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Episode 162 – Herd Mentality

Slam Tilt Podcast·podcast_episode·analyzed·Mar 9, 2021
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

Slam Tilt discusses GNR momentum, code bugs, pricing FOMO cycles, and location operator challenges.

Summary

Ron Hallett and Bruce Nightingale interview Ryan C. about his new podcast 'Jessie J's Pinball Adventures' (co-hosted with girlfriend Jess), discuss Guns N' Roses' strong market performance and code issues, examine Stranger Things discontinuation and the reverse-FOMO pricing cycle affecting Jersey Jack games, analyze location operator challenges with new players unfamiliar with pinball controls, and touch on COVID-19 vaccination timelines and tournament logistics across North America and Australia.

Key Claims

  • Stern discontinued Stranger Things production

    high confidence · Ryan C.: 'And if you want one, go to your distributor now because Stern ain't making them anymore.'

  • Guns N' Roses is driving new players into pinball more than any machine in the past 5+ years

    high confidence · Ryan C.: 'it's definitely driving pinball forward more than any machine that I've seen in my over five years in the hobby.'

  • Stranger Things has a fixable left feed issue where the ball smashes into the slingshot instead of following intended ramp logic

    high confidence · Ryan C. discussed left feed smashed into slingshot and left feed kick out issues, confirmed by community feedback

  • Guns N' Roses has multiple code bugs including auto-match settings grayed out, song freeze-ups, and Wi-Fi connectivity issues

    high confidence · Ryan C.: 'There's some pretty weird bugs happening with that game... there's a bug where the songs would freeze up I have a bug now where I can't connect to Wi-Fi'

  • Jersey Jack Standard editions are the least sold tier compared to Collector's and Limited Edition

    high confidence · Ryan C.: 'It's hilarious that the standard editions on Jersey Jack are the least sold ones. They're the dirty LEs.'

  • Godzilla is performing at double the rate of other pinball machines on location after 2.5 weeks

    high confidence · Ryan C.: 'Godzilla's only been on location for two and a half weeks, but I've checked, and it's doing, like, double every other pinball machine.'

  • Avengers and Rick and Morty are not performing well on location despite quality themes and audio

    medium confidence · Ryan C.: 'Do you know what pinball machine is not doing well? Avengers. Rick and Morty... Because it's not fun when it comes to playability.'

  • New players at locations don't understand flipper button placement and often press the launch/center button repeatedly

    high confidence · Ryan C. described multiple incidents of kids pressing middle/launch button instead of side flippers

Notable Quotes

  • “I'm taking the leaf out of Roger Sharp's book and going grassroots. So I feel like if I keep on dating people and trying to get them into pinball, I can spread the seed of pinball, so to speak.”

    Ryan C. @ early in episode — Explains Ryan C.'s motivation for new podcast and dating strategy as a grassroots pinball growth approach

  • “the amount of good that it's doing, I think, in the pinball community in terms of getting people into pinball, getting people to buy their first machine... outweighs any negative possible thing that people could bring up about the machine.”

    Ryan C. @ mid-episode GNR discussion — Articulates the broader market impact of Guns N' Roses beyond individual gameplay preferences

  • “It's like a car. They're going to keep on pumping up as much as they get. They'll hit the brakes when nobody's buying.”

    Ryan C. @ pricing discussion — Explains manufacturer pricing strategy and why prices will not decrease despite supply chain normalization

  • “You had your chance to buy Pirates, and you didn't. So they're not going to make them again. They have to get their license again.”

    Ryan C. @ licensing discussion — Indicates Jersey Jack's licensing strategy and why discontinued games don't return to production

  • “When it does the intro... The lights start about half a second or so ahead of the music. Oh, fail. Watch it, you will not be able to unsee it.”

    Bruce Nightingale @ GNR Live and Let Die discussion — Identifies specific audio-visual sync issue in Guns N' Roses intro sequence

  • “I don't think he knows the flipper buttons are on the side.”

    Ryan C. @ late-episode discussion on new player behavior — Highlights systemic onboarding problem for casual/new players unfamiliar with pinball

  • “This is why Bells and Chimes exists, right?”

    Jessie J. @ tournament discussion — References Bells and Chimes as alternative to problematic mainstream tournament culture

Entities

Ryan C.personRon HallettpersonBruce NightingalepersonJessie J.personRoger SharppersonBrian EddypersonKeith JohnsonpersonMark Silkperson

Signals

  • ?

    product_concern: Guns N' Roses experiencing multiple code issues: auto-match settings grayed out at startup, song freeze-ups, Wi-Fi connectivity preventing updates, and potential Live and Let Die audio-visual sync problems

    high · Ryan C. detailed multiple bug reports including grayed out auto-match forcing 50k start, song freezes, Wi-Fi connection failures preventing code updates, and Bruce identified audio sync issue in intro

  • ?

    product_concern: Stranger Things has a left feed/scoop design issue where ball smashes into slingshot instead of intended ramp routing; can be fixed with scoop adjustment but requires calibration

    high · Ryan C. reported community feedback confirming left feed issue, left feed kick out problem, and mentioned Brian Eddy's attempted fix that changed intended behavior

  • ?

    product_launch: Stern has discontinued Stranger Things production; games are no longer available from distributors

    high · Ryan C.: 'And if you want one, go to your distributor now because Stern ain't making them anymore.'

  • $

    market_signal: Guns N' Roses has massive wait times and shortage driving rental demand as customers seek pinball fix while waiting; game is selling through Standard editions, then Collector's editions, then moving to LE

    high · Ryan C.: 'a lot of them are renting pinball machines because they've bought Guns and Roses there's a massive wait'; production sequencing confirmed with Standard → CE → LE progression

  • $

    market_signal: Games that perform poorly at launch and are discontinued develop higher secondary market pricing and collector demand; examples: Pirates, Wonka following initial low sales; contrasts with strong initial sellers (Stranger Things) that depreciate

Topics

Guns N' Roses market impact and code qualityprimaryPricing cycles and reverse-FOMO in secondary marketprimaryLocation operator challenges with new player behavior and onboardingprimaryStranger Things discontinuation and production strategysecondaryJersey Jack Standard vs Premium vs LE sales and strategysecondaryTournament infrastructure and community participationsecondaryNew York State pinball legalization and COVID-19 impactsmentionedGrassroots pinball growth through personal relationshipssecondary

Sentiment

mixed(0.55)— Positive sentiment around Guns N' Roses impact and new players entering hobby; negative toward tournament experiences, new player onboarding gaps, and pricing increases; mixed/resigned about manufacturing pricing strategy and code quality issues

