company not just a year after this whole thing happened does it again and if they are big pinball people how they can look at what happened to American Pinball last year and be like yeah but we're better than that was them we're different Right. In their case, what I'm going to guess, and again, it's all speculative because we don't know, is American Pinball was like, let's make the Zidware stuff for John and we'll pay him in machines and then he'll give us new stuff to make. Whereas Deep Root's more like, who cares what the limits were on these runs for the Zidware things? Let's basically just become Zidware and sell as many of them as we can. We know people love the art packages on them. Now, whether or not they make the original customers haul is in question. There was an interview that Deep Root, or a conversation, I believe it was phrased, that Deep Root participated with This Week in Pinball that people can look up online. And in that discussion, they indicated that they were going to take steps regarding the past Zidware customers. Obviously, with the contract that went to Zombie Yeti, there does not seem to be interest in trying to take care of the vendors. But they could still kind of ignore the vendors and try and deal with the customers in some way, either giving them machines, giving them a credit, giving them a discount. It could manifest in a lot of different ways. Or you just sort of steamroll past all that ultimately and say, well, let's see if we can sell them outright and not do anything with the Zidware folks. That would probably backfire on them would be my thought.
    36:50
    You would hope? Yes. But I mean the current thing, what the current approach has done, which happened with American Pinball as well, is now you've got people who are quote-unquote in on the Zidware games that now are – it splits the community in a way because some of those people will see this as their only hope of getting their machine. and so now they're going to want everyone to back Deep Root just because they're desperate to get they don't believe they'll ever get their money back some of them are in lawsuit, some of them have decided not to go into lawsuit and some of them still hold out hope that they might get made whole and getting made whole means getting the machine and so they're going to want Deep Root to succeed and I think I would speculate Deep Root would rely on that and be like we have a built in fan base as long as we suggest. Is it a fan base? It's like hostages. I mean, we've got a built-in Stockholm syndrome is what it is. Sure, but from the corporate perspective, if that's going to guarantee that they're going to have supporters on the forums while they remain silent and not answering the John Papaduke relationship question about why would you go with him when there's so many other designers you could pick from if you need an established name to give you an in. And you've got people, I mean, it's happened on Penn site already where there's some like, well, shouldn't we be backing this? It's like at some point, really, and that's why it's the John Papa Duke just won't – he won't die. He's the cockroach of pinball. At some point, it would have been great. It would have been painful for people, but it would have been great for everyone to have just understood you'll never get the games. You should enter into a legal settlement. Maybe you get pennies on the dollar. It sucks, but that's what you're going to – that's the only way you're going to get something. I don't think anyone should get games at this point. I think they should get refunds, partial or full, but none of this idea about the games as an idea should die, and it should just be monetary recomp. That's it. Yeah, no, I agree. I think, and here's my thought, is having seen what the magic girl was that actually went out to people, do these people want their games? because it sounds like it's worth less than just getting some money back would be. You get a non-functional game that you're not going to be able to sell unless you magically find some person that wants a giant box of lights that doesn't play at all or play worthwhile, that they're willing to dump new car money on. I mean that's just how long can you keep these dreams alive without just accepting the fact that it's over your hope is done it's changed it's time to try something new I think for a lot of them they could be who knows they could be telling themselves that Deep Root will fix it so that these will play they'll fix the Magic Girls so these will play see that's the I mean, that's really the only way if Deep Root were to engineer and make these all shoot. So they're not going to be exact. I mean, again, Raza and Alice in Wonderland weren't really very far along in terms of finalized design. So you could get a ray with significant changes. The magical one sort of interesting because if they made a working magic girl, my assumption would have been, especially if they had been able to keep the artwork would have been that they would basically crush the value of the existing american pinball built versions and their versions because they'd actually be playable would be more valuable and more desired the only thing the american pinball ones would possibly have would be collectability but if it's the art that everyone's after all you hurt are the people who got the existing magic girls and it's not like they're in the market for new ones. So from a corporate perspective, who cares about their opinion? Because they're done. These pinball companies are not in the business of you making $25,000 on flipping a game. They don't care about that. No, but they are in the game of PR and your visibility in the social networking as it is nowadays. And doing something like that would cause a major hit and they've already taken one major hit just because of the j-pop thing period how many hits can a company take and expect to survive well that's where some of the speculation regarding deep root is they're not targeting the pinball collector community at all you know they've got that phrase a home for every pinball pinball for every home or something like that some are wondering if their plan is more like and j-pop had a history with this with the sizzle machines What if their goal is not to make full arcade operator machines which even the home collection models are all oriented around in the pinball collecting community But instead just taking the designs and shrinking them and making them more like the pen or like Zizzle small little cheap versions designed for normal people to buy. That market wouldn't care about J-pop. They wouldn't know about it. You're right. And actually, that is an interesting idea of how would that get around the people who thought that they were getting a limited edition Magic Girl if they turned out a Zizzle-sized machine of Magic Girl, because technically they would still have their limited edition full-size Magic Girl. Yep. Again, we don't know. It's all very speculative, but that could be the angle.