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.380

Uh, wait a minute. Mary Ruthen Woman. Whoa. Foreign chicks. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Foreign chicks, kick ass. Hey, Beavis, I could get a wife. Whoa, cool. Get a naked one. Hello, Russian Wives Unlimited. Uh, I'm a rich American with a big wiener. Coming to you from beautiful upstate New York, this is the Slam Tilt Podcast, the show about all things pinball. I'm your host, Ron Hallett, here with my co-host, Bruce Nightingale. It's been one day since you looked at me. Okay. Why the bare naked ladies reference? We were challenged by some people. Some people. Yes. Is this a harbinger of who our guest may be? Yes, it is. All right. Let's cut the crap immediately. This is episode 162. Our guest this week, you know him, you all love him, the man with the best hair and pinball, Ryan C. The best hair and pinball. Good day, mate. Good day, lads. It's been a while. It has been a while. What the fuck have you been up to? I started my own podcast, working, buying. Who with? Oh, hold on. With who? Who could you find to do a podcast with? After Marty, I think there's nothing comparable. I'm trying to grow pimple. I'm taking the leaf out of Roger Sharp's book and going grassroots. so I feel like if I keep on dating people and trying to get them into pinball, I can spread the seed of pinball, so to speak. Yeah, you've been spreading a lot of seed then? I've been trying. Good boy. Not saying I'll be successful. So you are now officially on a podcast that's the, what's it called? The Jessie J? Jessie J's Pinball Adventures. So I met a girl called Jess a while ago, maybe almost a year ago, and she was kind of into pinball but didn't know that this crazy hobby kind of exists and is alive and well, and it's almost like I reintroduced her to the hobby. And she's pretty into it, man. Like I remember initially telling people when I first met her, they were like, oh, no, she's just pretending to like pinball because she likes it. But no, I think at the moment she's more into pinball than me. Oh, that's easy. It's easy, yeah. She hasn't bought her first pinball machine yet. She has my shadow. She's pulled scores on it that I've never pulled before. Yeah, she played her first comp the other day. She's fully into it. And now this is how it works. This is how the spreading of the seed works. She's now dating a guy, and he's into pinball. So this is the Roger Sharp method. So spread your seed, and good things will come of it. Seed, come. Okay, here, segue. Here's a quick segue. Since you brought that up, I just want to play something here right now for both of you. Hello? So do we have everybody? Let's see, is Butthead here? Jesus, I'm right here Oh yeah, there you are But like, uh We're making a movie And it's gonna be on Paramount Plus You said mount Mount Mount Stern Jersey Jack, all you companies, where is my Beavis and Butthead game? Two new seasons coming and a movie and you have the whole 90s nostalgia thing of idiots like me that would buy it sight unseen. Get on with it. Let's go. Would you buy the Super Ellie for $15,000? Would you break a rule on your, you know what, I gotta play it, I gotta play it. Would you break that rule for Beavis and Butthead? This is the only license in existence I would do that for. Do you think you would be? Unless Super Ellie. Unless Home Pin made it or something like that. Super Ellie. So you're assuming already it's going to be like a Kapow title and not a Cornerstone. So it's going to be like Elvira. Yeah. If it's five figures, no. Instead of a piece of couch, what's the Beavis and Butthead equivalent of that? You get a t-shirt. Winger. Winger? No, no. So, see, they can reuse the couch mech from Simpsons Pinball Party. We know Stern loves to reuse the mechs. It's perfect. Just put a TV in the back corner where they're watching it. Like, they're watching, they're clicking the channels. What's the Switch frenzy? Is it them just giggling, or does it just happen throughout the entire time? Yeah. Oh, God, just the Cornholio mode. I don't know what the narrative of the game would be. I mean, they can't score. so what's the yeah but what's the wizard mode what are you trying to do score the storyline of the movie what were they trying to do I haven't watched in such a long time they're trying to get their TV back there you go there you go no they can't score Bruce that's the whole point I know I'm saying the other video game they had I think it was they wanted to get to the Gwar concert Yes. Gore. And then on the arcade game, you had two choices at the end. Destroy Earth or visit Uranus. You can reuse an attack from Mars and rule the universe. There you go. Lonnie's rules guy. Whatever, Bruce. Again. You know, I was playing that right before we started the stream. Attack from Mars is awesome. It is awesome. Can I just say that? It is fucking awesome. Luckily, your friend found that for you, huh? Yes. And Ryan, I keep getting name dropped on all these different podcasts I've noticed. I was name dropped by Josh Sharp, like on a pinball profile. Yes, you were. Talking about the IFPA Rewards Program. It's like, oh, yes, since Ron Hallett wanted it to continue, it must continue. Yes. And then you dropped my name, Ryan, about how your taste in games is close to mine. I think our tastes are very similar, but the way we play and the way that pinballs make us feel is also pretty similar, call-outs-wise. So when I watch you play and you stream and you get really excited, I do almost exactly the same thing. But some people don't do it, and that's okay. I don't know. I was playing in a comp the other day, and I was kind of dancing around, and everyone's looking at me and laughing. You can't help it, right? When you play pinball, you just have to kind of be free and let your OCDs or whatever the fuck the pinball machine is doing to you just take over, and you're just a vessel of the experience. Sounds like me, Ron, doesn't it? A vessel of the experience. Oh, my. Doesn't that sound like me, Ron? Yes, yes, you. You're just anger. Bruce would just play, like when you play TNA, you're back to the game. Just because you hated the game so much. Still won it. When's the part where he's going to say he still won? There it is. That took all of one second. 0.5 seconds, please. Okay. It's like the final round equivalent of Jeff saying that he won in Melbourne. Bruce couldn't say that anymore. He cannot. You touched on Lonnie D. Rook before. Can we talk a little bit about Stranger Things? I love Stranger Things. Bite me. After the last podcast, the amount of people that messaged me and said, holy shit, Ryan, I didn't know Stranger Things was meant to do that. And what I'm talking about, for those who haven't listened, was the left feed smashed into the slingshot on pretty much every game. You can fix that. People know that you can fix that on pretty much every game. the other one is the left fuck not fuck kick out that was yeah yeah so someone told me some more kick out yeah someone told me some more information and someone told me that they i can't remember who i apologize i hate when people forget conversations i don't now become one of those people someone told me that they contacted brian eddie and brian and said hey brian eddie i fixed it and now it goes all the way around the loop like you meant it to and he I was just like, oh, no, I wanted it to smash into the dropout. So I don't know what's going on there, but I think it is a lot better. And people have messaged me and said, holy shit, it's a brand new game now that you can adjust that scoop to go around that right little loop orbity thing and come down the left orbit. So if you have a Stranger Things, fix it. If you're playing on location, message the dudes and tell them to fix it. He won't do it, but you can try. Or just sell it. And if you want one, go to your distributor now because Stern ain't making them anymore. Yeah. Gee, I wonder why. Isn't Stern's rule, make it until it sells and sell it more and sell it more and sell it more, unless it's not selling? Yeah. Well. Yeah. Touche. At least that's what I heard on another podcast. Yes, it is. Yes. By a distributor who should know. Yeah. Isn't it weird that the games that sell the best because they are the best when they come out, people usually get, you know, it's like an oversaturation of it and then they don't hold value as much, where the games