    42:37
    In that case, they don't care about the PR at all. But then that also begs the question, why do it with John? People buying the Zizzle machines don't care about the developers. They don't know about them. They just want a little cheap pen to have in their home to play around on. So you could have a nobody do the design. Oh, well, it's weird.
    42:57
    I really thought this type of stuff was over. I thought this kind of stuff was over. We will never be free.
    43:05
    We're like enslaved to Sauron's will here. Okay. Well, moving past Sauron to the land of Sauron. Well, kind of, because that was New Zealand, and we're going to talk about Australia by way of China. But let's talk about Home Pin. yeah i know i tried to make it transition and it just didn't work at all but now we've got good news right this is good news we can get rid of the gritty bad stuff and go well no that's not what i asked this is better news anything compared to j-pop pretty well maybe not trudeau but anything else compared to j-pop is probably better news uh gosh there's just so much negativity in pinball right now. HomePin, another podcast, head-to-head pinball. They had an in-depth interview with Mike of HomePin about his company and the Thunderbirds pinball machine that they're going to release as their first pin. I do have a link to that interview in the show notes. So if people want to go and listen to it, they have provided it. So feel free to give it a listen. It's nice. They cover a lot of elements of the company. What I thought is we should focus though on the part that's getting discussion in the pinball community. And the main element there is it had to do with the updating of the games. Mike has indicated that his system does not support USB updating of code. That's generally seen as the standard at this point. That's what the Stern games do. I believe that's what the JJP games do.
    44:31
    Spooky didn't start that way, but I think they've gotten to SD card updating. or maybe they're at USB at this point. This is where I get punished for not looking it up. Anyway, USB is kind of what people like because it's easy.
    44:46
    But what I thought was interesting is beyond just the USB specifically, I've actually never done a USB update on a game, so I can't really comment on it, but that the system isn't relying on socketed CPU chips either. Instead, I believe Mike said that the chips are through board, so I guess they're actually soldered to the board itself. And whereas I have done code updates on things like Sharky Shootout and Jurassic Park, where you had chips and I used an EEPROM burner, but they were socketed. So it's real easy to pull a chip out and put a new chip in. Mike stressed that the intent is to release Thunderbirds with complete code. The boards can be updated if they need to be. And the way that will be done is you can send them or bring them to an authorized entity like one of the distributors, I guess, and they'll have the ability to apply the update. But I wanted to ask you, Tony, what are your thoughts on this? Mike's concern that he stressed in the interview was about home users possibly ruining their boards by failing to do the update properly through USB. Is that a problem? Is that something that happens a lot? I don't know. Considering how often people update through USB. This is like that video game console that was thrown around a year or two ago where they were going to make this all new video game console that goes back and uses cartridges. No, you can't connect to the internet. No, you can't patch games. Everything will be sold and done right the first time.
    46:19
    Man, that didn't even happen back in the day. There were games that had issues out of the box. there's always going to be something that needs to be tweaked and to remove all of the needs to the only way you can take to actually get it updated if there's some important update is you have to take the whole board out and ship it back or ship it to a specialty place to do it oh no no this just seems really bad because there's going to be problems that don't show up I mean, unless they're beta players, unless they've got, you know, 75,000 beta players before they finalize code, there's going to be something found eventually. It just seems like a massive mistake. It seems like hubris just to go, our games are perfect. Our game will be perfect, and it will go out with no problem. You don't need to fix anything. well in the interview he he ranged i think between 90 to 99 percent completion upon time of release so he didn't claim 100 but but you bring up a good point about the issue of bugs and that's been the main thing of the community i mean that was why i had to update sharkies incidentally i saw what version the code was on because i initially thought oh well this was back before they made it easy to update code this was back before stern had the reputation of not finishing code so what would there be to change they're surely not going to add more modes and they didn't the issue was there was a certain circumstance that was very rare but it was possible to arise when you had certain settings on the game and certain things happening in the game where the magnet could burn something out is it was a weird i even saw the write-up on it and i was like oh wow in a home setting i'm not even sure this condition could happen but it's like they had to release a patch because it could actually damage something physically. So the game had to get patched. I think they had to do two or three bug patches. They were all bug patches, but that's what was done. What confused me, though, is, let's say for a moment, because I don't know, that there have been a number of people who have bricked their boards by misappropriately applying a USB update. Why not use socketed CPU chips, then? Because the average home user doesn't have an EEPROM burner. they're intimidating to use quite frankly to you look at them and you see all the different chip types and all the settings in the software i mean they're cheap they're super cheap to get from china i have an eeprom burner but yeah you have to orient it right you have to make sure you chose the right chip type a lot of the stuff's in abbreviation that would limit the number of people willing to update it to just those who feel like they know what they're doing but i don't so i don't understand why you don't you why not use a socketed set at least then let if the homeowner doesn't want to send it in, they can go ahead and just pop in a new EEPROM chip because that's how it was done for a long time. So that's the part that kind of confused me is not even allowing it be the old socketed chip model because that would cut down on the number of casual people trying to do it, but it would still be a very affordable, easy process for those that have that equipment, which a lot of collectors would if they're regularly trading in older games because many of the older games were socketed. Like Jurassic Park is from 92. It's socketed chip.
    49:45
    Yes, but I just can't believe that there's some huge thing of people bricking their machines with the USB updates. I mean, sure, it might happen on occasion, but is it some major problem? It doesn't seem to be a major problem. No, that's a good point. And what relates to this is a somewhat separate matter that I saw come up on Pennside. So there, Ben Heck, who was involved in the Penheck board design, which is what Spooky's Pins primarily have been using. Total Nuclear Annihilation is not. I know they're using P-Rock because that's what it was originally designed on, but they're kind of custom board set.
    50:25
    And HomePin, I remember at one point the mic on Pinside had complemented their approach to their board design. That's not a CPU. Excuse me, not a CPU. They're not using like a PC-based computer. He's not a fan of that. He wanted to use the more traditional board styles for stability, which is what Penhek is. Well, Penhek has accused HomePen of ripping off their custom board designs without giving any credit for it. The boards that HomePen and Penhek are using are based off open source projects. The claim is that there were certain kind of weird or strange customizations that the Penhek designers did to their board design, and they see that in the photos of HomePen's board design. and relating to our prior discussion and your concerns about the issue with not letting the user update the open source version of pinheck because it was originally released open source and then it was taken down that version didn't allow user updates of the board set but later they adjusted it so that you could do an sd card update oh i have it in my notes so now i know what you could do yeah rob zombie lets you do sd card updates i should have read my own notes better so what ben heck is saying is pinheck was open source it's not a legal issue going on here he's just annoyed that home pin hasn't thanked them and given them credit for the board design but is instead acting like they developed it themselves mike's statements last i saw on pinside have not been to acknowledge that he has taken from him pinheck he's just acknowledging He used the same original open source board stuff that Penhek did. Benhek, after seeing the fonts used, was like, no, you're using the same fonts I used. That wasn't in that project. And then when they saw photos of the boards provided, he and one of the other developers were pointing to things like, there's no reason for you to have this here. That was a mistake. Well, not a mistake, but something we did to save money because we just happened to have a whole bunch of surplus something else's that did that. no one in their right mind would design it that way if they didn't just have that lying around sort of stuff. So they're like, no, looking at the photos, we know you've definitely taken our design. And you didn't give us credit, which is the standard open source approach. But talking about that, that would explain why it just so happens this game doesn't allow user updates.
    52:48
    Because the one that was put out in the open source community didn't have the SD card update option. They developed that privately later. So I don't know what your thoughts are there, but... If they're working off something open source, okay, that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that, but...