that are shit that come out at the start, like, let's face it, Deadpool was pretty average, Guardians of the Galaxy. Yeah, it was. They don't sell, then they become better, then there's no stock, and then those are the ones that have a higher end price. It's all backwards. So, Ron, you getting your Stranger Things then, since you can't get any more soon? No. Okay, good. Okay, then we're done. So I need to get every single game I like. You realize how many games that would be? Isn't that the game? That's the ultimate pinball game. I never said that. I said I really like the game. Talking about GNR, you said, you know, sorry, not Gina, Pirates. Wonka's been going through the same thing as well, right? Yeah, everyone now wants a Wonka. I don't know why. Game comes out, people don't want it, it gets discontinued, people start fucking saying, oh shit, I was going to buy it, it was on the radar, and then all of a sudden the price goes through the roof, it's number one on Pinside, FOMO, but it's like, I think someone said reverse FOMO, right? I don't understand it. It's just, I don't know. You had your chance to buy Pirates, and you didn't. So they're not going to make them again. They have to get their license again. I think they're hoping for another home run of money. Ooh, now that Monk is going out, let's buy it, and it's going to go up just as much as Pirates. That's exactly what I think people are thinking. I mean, other than Wizard of Oz, has Jersey Jack remade stuff? No. I think Daldin was made for a decent amount of time, but I think it's because the initial run was so small. But I think they continued to make that concurrently with, you know, when new games came out, small runs. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. And Hobbit was being made when Donald in first came out. Oh, Hobbit. Oh, God. What's that right upper flipper for again? Diverting the ball from somewhere else. It's a player-controlled diverter. See, you just think of it as a flipper when it's not. You can. You can somehow. It's like Star Trek. You know on Star Trek how the left ramp is so shallow that you can hit the left ramp from the upper right flipper? Hobbit sometimes as well, if you hit the ball perfectly, you can get the ball up the left ramp from the right upper flipper. There's actually some decent rules associated with it. I feel bad for Keith Johnson because he, no one could ever produce such an amazing rule set for such an average layout. But Keith Johnson, he heard people loud and clear, like, what the fuck is the point of that flipper? There's modes where you can use it. There's something called barrel kickouts where if you hit enough pop bumpers and it feeds out through the right, unfortunately, it can also feed out through the middle. If it feeds out through the right, it'll drop the drop targets and you have like a split second to hit the drop targets to advance. I think they're called barrel kicks or something. And if you get enough, you get an extra ball. The problem is if you let the ball drain to the flipper, there's enough time to trap up and then hit it from there as well. So not necessary to use. Not a win. What is a win, though, would be Guns N' Roses. And it seems like you like it. You like it, Ryan. You keep talking all about it. Why is it so great? I just think regardless of where the smoke settles in terms of how fun it is and if in two years' time people say, ah, you know what, it was a flight or fest in the end and it isn't a great shooter, whatever people come to the conclusion of, the amount of good that it's doing, I think, in the pinball community in terms of getting people into pinball, getting people to buy their first machine, people on location playing the game and fucking loving it, like that outweighs any negative possible thing that people could bring up about the machine i've been talking to a lot i have like access i guess now to a lot more newbies in the hobby because of my pinball machines on site and renting them out and a lot of them are renting pinball machines because they've bought guns and roses there's a massive weight and they want their pinball fix in the middle of that so it's definitely driving pinball forward more than any machine that I've seen in my over five years they've fixed in the hobby. Can I say one thing about it? Sure. This is an OCD thing, so I figure if anyone would appreciate this, or understand this, because I'm going to get hate mail for this. God, I hope so. Oh, sorry. Instead of you, yes. The first time I saw it, like one of the promo packages, they did Live and Let Die. because that's the coolest light show. And I thought I was the only one who saw this, but someone else I knew brought this up. They brought it up first. I'm there like, you saw that too. When it does the intro, when you were young and your heart, hear that, Zach Minney? That's singing. It was an open book. And then you're living, let die. And then the lights come on. The lights start about half a second or so ahead of the music. Oh, fail. watch it, you will not be able to unsee it. Every time I see it now, that's all I see. It's just like, oh, it should be at the exact same time that it hits. Ryan, do you see what I have to put up with now? Now, everyone's going to hate me. Everyone's going to hate me now. I reckon you're watching like an old software version. That might have been fixed, like a code update. Well, okay. I haven't watched it lately, but okay, I'll watch it. But I know when it first came out, that's... And when I saw that, I thought maybe it was an issue with the AV sync on the video I was watching. So I watched someone else streaming it, and nope, it was the same. All right. Well, we can email the code team. I've had to email them. There's some pretty weird bugs happening with that game. When I first put it on location, the auto-match settings, it was grayed out, and you could only start it at 50,000 points. do you know how like 50,000 points is basically the skill shot and every time you play it auto adjusts like the day I put it on location I was sitting there with a glass off getting above the replay value every time and raising it up raising it up raising it up but then I had this logic that if like you play two games you don't get the replay value went back down to 50,000 points and I'm like this is fun I just had to turn replay off and I emailed them like ah it's a bug and they may fix it but there was a bug where the songs would freeze up I have a bug now where I can't connect to Wi-Fi, which is quite funny because then there's all these updates that are potentially going to fix the issue, but I can't update by Wi-Fi to do it. But, yeah, they've got a whole bunch of new technology in there, and I guess they're just weeding through all that stuff, and hopefully it gets fixed soon. And I'm sure they don't give a rat's ass what I think about their timing. I wouldn't either. No. Well, I think the Slangtail podcast is pretty powerful, right? You get people hired at Stern. That's true. I keep forgetting about that. I forget. Tremendous power. So, Guns N' Roses, it looks like they did the remainder of the standard editions. Mm-hmm. Looks like they stopped in the middle of the collector's editions, did the rest of the standard editions, and now have gone back to the collector's editions. Yep. And then they're going to go, I assume, just L.E. City after that. Yeah, I think so. Do you think the price will remain where it is? Oh, if it goes up again, forget about the really stupid then. A lot of the issues with the pricing, you have shortages because of COVID and et cetera. Do you think when all that's over, any of these prices will go down? No, not at all. Not at all. It's like a car. They're going to keep on pumping up as much as they get. They'll hit the brakes when nobody's buying. Do you think they will continue to do standard editions? Should they? No. Will they? Yes. It's hilarious that the standard editions on JTP are the least sold ones. They're the dirty LEs. Yeah, they're the super LEs. If they put a number on it, you know. But I guess I got in before the price rise with my standard edition. So when they announced the price rise, I guess I had a pretty selfish view of it. I was like, ah, you know, I think they're down to their last thousand or whatever it is. Like, let them make an extra grand off it. But I totally didn't have that light bulb moment like, ah, if Toy Story comes