    53:09
    Yeah. Wow. Yeah, I don't... Again, there doesn't seem to be any legal issue. It's both PenHack and the original open source board set that Mike's claiming he built off of, which Ben Heck has built off of. They're both open source, so it's not a legal issue. But if HomePen's board is the Pen Heck board design or based off of it, then normal open source protocol is to give credit, and you could lose support. You could lose collector support. It gets extra – I mean, because Pen Heck's used in Spooky, and this gets to a – this is a weird one. And I've never wanted to really do a segment on it, and we're not really going to. But it's – well, here's the thing. People love Spooky. It's sort of at the point where it's almost not safe to criticize Spooky because there's so much Broadway support. Everyone – it's like the American dream come to life. Everyone loves Charlie. Everyone loves everyone who works for Spooky. Everyone loves the passion. Everyone loves the buy the bootstraps and using the small town in Wisconsin to build the stuff. I've had people privately tell me while they like the idea of spooky they don't think the games are up to professional quality they don't think that they don't think the quality is there yet that it's still very homebrewy and but that they don't like to say it publicly because it comes across as an attack on spooky and there are a lot of people that just kind of are almost rabid about defending it so you start taking things that might be seen as quote-unquote spooky property and not giving credit, there might be people that may have considered supporting HomePen just as a new startup that would be like, well, no, you're now identified as an anti-spooky, so we can't back you. I don't think there'll be that much blowback on this. This is so nuanced, confusing, and you'd have to have looked in the appropriate threads to follow it. But it has come up on some of the discussions, at least the things about the update. That'd probably be more off-putting. But yeah, I mean, it's sort of like, I don't know. I don't know what the deal is. Again, maybe I can't even say for sure that it is has taken from Penhek. I don't want to say that I think Mike's the one in the wrong. I don't know. It's just the accusations were pretty fervent and he was defensive, but it's I don't know. They had a lot of kind of nuanced specifics they were pointing to that were their design. But if it was taken and it's open source, why not just give credit? I don't get it. To me, this isn't some major massive thing, but I agree. If there's credit to be given, give credit. I mean, pinball is a pretty small hobby all in all, and you're not going to help yourself by acting like a a-hole. I mean, that's just not really going to do anything good for you, especially on the sales side of the aisle when you're trying to build a following.
    56:21
    But I don't know. We'll see. I mean, we don't know when or if or how things are going to turn out. So we'll just have to see. Fun topic time. Oh, there's a fun topic finally. This has been mildly depressing. This has been beyond mildly depressing. That's right. I mean, the only thing we needed to finish destroying this whole thing would have been a Trudeau update. No. That would have been the final thing. That would have just been enough to say, no, okay, we're good. All right, yeah, I'm going to go take some Xanax and lay down for a while now, and maybe it'll all be over soon. Yeah, I actually deliberately did not even search for anything related to Trudeau since the last episode because I don't want an update right now. I don't want to talk about it. But we will when there's actual major news, obviously. So, yes, fun topic. Our System 11 tournament, it's going well. It's going into round two, Tony. Woo! But we must summarize round one, and I think that's pretty easy to do. There was only one upset where a lower seed took out a higher seed. Dr. Dude, which was the 19th seed, did take out Grand Lizard, which was at the 14th spot, with 69% of the vote. Well, that's good. That should have happened. I mean, I'm still not sold that. that the seeding wasn't accidentally reversed due to typos. Well, it is possible, but you'd have to actually research it to levy a claim against me. Yeah, too much energy spent. That's what I thought. That's what I rely on. That's why it was so shocking when I actually had three different people send me corrections this last week because normally I just expect everyone to be too lazy to bother looking.
    58:17
    It's a learning experience, Tony. only other things I'd summarize regarding the round one results was the largest margin of victory was actually the four seed Earthshaker over the 29th seed Millionaire it had 97.7% of the vote which does mean that Bugs Bunny did better than Millionaire did with its matchup against Taxi only had 90.7% of the vote so there was almost 10% troll voting that went on for Bugs Bunny I can only say shame I do encourage people to play it some people will say oh this game is so awful don't ever play it no no you need to know what it's like you must it's basically it's our only mandate we have on this show is for you to play Overwatch and Bugs Bunny for opposite reasons so let's go over the round two matchups and discuss our thoughts on the games the seeds are in the votes there's a link to the vote in the show notes. I'm not going to talk the seeds here. We're just going to talk game to game because we already went over all the seeds last time. Only difference is now Whirlwind, which is the one seed, and Elvira and the Pot of Your Monsters, which is the two seed, they're now in. They got by us the first round, as people may recall. So, they're going to show up now and they didn't show up last time. So, first matchup. Whirlwind versus F-14 Tomcat. What are your thoughts, Tony?
    59:39
    I'm going to go with Whirlwind just due to personal preference. Same. I actually really Whirlwind might be one of my actually it is one of my favorite lollers it might be my favorite I don't know I really like it next matchup Diner versus High Speed I knew you'd be High Speed because you love High Speed I love High Speed I am as well I don't love High Speed the same way you do but Diner to me is always just a lesser taxi and so I don't like it the way some people do I just think it's basically taxi but the rules are worse so I just don't care for it as much.
    60:19
    Okay, next matchup. Earthshaker versus Space Station. I'm going to go Earthshaker, but this one was a little tougher. I had to think for milliseconds on this one.
    60:30
    SpaceStation's got some fun things, but man, Earthshaker's just a solid game. I actually am going to go SpaceStation on this one. I don't love either of these games. I think Earthshaker is way overrated. I don't enjoy shooting it. I think the shaker motor carries that game, and that's all that's really carrying that game. I don't think the shots feel very good. The problem is space station shots don't feel great either, but it at least was more creative with the slings down against abutting the flippers, so it's very hard to trap up. It's got that weird little time bonus kind of Zacharias-style pinball thing it stole that you can earn. I think it's got more interesting code, so that's why I'm doing that, but I don't really love either of those games.
    61:18
    Alright, Pinbot versus Mouse and Around. Are you sure? Because people love Mouse and Around. I don't know why.
    61:26
    It's got mice on it. Maybe that's their thing. Maybe they like the mice on it, but no, Pinbot. Take what I just said about Earthshaker and multiply it by four and apply it to Mouse and around and throw out the part about the shaker motor i don't pin bot all the way i don't like mousing around i think it's boring i don't understand why it is nearly as popular as it is a lot of people really love it though so i maybe it's just the look uh or the shots but the shots center ramp all day so i don't i don't get it but all right elvira and the party monsters versus roller games hmm that's a tougher one i'm going to probably end up going with elvira and the party monsters but i enjoy roller games i as i mentioned last time i'm going elvira and that one's not not close for me i think elvira shoots pretty well i think roller games could shoot pretty well but a lot of times it doesn't and it's just like you need that thing so tuned to be able to hit all those shots, especially that ramp. So I just don't think it holds up very well, unfortunately. It's a good idea, though. I do think they're both fun games.
    62:43
    All right, Banzai Run versus Swords of Fury. You didn even need the versus Banzai Run But you like Swords of Fury Tony Swords of Fury Have you forgotten it fine but it but bonsai run just has so many interesting little things to it that it puts it on top i agree i agree same reason all right taxi versus dr dude wow that's that one's actually really tough i mean i have to give to taxing i mean that is such a fun game but dr dude is solid but no taxing yes uh i agree with you uh dr dude was a game i didn't care for and it has grown on me quite a bit of the system 11 yeah dr d that's got it makes you shoot around which i appreciate i mean not totally you don't really need to do the the right orbit for example but you know to be able to to spell out your mode to go and get your multiball going does require quite a bit of work taxi makes you shoot around more though and so it's like yeah i like them both but for me taxi is a top five system 11 game and dr dude's a top 10 so it's not that close for me but they're both in the top third so both very well respected by me our final matchup is going to be black knight 2000 versus cyclone that's black night 2000 without even a hint of thought otherwise yep i agree actually when i was writing these up i got thrown off when i was typing my uh verses in and i almost had dr dude going up against black night and that would have actually been a more challenging decision for me but that is not what we got so anyway as i noted the link is in the show notes so people may go vote and that is concluding this episode's pinball segment so let's hop all over on over all over video games we're gonna get all the video games that's right there was one piece of gaming news i i just recently saw and i thought it might be fun to have a little discussion on it uh pub g player unknowns battlegrounds uh they they're they and their main developer have called out the game fortnight for specifically for replicating their game fortnight has put out a battle royale or is putting out a battle royale mode and pub g was not a fan of it i guess what are your thoughts i'm not really you know specifically i don't play either of these games i i'm not all that concerned about the the game mechanics itself i thought it might be more fun to just have a brief discussion about what do you think of a game that's kind of given credit for pioneering a mode which is what pub g is doing it wasn't the first to do the battle royale style but it is the most prominent becoming very popular example of it and now that there are clones coming out what are your thoughts on this i mean is it right for pub g to call them out for the replication specifically there's they were mad because you parachute in just like you do in pub g you're the area of fighting gets smaller and smaller just like pub g fortnight's counter argument if they were to bother making one would probably be things like well we have a whole building system like a tower defense thing going on and that's in our version and your version doesn't have that so our games still play very differently despite those mechanics um but just i mean basically they they they are pioneering or getting a lot of credit for making popular a game a multiplayer game mode so what do you think about this idea that people shouldn't be replicating that well there's no doubt to the popularity of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. I mean, this game came out of nowhere,
    66:29
    and when it hit, it has replaced everything on Steam's most concurrent player list. It has constantly got players. I mean, it's taken Dota off the list. It's taken Counter-Strike off the list. It is at the top of the list. And you can also see it on just streamers. People are streaming it everywhere.