out, I have to pay 1,000 USD, like whatever the extreme equivalent of it is, to get that. I'm like, oh, this is bad. This is very bad. See, you were just thinking about yourself, not thinking about the rest of us suckers. Yeah, I just don't see them changing. I don't see why they do SCs. because the whole thing of Jersey Jack originally was we make the highest quality, most feature-packed games. One of their mantras, we will never sell a stripped-down game. And then they did. Which they did, twice, yes. But that was their original mantra. Maybe they should go back to it. I don't know. How many, like, Jersey Jack games are on location there, Ryan? And are any of them standards? so I bought Wonka Standard and I was the only person in my state to buy it there's a distributor here that distributes certain products and that company also puts Pimor machines on location so every Stern is on location regardless he put Alvira on location, Beagles, everything Wonka doesn't have that most distributors just distribute and that's it so I'm the sucker who buys the JGP machines so I put I think Woz was on location before me. I put Hobbit on location. I put Dalgian on location. But there's already someone doing that as well. The only pinball machine that hasn't been on location is Pirates. And why would you fucking do that? Like, to break a $20,000 machine? Yeah. So, yeah, they perform well. Like, G-Mart's only been on location for two and a half weeks, but I've checked, and it's doing, like, double every other pinball machine. Do you know what Pinball Machine is not doing well? Avengers. Rick and Morty. I wouldn't doubt it. Because it's not fun when it comes to playability fun. It's great for the music and the quality. What other theme is that in Australia? It's pretty big, and the location I have it at is from pretty young people, young-ish, but the first ones it did really well, and it was all pinheads. It was the only one in Australia on location. the second month, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles destroyed it by like 30-40% and I watched people play TMNT and I don't know, I guess they're just getting into the multiple by shooting three times in the middle but I'm so confused now by, like when you, sometimes I leave credits on machines and people walk up to the machine and the start light is flashing, the one that says start and it's green and it's fucking flashing like at your crotch. No one clicks it. Stern is right. People click the button on top. Oh, yes. And I left like five credits on GNR the other day when I just fixed a little issue. And some guy walked up to the machine and he sat there and he just pressed the button. And the machine starts speaking to you in the track mode. And then he walked away because he wanted a free game and he didn't know how to do it. Another one that I've seen is kids walking up to machines, putting money in, pressing the middle button to start the game, like, say, TMNT, pressing the middle button to launch the ball on the lockdown bar, and then the ball came to the flipper, and he started pounding the middle button again. And I'm just like, whoa. And then the ball drained, and then kicked out the ball save, and then he did it again. And I walked up to him, like, the flipper's on the side. And he's like, ah, like, these kids have never played pinball before, and I know there's a video on the screen in the track mode, but I don't know if it's too much to, you know, like, put a big flashing thing on the LCD, like stupid does don't hit the middle button you dumbass yeah just some like big sign if like the person drains after the first ball with no slippers pressed a big thing comes up like like before the bonus like use yeah use the slippers on the sides yeah like Indy 500 like he hasn't used that upper rack flipper yet I wonder if he even knows it's there it's just oh my god I saw that same thing at the bar when we had the bar oh my god I was like what are you doing That's a good idea, though. You could have, like, the turtle characters. Leonardo, I don't think he knows the flipper buttons are on the side. Or you can get Mark Silk to be like, use the flipper button. Yes. Use the flipper buttons on either side of the cabinet. That Mark Silk episode was amazing. Thank you. Thank you very much. Once in a while we get a gem. I don't know. As they changed it to hit the side ramp, Have they changed that in the game yet or does it still say center ramp? It still says center. Damn it. Shoot, the center ramp. I mean, side ramp. Hey, but we're allowed to play pinball now in New York State. You know, we haven't had your normal Cuomo tirade. He'll be gone soon. I can't wait. He'll be gone soon. You can't wait. Okay. Yep. That's when we party here. But we're allowed to play pinball finally. Pinball is allowed on location in New York State. Oh, 25%. Oh, yes, and this, and this, and this. How is it, Ryan? How is it nice to have no COVID? We have no COVID at the moment, but we still can have, like, snap lockdowns. So three or so weeks ago when I was meant to run my first tournament in EEL, there was a little bit of a leak from hotel quarantine, and they just shut the entire state down for five days to deal with it. So we're still living on edge, but we've been through a lot to get where we're at. I got my shot. I got my first shot. Oh. Yeah. So which one did you get? I got the Pfizer. Pfizer. So I got the Viagra one. My penis has gotten a lot bigger. I'm all good. Okay. All right. Yep. My second shot is scheduled, so I'll be done by the end of March. And so by the end of April, I'll be 100%. They say you're, in 54 days or something like that, you know, after your first shot, you'll be 100% resistant or 90. 90-something percent, yeah. So not too shabby. Meanwhile, I'm too healthy, I guess. You're an anti-vaxxer on you. I just don't qualify. I keep looking at the thing. You have to have qualifications. You have to have either Ron's not obese. Yeah, I'm not fat enough. I don't have asthma. I don't have all the other things. How do you be fat enough? Is there like a fat register in the U.S.? There's a body mass index if you're over 30. Yes. Which, you know, if you were close, if you were like 28 or 29, you'd be like, man, if I just eat this box of donuts, I can get my vaccine. And I think it's true. You could totally do that. There's a couple of other things. like if you have immune deficiency, you know, if you've given a kidney or, you know, or your spleen's been, you know, that kind of stuff, all that stuff. Or if you're old. Yeah, or if you're old. Anyone over 65. My dad gets his first one on the 15th. Yeah, I got mine on the 4th. It's going to be weird in Australia because we've got the rollout happening soonish. It started, but it's going to really ramp up in about a month. but because we're living in a COVID-safe-ish environment, I'm not sure. Like, people aren't anti-vaxxers. People are just like, ah, do we have to do this? I guess we all want to travel abroad and over here. Yeah, that's right. And the hotel quarantine stuff because there's people still overseas and they can't come back to Australia. There's a massive waiting list and then you have to pay about $3,000 to stay in a hotel for two weeks and then you can get out. And that's how they've stopped it spreading. Yeah. You're just lucky to be an island. A big island, but you're still an island. Exactly. But when the borders do open, Ron, I remember discussing it, I think, on the first podcast that I was on, like episode 50, 110 episodes ago, that you have never been outside of the U.S. That is correct. yes for sure i'm not a world traveler like you i'm sorry you need a 24-hour flight just to start you right off bruce have you been not there australia no but i've been to uh i've been to north america south america europe africa i don't know the only continents i have not been on is asia and australia and that's why bruce's mind is broadened and ron you're so narrow-minded Yeah, he's really American. He's just a true American. I don't want to leave my country. I'm very happy. It's America. America. You don't have to leave here. Why would I leave here? America. Speaking of Australia, good morning, everyone. Good morning. How are we doing? It's been... One way to look at me. Welcome, darling. Thank you very much. Oh, hold on, hold on. Ron, you've got to, at the first 30 minutes, we've bashed the shit out of her. Sorry. Okay, go ahead, continue. Were you bashing me for being late to the call? Because I'm kind of like pinball world Linda Evangelista. You know how she, there was that famous quote that she made that was like, I don't get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day. than, like, a billion points on the shadow and a legion of adoring pinball fans. So you guys just, you know, got to step it up a little. We had to listen to Ryan talk about spreading his seed all over the place. So you'll have to listen to that. I have to listen to that on a daily basis. Get used to it. Oh, God. Welcome, Jesse J. Welcome very much. Thank you. Come on in and enjoy the party. Awesome. What are we discussing at the moment? Spreading seeds. Ryan's seed. it's a flow on effect so I talked about spreading the seed to you and now you're spreading the seed to other people men or women it's always better having Ryan's seed I'm sure they'll be happy to hear that excellent no we're right now talking about COVID how you guys are COVID free and we're still dealing with it, of course. Okay, yeah. We're America! America? Ryan, have you asked them about our amazing tournament the other night? No. Do you want to quickly run through your first tournament experience in five seconds or less? Do we want the PR-friendly version or the truthful version? Always truthful here. I feel right at home. Well, the truthful version is that I drove an hour each way to this tournament to pay $15 to play five qualifying games and then not get an opportunity to play anything else and got bailed up by some guy who was telling me about how he burns his body hair off with a cigarette lighter because it works better than laser or shaving and that Ryan should shave his beard off because chicks don't like it on their pussies. this guy was like 50 at least, maybe in his 60s. It was very unpleasant, and then I left. So that was how that went, guys. Hey, Ron, did I tell you I just got back from Australia a couple days ago, and I met this chick who was really into me, and she wanted to know how I burned off my hair and everything like that. But she thought you were 60 years old? I know you look old, but, man. You didn't tell me that, Jess. Holy shit. Wow. It sounds like my first tournament experience, 100%. That happened to you too. Oh, my God, it's crazy. This is why Bells and Chimes exists, right? Mm-hmm. Some of my first experiences would be like there are no tournaments in my area I have to drive at least three hours to get to a tournament get to the tournament then play good and actually that hurts me because now I can leave on time So now I there because like all tournaments it runs way too late and it's like 1 in the morning, and I'm in New Jersey three and a half hours away from my house, and I've got to drive home. That is the typical my tournament experiences. Okay. What is the longest that – I mean, Ryan, answer this as if you're answering a couple of years ago because I know that you're jaded as fuck now. But back when you still were super excited about pinball, what is the longest distance that each of you would travel for a tournament willingly? Oh, my God, easily? Well, hold on. One-day tournament. Yeah. You can't be like, well, Pinberg, because technically I'm driving eight hours, but that doesn't really count. Yeah, no, no. Not talking about the Pinbergs, though, these are huge events, just a regular old one-day tournament. Five hours. Okay. Five to six, I've done easily. But what would you do now? Would you do it now? If Canada was open, I'd go up to Toronto, which is about four hours. Okay. Not counting the border. That's impressive. I've had multiple opportunities to drive to Neil. Neil is basically like in the middle of nowhere town in between two major cities. And it's about four hours away, I think. And there's a big pinball museum there that have like the best games basically in the state. and I never did it. So I think mine is an hour. I don't think I would drive more than an hour for a tournament. Sorry. You are jaded. It's a neat. Well, because I run my own tournament. So I'm like, well, instead of doing that, I'll just run, run at my house in the dirty dungeon. They'll be worth more whoppers and I'll make people pay for like all the food and beverages just for the entry fee. So why would I try if I can do it myself? Well, we can't all be pinball barons, right? Let's see. For me, well, I've done three and a half hours. At this point, two hours. Okay. Maybe two and a half if it's a really good one-day tournament. Like m y place. Well, yours I stay over. Yeah, I know. Love a sleepover. So are you guys having tournaments in your area still? I'm sorry if we've already talked about this. No, no, no, we haven't talked about that. No, there's nothing in our area lately, no. Okay. This past week was the first time we're legally allowed to play pinball on locations in New York. Have you just gone crazy with it then? No, no. No, I have enough machines to keep me by. I go to people's houses if they have machines. If I want to meet up with people, I just go to their place and hang out with them and just be careful. Do you think Bruce and Ron, and maybe Ron more in particular, because I think you traveled around a bit more and played in leagues more than Bruce because he was busy running the bar. Do you feel like you've lost a bit of your gusto and drive to play in whopper-based tournaments? I know you were never like a crazy whopper whore and you didn't really care about your ranking and rating, but has it changed now? Well, before COVID, I always wanted to get at least enough whoppers to play in the upstate New York tournament. hell yeah basically that was pretty much that in keeping like being in the top thousand for the whole rewards thing those were pretty much my only two whopper based goals because you have in New York because everyone's in New York City and they have so many points down there if you're not in New York City you're kind of screwed for the most part in making New York finals unless you just play in everything known to man you could possibly play in in the state So that's why the upstates were created. So everything outside of New York City. But even with that, you got, you know, you got Buffalo, you got, you know, Bruce there, the Rochester crew, and they're just playing like crazy. So me, I basically have to play in the two leagues that were in my area, which now one of them is no more because the location is gone. And I pretty much have to play just anything I can that's close. like Rot Fantasy, which is like two hours south. Anything they have, I go down and play. Soon you'll have another place in Rochester. What place would that be, Bruce? That would be the Rochester Pinball Collective. Can you explain the collective to me and Jess and motivate us? Because I've heard about these things a million times before, but I have no idea how they make money and stay on stage. I would love to be able to do this. Okay, so what we're doing is we have five equal partners. Each of us have 20% into the company. So we put an initial investment in, and we bring games in. So you're renting out a space, like a big space? We're renting out a space, yes. And so what we're going to do is on two to three nights a week, we're going to open up, and it's going to be a cash as you pay. So if you're there one hour, it's a certain amount. If you're there all day, it's another amount. So hopefully, like the sanctum does, you pay enough to pay the rent and pay other things off. And it takes about a couple years. Do you serve foods and beverages? We're going to have cans of soda and bottles of soda and chips and that kind of stuff. That's it. Nothing we make there. I went to the Silver Bowl Museum, I think, in New Jersey when I was there. New Jersey, yes. Yeah, and that had a great setup because it was like, hey, if you want to be there for an hour, it's $15. Or all day, $20. And you're like, ah, I'm pretty struggling. I don't know how I'm going to be here for it, but I guess I'll just pay the max amount because it's so close to the one-hour amount. And the place we have, we're right above a pizzeria. We're right above a pizzeria, so you at least have something to eat there. There's a coffee shop right down the road. So, you know, we're trying to do it. And the place we have right now, the pinball area is probably about 2,000 square feet. So we can fit about 45 to 50 pins in there. Plus, we