    66:59
    As for calling them out for replicating their games, man, they're going to replicate you. People are going to do it. How many Minecraft clones are out there? I mean, they're all over the place. When Pacific Rim came out, somebody kicked out a movie called Atlantic Rim. I mean There's a whole genre of movies That's literally just hey Let's get a movie out that's named kind of like And it looks kind of like That big giant movie that's hitting Theaters and try and get it out about the same time DVD I mean it's the same way in the video games There's some video game That takes off it gets huge Everybody starts replicating it And some of them work and some of them Don't Survival games were exactly that. A few survival games got huge and suddenly there were survival games everywhere and most of them were terrible. But a couple of them took what they started out as and took it to the next level. Is Fortnite going to be doing that? No, I don't think they are. But it's going to have some interesting stuff to it. And I think it's just one of those things when you're in the industry, you just accept that it happens. unless they're blatantly pulling your exact code. If they're just using your idea, well, oh well, you're using somebody else's idea. I mean, it's not like it's never been seen before or never been talked about before. Yeah, I think part of the issue in terms of the mechanics in this case is PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds licensed to use the Unreal Engine. Epic makes Fortnite, so they're going to use the same engine as well. obviously yeah i think you've summarized it very well i i find this to be incredibly whiny and i think that they're whining about it because they don't have a legal case here that'd be like do you did do people get to sue for capture the flag do the boy scouts get to be no we invented capture the flag you can't have a fly i mean i don't know what i mean it's sort of like i i get why they're annoyed and i mean in fact pub g should probably be scared this is the problem when you decide that your game gets to stay in early access for 20,000 years.
    69:18
    You're not up ready for your full sales yet. It's a relatively small team and a relatively low budget that has been making a lot of money while sitting there in early access. These other companies with big money see this success and they are going to come after you, and they're going to make a more polished, better version of your game. I'd push PUBG out as fast as I could to mass market it more than it did. You've got to get it out of early access and sell while you can because you're going to get outdone. You're going to get outdone by the big boys. You have showed your cards for too long in early access doing your incremental updates, and that would be fine. I have nothing against early access inherently. I don't normally go for games in early access, but I don't have a problem with the model. It's just when you have this high level of success, you are begging for multi-million dollar companies to be like you know what we can do that and we can actually make it not buggy yeah so i mean it's like okay well it was a fun ride pub g i mean you've you've had a ton of success there's a reason why it's one of the it's it's the most anticipated thing microsoft's got coming out this winter is because they get the console exclusivity up front for for unknown battlegrounds here's the thing i mean the uh uh pub g's unknown or yeah this whole thing they haven't been in early access that long no not really when i said 20 000 years i i mean they were they announced in 2015 and came out in 2016 in early access so it's not been a huge ordeal it's only been in early access since march of this year i thought they had said that they had come out in 2016. Maybe they were alphaing it.
    70:59
    Doesn't matter. It's been too long for a game this popular. It is. It's too long. They could have made more money by not keeping it in early access. There's scope creeping their way through. That was their decision. A company like Epic or what if DICE says, we're putting this into Battlefield. You're done. There are better games. there are better games. PUBG is a buggy mess.