also have a repair area. So we're going to be offering repairs. So people, if they bring their game up, we can repair it. Good location for that. So you know it's going to be done right, hopefully. And I already have lots of, I got four now gigs. I have to go to one tomorrow and look at the guy's game and see. Just any way to make money. So hopefully people will come in, we'll make enough money to pay the rent, pay the insurance, and hopefully, like the Sanctum does and other places, pay for other games eventually after we pay off our initial investment. I reckon, Bruce, if it picks up, you should, instead of copying the Sanctum and doing the 24 hours at the Bruce, you should do some kind of pinball olympics like a crazy whopper farm like the germans where it's just like three days in a row two and a half three tournaments worth 100 tgp a day 100 people and just fucking sell it out and that's what your profit is there eventually after covid yes i would say yes i would love to do that kind of thing where it's just you know you want to get people to like on a long weekend like you know you're gonna get these people you know you You start it Friday morning. We take the day off. What happened with the 25 hours you wanted to do? The 26 hours. No, you've got to go two at least. You've got to at least go one. Okay. Ron doesn't like my idea of 26 hours straight. No. It's silly. I don't know. I know you guys like in the 24-hour tournaments, but I'm so cranky. I actually enjoy it. You know what's more fun is just in that same space of time running four or five tournaments. until you have four or five years to do it. No, no, what you want to do, and see, here's the problem. Have either of you two ever played in a 24-hour tournament? I have not, but I would. It would be the last thing that I would do. Like, Ryan, do you want to hate Pimble here playing this? I'm so fucking cranky after, like, five or six hours. I don't know how I'd do it. What people don't realize is the 24 hours, it sounds like a lot, but you are sitting on your ass most of the time just trying not to fall asleep. so I always wanted to see a 24 hour foot frenzy oh fuck no see Bruce is not hardcore I would shoot myself right in the cock bang that's it okay just to stay out of that one no fucking way Ryan you've actually explained this to me before I think and I kind of forget I apologize to everyone else in the pinball world that has to listen to this fit can someone explain to me what a foot frenzy is again please the worst pinball tournament ever i've never played in it i've never played in it but i want to we've done it a couple times in syracuse in the central new york pinball league it's just oh well you must have done it wrong ryan i'll say how to do it right foot frenzy jess is that is when you play a tournament structure where you're playing head-to-head matches as in me versus you and you're playing a game and whoever wins, you get one point, and if you lose, you get nothing. Or minus a point. I can't remember. It's been such a long time since I've played one. But the tournament structure is like not waiting around. So you just keep on going, and after you play two games, you join the back of the queue, but the queue, if the tournament structure is set up right, only lasts like five or so minutes. So it's non-stop. You can't have time to pee. You don't have time to have a smoke. And it's non-stop for three hours. At the end of three hours, it's just like whoever has the highest net win-loss ratio wins. So you don't need to play finals. It's very exhausting, but you get a lot of games in. It's good. But the problem, Jep, is he's not telling you the whole story. If you're against a guy who's blowing you out, you don't want to play that game anymore. Yeah. You want to get out and start playing another game. But you're trying to convince this other person, and this guy might be the best player, and he's playing, and some people don't want to give up their game and some people do want to give up their game. So it's just... If you want, you can concede. You still have to punch the balls out, but you can concede if you want to because it's like, well, if I keep on going in this game, it might take 20 minutes. I could beat two other people in that time. See, I don't know if my ego would let me do that. I'm not hyper-competitive in the sense that I have a problem with losing. If I don't win, that's fine with me, but I don't know if I can allow myself to plunge a ball and not play it. I think I'd feel like a quitter. Mama didn't raise no quitter. The biggest advantage of foot frenzy, and this is like something that some people care about, some people won't, is you can time box it. So you can say, we are running a three-hour foot frenzy. Please come at 7 p.m. and we'll be done by 10 p.m. full stop versus rock up at 7 p.m. We'll have qualifying until 9. And then you can make the finals. You have a day, Jess. She said the same thing, like, how long am I coming for? I'm like, well, qualifying can be at nine, but if you make the top eight, it'll go to ten. And if you make the top four, it'll go to eleven. Meanwhile, I was still there at 11.45 because there were so many tiebreakers, right? I still have not played anything other than my five qualifying games. I know. I was like, hang around, Jess. You'll get to, in an hour, you'll get to play, but you didn't. So that's the cool thing about Flip Frenzy. That is the only good thing about it, Jess. It's the only thing. You can set your time and be done. Okay. Well, yeah. Another thing you'll find out about a lot of tournament players is you could have a tournament area with, like, 20 games in it, and then have another room with 500 games in it, and they'll never leave the room with 20 games in it. No. Really? Oh, yeah. Yeah, there are sure ones. Yes. I remember going and playing Papas and Pinbergs, especially when it was in the warehouse, and, like, the Sharp Brothers, as soon as they were eliminated in the playoffs, boop, they're gone. They're gone. Go to get their flight, and they never played another game in the free play area. ever. Because they've played them all. Are you sure? No, they haven't played them all. But guess what? I understand their logic. They're just like, okay, we're done. Now it's time to go home. Yep. Didn't, what's his name? What's the Sharp's brother's name? Josh. Zach. Didn't Zach Sharp Sorry, it's really early in the morning here. Didn't Zach Sharp in the pin golf final, the last one, he was trying to beat Colin McAlpine and he managed to get double scoring drained, ball drained. He managed to double his bonus through the double scoring on Tron and win, like achieve the pin goal threshold. And then he just like shook his hand and like jumped straight out of the plane. He didn't even like accept the decision. He was like, bye, I'll see you later. Yeah. Was it the IPA where Zach got left there and Josh just wanted to catch his plane and then they needed the ruling? Yeah, because they had a tie. That was the one with Johannes who had the Dracula game. People forget the game before that or two games before that was an actual tie. And everyone's like, what do we do? Does that count as a win, a loss? What is that? It's like it's a do-over. It's a do-over. Do it again. It happened. Yep. What game was it? It was an AM, right? It was something like that. Yeah, something like a low-scoring game. And it was unbelievable. It's like you see this final score. Wait a minute. It's a tie. What happens? Is there a playoff ball? What do you do? And he got on the phone, like Zach got on the phone with Josh. And they said, nope, you got to play. Play again. Do over. Do over again. Hey, this is a random segue. I have no way of integrating this into what we're talking about. But I feel like on Facebook, and this is not a dig at you, Jess, I have more friends that are not on a Wall-to-day trading card than are on a Wall-to-day trading card. Yeah, the floodgate is definitely opened. Yes, Walter Jay, the founder of Twin Galaxies, he has all these trading cards. He's been doing these for years, but he started this thing where he's just having games on the cards, but you can be on the card with your game. And I know the whole Orange County Pinball Club basically ended up doing cards. Except for you. Except for me. Well, I'm not in the club, technically. There you are. Here's my issue with that. I mean, originally the cards were