    71:27
    And it's just because they're a small team and they're being very ambitious. And it's still super loved, which is awesome. But if you want to stay in early access forever and sacrifice your sales for it, that was their decision. So I don't have any sympathy for them. They had plenty of time to mass sell this if they wanted to. They chose this model. This was going to happen even though they didn't choose this model. But I think maybe they feel like they're leaving money on the table. But Fortnite's free to play. That's part of the threat here. I didn't realize Fortnite was free to play. Yeah, I read that somewhere. I've never played it. It just came out not that long ago. Yeah. Yeah, but it's sort of, you know, it is a copycat. I mean, well, they're Battle Royale mode. They've got other modes in Fortnite. It's not just this. This is an attack on thing, sort of. But this publicly shaming thing. yeah the arduant uh the ardent um pub g fans might go after fortnight and criticize them on the floor you know reddit might be really toxic to fortnight but it's like this was gonna happen you you guys had too much success it was gonna happen everyone knew the battle royale uh play pvp genre was going to start showing up in all sorts of stuff i expect to see it in call of duty within two years it was gonna happen so if they're mad about that that's silly to get mad about it They're mad because it's threatening their bottom line before they released. That's because of their release schedule. They should have been more aggressive instead of just thinking, oh, well, we'll just stay in early access forever. Okay, well, there you go. Some games have tried that stay in early access for everything, and it doesn't always work out for them. Some games have stayed in early access for a long time, and it has worked out for them. But I don't think it's, I think the level of popularity with this one is going to be that, yeah, this one needs it. this one needs to get done. It does. I think the reason why they were able to make the deal with Microsoft and not PlayStation is Microsoft has an early access programmed on their console and Sony doesn't. And so it was, they were able to accommodate when PUBG was like, well, we don't want to have the formal non beta style release yet, but we want to put it out on consoles. We'll make more money. And Microsoft's like, well, we have a model for that. And Sony's like, we don't do that. And so that's why there's the console exclusivity. It's not set to be permanent. But, you know, I don't know how long they were. Again, I don't know. They made so much money even in early access. That's hard to think that they made a bad choice. I just I don't know what else to get upset about. So it's just, oh, they made a copy of our game. I could I imagine it's because they feel like they haven't fully released it yet. I mean I know like those Beast Cast and Giant Bomb guys Have had discussions about whether or not Will PUBG be eligible For Game of the Year because a lot of them seem to Want it to be Game of the Year but their own Internal rules say Early Access isn't out yet Yep I mean that's how And then that's like one of their Game of the Year's A year or two ago it was An issue because Kerbal Space Program Once it finally came out of Early Access and it was in early access for a long time. It won game of the year, not game of the year, but it won in one of the sections it was in that it was put up for. But everyone, when they were tired, it's like, haven't we already done this one? Have we been playing this game for like six years? And it's like, well, yeah, but now it's fully released.
    75:01
    So, yeah, this is going to be one of those things that's, they're too popular. They will disappear if they don't do something, and I think this is them lashing out, knowing what's coming.
    75:15
    Yep, I agree with you. All right, Dishonored 2. I finished it yesterday. It was a buggy, crashing mess with a non-interesting story. I don't recommend it. I don't understand why some people thought this was game of the year last year. I'm very disappointed. Don't play it. The end.
    75:32
    Okay, well, that works. I finally punched through it. I just, I could not believe it crashed on console of all places over and over and over again. I couldn't get into the story. I did the first Dishonored. The mechanics are fun. If you really like stealth and not Hitman style stealth, but the stealth where you have multiple approaches into buildings and well, no, even Hitman has that. But this is more about like staying to the shadows and not disguises and stuff. It's got that. But I don't know. It was prettier than Dishonored 1, which I didn't like the aesthetic of. but it just was so disappointing. It was a slog, but I wanted to finish it. You said you played like five hours of video games over the last couple weeks. What games have you played or game? Cold Waters.
    76:18
    I downloaded a mod for Cold Waters that patched in a 2004-era campaign, and I've been playing that, and that's literally all of the minimal amount of video gaming I've done in the last two weeks. How is it, the mod? The mod's really well done. I haven't had any big issues with it until a patch hit and now it's broken.
    76:47
    Which isn't surprising because of a patch. So I just need to wait for a new version of the mod to come out. That's the problem with running mods. When the game gets patched, mods stop working sometimes. Yeah, that's unfortunate. But no way around that. Speaking of mods, this has nothing to do with that. Betas. We're going to go over to betas. Yeah, I have no transitions anymore. Dragon Ball FighterZ. I was able to get in on the closed beta. I know you saw some online streamer footage of Dragon Ball FighterZ. Yeah, I've seen some streamer footage and stuff.