for actually doing something, you know, having a world record, something. That's what the cards were originally for. Like, you know, broadcasting. Do something. Now it's literally just like I could go downstairs and take a picture of me with Dragon Fist and get on a card. Do it, Ryan. Do it. I don't. I believe in the, what's the term? The sanctity. Sanctity of the cards. so at least what they used to be. The factory is already destroyed, Ron. There's no point. It's like they're worthless. They mean nothing. But they used to be something. Now here's the funny part. Every card has the how many games are made on it. I'm going to take a picture with Gamitron and I want to see him try to comment on how many games are made. I want to fuck him up. Why? How many games are made? They're still kids. They're kids. So there's no way to know. There could be a kid sitting in some guy's garage right now and it was never solved. Okay. Homework. Homework for Slam 2. Before this airs, Ron, you've got a couple of days worth of editing. I want to see Ron next to Dragon Fist with the cheesiest smile ever. No! I want to see Bruce dressed up as Elvis. I know you've got to have an Elvis suit somewhere in front of Gadgetron. And I wanted to see you try to go like, how do I get this for GammaTron? Is this real game? When he originally did the card, it's like, I talked to Walter about, I was going to have a card at some point because I was the karate champ at the time. But it just didn't happen. The karate champ champ? Yes. The video game Karate Champ by Data East. I was the world record holder from, what was it, 2010 to 2019? Someone beat me? Was it a legit score, Ron? Or were you running on main and stopping out forwards? No, I did not do the Billy Mitchell method. I did not run an emulator. It was done live during a tournament, so it would have been hard for me to cheat. That's how you do your records, man. You do them in public. Do them in public, man! And I only played it twice. That was the funny part. I'm looking out for the lady cam. Don't ask Ron to play a game of Galaga. Oh, please don't ask me to do that. Yeah, because I want my time. He's looking it up right now. Yes, go to Twin Galaxies and look it up. You'll see me at number two. I said number two. Cool. So, Jess, what game are you going to buy? What is the first game you're going to buy? Don't say Shadow, because I'm just going to come over there and smack the shit out of you. No, it won't be Shadow. Good. And someone I know in the local scene is looking to sell their shadow, and for a second I was like, oh, how much do you want for it? But then I applied an iota of logic to that and realized that would be ridiculous after having Ryan for so long. Yep. So I think, can I give you like a top three? Go ahead. That's fine. Okay. We'll give you either the thumbs up or the thumbs down. Oh, okay. Pressure's on. Yes, it is. Honestly, I reckon at this point it would either be Jurassic Park, Deadpool, or Demolition Man. Wow, you're three for three. All thumbs down. All thumbs up. Woo-hoo! I would go two for three. Yeah? What was that? One of you thumbs down. Yeah. Not a thumbs down, that would be a middle, but Jurassic Park. I play Zax all the time, it's just, you know, to me, I'd rather have a Deadpool, and I'd rather have a demolition man because of the comedy in that. Okay. Well, Jurassic Park. I still can't get past the Australian accent, which is really not an Australian accent. It is not an Australian. In Jurassic Park. Yeah, it's like the trainer, the guy. Yeah, one of the guys kind of has an accent or whatever he's trying to do. Not the one that says paddock. Yeah. No, that's not Australian. That's just sparked. I don't know what that is. Exactly. You don't know what it is. That's the problem. You don't know what it is. I dare you to do that to me. Yeah. Exactly. Would you say Deadpool is the most Bally Williams type game? Wrong. Alvira. And you guys never talk about Alvira. Alvira shits on Deadpool in terms of 90s feel. In terms of 90s feel. 90s feel. I'm not talking about other stuff. You're talking 90s comedy. like Scared Stiff and the jokes and that kind of stuff. I will say it's pretty good, but the game still does not. It doesn't play like, honestly, when I go in to make a shot on Deadpool, I feel like it's really Valerie William-esque. Like, you make a shot, you get a comment. You get, you know, you get your sounds. It's the perfect mix. You don't get that with Elvira. You don't get the sounds. How many games? What? When was the last time you played Elvira? It's by your guy. It's by your man. It's by Lyman. How dare you? I'm going to. Wow. I think Deadpool rules and for the sounds and everything and the quirks, that introduced the 80s feel again and the 90s. It really did. I don't know. I love Deadpool. The bonus, and you hit the button and it goes faster. Oh, my God. It's just incredible. Yeah, that bonus sound is very fast. It's just, yeah, and the spinner, that was the first real spinner sound we've heard in a long time. I was like, yeah, this feels good. I think you like the bonus because it's like Smash TV. Yes. When it calculates, I expect it to say, like, you've won this many VCRs. You've won this many whatever. Honestly, that's the one that I really want to get that. But Ron's got a premium. I can't get a premium now. Isn't that the deal? They don't make premiums now. They're just making pros. Actually, they are making one more run. What do you want first? Do you want the premium or the pro? I would like the premium. Even though I like the... For the Zico loops, what do you want? I'd be the repeatable loops if I know him. Yes, of course, the repeatable loops. It's all about the loops. I'll tell you, the other day, I'm playing Iron Man. I love Iron Man. And it's being this normal Iron Man self. Brutal. and then I go over and I play Attack from Mars, and it's like I'm in a completely different dimension. I don't know how to explain it. Just the way it feels to shoot. Again, a lot of our previous episodes we talked about the flippers and how none of them recapture the Valley Williams feel. I mean, I felt like I could hit anything with these flippers. It's just a totally different feel. There's no rattling around, I guess, on, like, I don't know. I don't know how well you have your Deadpool set up, Ron, but I feel like it's still, like, that shot can get really dialed in, the, you know, the katana shot, but sometimes you just can't hit it, man. And if you're in a tournament and you're in, like, Ninja multiball and you hit all the shots and the only thing you have left is a super jackpot, it's fucking painful sometimes when you almost make it up the ramp three or four times. But, I don't know. People hated it when it came out. It was bashed like it was Guardians of the Galaxy Deadpool? My buddy bought a brand new pro In three weeks he sold it The software sucks It was terrible Well actually That reminds me of the one I've been playing Ryan I was playing one in location back in my home state Over the past couple of weeks And I had been messaging Ryan Being like I got a high score But it's a pretty crap score overall overall, Ryan was like, oh, check the promo. It was on, like, the original code, I think, 8.85. Yeah, it's not fun. Actually, I think it was, like, .7. The original was, like, .7273. Okay. I remember George Gomez being on a podcast, and he was like, he's like, if you guys, I know how to make a fan layout game. Like, if you guys want a fan layout, I can give you, like, the best fucking fan layout you want, but I'm trying to give you something like original, like something that feels a little bit different. But everyone's like, no, this shoot's like, you know, kind of like the ramp, the shoot's like shit, blah, blah, blah, you know, a little dip in the spring. But people finally kind of came around for it. But that's the thing as well. Like, I think it's good, but I think it's like, you know, one of their best of all times, but because of the initial stink and now it's considered good, that isn't part of the conversation. The conversation is, it was good, full stop. That was also part of the whole designer not to be named thing that occurred. Because originally he was working on that, and then when he did his thing, they decided to just shit can it and redesign the whole game, so then Guardians got released before it was supposed to, and that had like almost beta code