    77:22
    Yeah, I spoke with Mike, who's guest hosted several times. He's a big fighting game fan, and he did beta play as well. I had a few PvP matches, a couple, two or three, and I did some against the computer, which was, it wasn't just stand there and take it, but it was almost that level. You had no selection options because these were very strict time periods. But I am, I'm still excited about the game. Mike has indicated that in terms of the mechanics, it very much follows the, what's the company? arc arc system works that kind of are known for like guilty gear and such follows a lot of their tropes or our fighting game mechanics it is very simple to pick up a lot of the commands i've seen looking at guides online or quarter circle button or like hold down and double tap a particular button so it's pretty it's not like soul caliber where everyone has these really extensive strings you had to minimize memorize it's a lot of the stuff will translate from character to character but it's definitely got the show feel to it visually it's very impressive the call outs are fun so the last fighting game I bought was Nidhogg off of Steam and then before that I don't remember probably one of the BlazBlue's on Steam so I just I don't even average a fighting game a year and but this one is definitely on the list definitely yeah I like the look of it it touches all the nostalgia buttons and it looks like a fun game a la some of the old marvel v capcoms and i have high hopes for it we'll see when i actually get a chance to play it which will probably be like i don't know when it comes out in february i think uh last thing i thought i'd mention is a few days ago i went ahead and bought the uh table pack for uh zakaria pinball i don't know if i'm saying that right but zekaria it was a pinball manufacturer in italy at one time they were the third largest manufacturer of pins incidentally uh second third to uh bally and williams was where they ranked at one time and they kind of made machines from the 70s to the mid mid 70s mid 80s i guess would be the broadly speaking where they were uh the game is on steam i think it's on mobile as well but you can get it for for free on steam and much like the pinball arcade comes with one one table you can play and so i bought a the silver pack which was like 35 of the tables ran about 43 bucks i was a bit surprised this is actually in early access i'd not realized that because this i know i played on my old computer which meant it was 20 at least available back in 2016 and my system couldn't handle it so i uninstalled it but now my new computer easily can handle it and um i'm impressed so far i mean setting aside whether or not you like the particular tables the physics feel really good the sound effects and stuff uh like on the ems i get that ball rolling on wood kind of slowish sluggish style and then when you move to their solid states it's going quicker lots of reflectivity options i think the flippers feel good i'd say if you like the pinball arcade this is something uh to consider if you'd like to try the italian pins out because they did make a lot of them i mean obviously 35 and they're they're doing some more creative like retro renditions of of old games modernizing that was what some of the higher packs were were like here get this reinterpreted farfalla sort of thing and i was like no no i just want the ones they actually did but but it's been i think it's pretty cool it's got like over a thousand achievements too so if you like achievements on steam it's got plenty of them for you to go for. Yeah, I saw you got a whole bunch of achievements when I was looking. Yes, I'm good, aren't I?
    81:12
    You got an achievement for hitting A. You got an achievement for hitting B. They were not achievements for that. They were maybe an achievement for hitting the A switch on Time Machine 30 times in a row. Maybe. Downplay my Zacharia pinball skills. Punk.
    81:31
    There you go. Yeah, no, it's neat. Actually, I'd really like to see more virtual projects to get some of the more obscure stuff. Or Pinball Arcade would consider. They have to. They seem like they're scraping the bottom of the barrel at this point because they did all the good games at first. Like, you know, there is more than Bally, Williams, and Gottlieb. Maybe you guys need to consider diving over across the Atlantic Ocean and getting some Playmatics in there. Or, well, you know, maybe you could have like a super cheap pack and just put all the Ataris in because no one's going to like them. But, you know, at least at least then people could experience them because it's hard to find a lot of this stuff. I mean, they made a ton of Zakaria pins, but they're not in the US. Anyway, it's been fun. Speaking of fun, Tony, we did it. We're at the end of the show. We're at the end. Yeah, I know. I didn't contribute a whole lot. I've done so little. All I've done is work around the house and read and listen to audio books. You contributed a lot to our depressing pinball discussions. Oh, so sad.
    82:31
    They're going to be mad because they're already tired of hearing me blather so much. But you know what? That's just how episodes go sometimes. Sometimes we had a really meaty one the last go. Very fluid. It just depends on what our schedules are like. It's 11 in the morning and I need a beer already because the pinball section was so sad. Yeah, it was. Very sad. Well, I already plugged Facebook, but if people want to email us, we're available, eclecticgamerspodcast.gmail.com. We're also available on Twitter and Instagram at eclectic underscore gamers.
    83:03
    And hopefully we'll have more happier news and less depressing news in two weeks. Oh, I hope so. Oh, I'm sure we will. Maybe we could dig up some happy. Maybe Mafia 3. So far, picking up those keys felt really good. So I bet I'm going to be more positive about it than Dishonored 2. I can tell already.
    83:23
    It was really good picking up those keys. I'll try and find a game to play that will be worth talking about that's not just me playing the same games I've been playing for years.
    83:36
    Or get enough mods and we can always go into EF on the mods. That would be different. Yeah, I could do that too. Okay, well, until then, until Tony has those ready for us, I'll say that I'm Dennis. I'm Tony. Goodbye, everyone.