on it. So then everyone hated that because, what, it was Groot all day, then it was Orb all day, and then finally it was really good. Okay, now which turned out to be the better game, Guardians or Deadpool? Deadpool. I like Deadpool. Deadpool. Deadpool for longevity. Guardians of the Galaxy for instant kind of fun, I think. No, I don't even think. I'm one of the few people who hate that fucking game. Guardians? I hate Guardians. I wouldn't say I hate it, but I'm pretty firmly in the dislike camp. I've played a lot of it now, and I just, yeah, not a big fan. But what do you think of Guns N' Roses? I did not I still hate Guns and Roses Wow That's why I had to bring it up Yeah look I still can't articulate Particularly eloquently Why I don't like Guns and Roses I don't have any well-read Research, history or opinion About why I don't like it I just don't, I just don't find it that fun But I think that in itself is important And, like, speaking about Jurassic Park, I played it at Ryan's Place. I've only played it twice. First time I played it was at Ryan's Place. I stepped up to it and I didn't stop playing it for about three hours. And then just recently my friends got a new in-box, Jurassic Park, as well. Very exciting for them. It was their first one ever. You know, it smelled like new pinball. Loved it just as much. So, you know, maybe I don't need an essay about why I, like, don't like Guns N' Roses. I just don't think it's that fun. Sorry, everyone. I have a question about Guns N' Roses. Is Axl in the game? I'm trying to think if I remember any call-outs. I thought that was Grandma from Goonies. Oh, something Grandma from Goonies gag. Yes, we know. But is Axl actually in the game anywhere? On the... Like the video clips? I mean, yeah, like custom call-outs. I mean, Melissa is the main voice, the keyboardist. She does 90% of it, and then you have Duff, and then an occasional slash. Where's my beer? Where's my limo? But no, unless it's just a yeah or whatever, like maybe he makes little sounds and stuff. To me, that's the one thing I would have wanted. Yeah! I would have wanted more Axl in the game because, to me, he should have been the main voiceover, but, I mean, that's not going to be possible. I'm sure he was not going to be super cooperative. I would assume Melissa got the most lines because she was the most into it. Like, yeah, this is cool. This is great. I'm just the newest person here on the job. I better be on board. So the other day I was on location, and I've got Guns N' Roses, Rick and Morty, and a bunch of other machines. And there's this little kid who's sitting there, and he has, like, no money. And then his mom comes in. He's like, come on, we have to go. He's like, I just want to play a game. His mom was like, I don't have any money on me. And I'm like, I'll just give you a free game. so he walks up to Rick and Morty and I have like swearing on 100% and I'm like no like this kid's like way too I'm like no and then he's like Guns and Roses and I totally forgot that it often swears but it doesn't swear often so I put a credit on there the little kid goes he plunges his ball somehow gets the super fucking skill shot and I'm like oh no his mom's looking at me I'm like fuck good thing you didn't pick Rocket Queen you would have seen some interesting animations there you're just making the use of Australia bad Ryan thanks that's my M.O. I spread my C you have a little penis too I heard about that little penis thing you know see Ryan knows but you know what they should have had in the game but I'm sure the band wouldn't have been into this but you know how if you shitty enough in a song, you get booed offstage. Although I don't know if I've ever seen anyone get booed offstage, but I guess that happens. They should play that clip of Axl when he goes after the guy in the crowd and then quits and walks offstage. Like, that should happen if you fail at the song. Like, thanks to this lame-ass security, I'm going home. Boom, throws the mic down and your ball's over. Well, I enjoyed the commentary from I think it was Eric Meunier about the kind a multiball and what that meant, that there's an infirmary and every concert people pass out, they could die, or whatever it is, and I didn't know that. I'm like, this is cool. You can't complain about the theme integration, Ron, because it's never going to be the first. Don't ask for anything more. Eric is unique in that he got his first game where he didn't get anything from the license. I mean, other than the characters. No music, no call-outs, nothing. One guy. Yeah, one guy. Yeah, he balanced that out by putting everything on there mech-wise. Like, hey, we're going to have a cannon that shoots a ship. Oh, let's have that ship rock back and forth. Let's have a little flap where the ball can go through the other thing like a cannon. This is unnecessary. You're setting the bar too high for yourself. You're not competing against anyone. And that's why pinball prices have gone through the roof because Stern are like, hey, we can sell Pimmel machines for the same price as Jersey Jack. And Jersey Jack are like, ah, fuck, people are buying these stripped-down machines based on theme. I guess we should raise our price because we have machines and the theme, and it's just this cat-and-mouse race where it's, I don't know, how high is it going to go? Well, then Eric's second game, it's like you have everything. Everything. Everything possible, including a Paul McCartney song, which is amazing. And you get a game out of it. Now how do you beat this? He did fuck up, didn't he, because it's off by half a second, right, Ron? Yeah, it is. It's only a 9.5. They did say, Eric did say, and this is true, this game could be their calling card. Here, licensor, look at this game. They actually let us use everything. Look how cool it could be if you let us use everything. Yeah, I agree with that. But I'm segueing. I'm doing a silent, easy segue. Okay. Since we do have somebody new on and we never asked her, Jess, you ready for this? Oh, yeah. Game you like, game you hate. And not the one we know you're going to go with. Can't go with the two we just talked about. Okay. Hmm. Give me a sec to think about it. I'm waiting. It's been. We're going to spin. It's been Wait, that was not a good one. I gotta go again. Hang on, hang on, hang on. It's been It's been That's been some good contributions. I'm excited to make a little montage of all of these. Does it have to be like a favorite game or can it just be a game that I like? Game you like. Okay, cool. Well, lately I've been playing a bit of Whitewater. Really like it. Good choice. Yeah. I give that a thumbs up. I played it at Ryan's Dirty Dungeon quite some time ago and wasn't really taken by it. But I think that was partially because I was so distracted by Ryan's shadow and everything else in there. But now I've put a bit more time into it. Really vibing Whitewater. I'm a big fan. Game I don't like? Simpsons Pinball Party. Yes. Woo Woo Is that from the other day Jess when you played it Did you play it in the comp No I didn play it in the comp I played it back in Newcastle, and I played it in Sydney as well, and both times I was just like, ah, meh. I don't know. And you've explained it to me now, Ryan, as well, so I don't think it's a massive lack of understanding the game. I just, I don't know, it doesn't grab me. But the incredible keycharts in code. It is incredible. Everything you can run at once. Isn't that great? Yep. Everything is lit. Isn't this wonderful? Hitting the garage 30 zillion times. It's so exciting. You still have to light it, though, Ron. Oh, wow. I have to hit a right orbit. Wow. Yeah, great. Wonderful. I guess you can't do it then. The only good thing about the right orbit is it's crusty. Yeah. Hit me again. You suck. You know, so, yeah. Good choices. So I will stand by your choice, even though one's bad and one's good. You're still okay with my bucket list. The upper play field's good. I like the upper play field. Hey, Ron, how many more things do you have on your list? Because I think we've only ticked off like one or two. Yeah, yeah. Oh, no, I got a lot more for this. Okay, news. Let's see. What do we got for news? News, news, news, news. I'm at This Week in Pinball. Hi, Jeff. Another deep root announcement. Oh, okay. He wants to get this out of the way. I do. Well, first, a good Deep Rubin announcement. Steve Bowden was on final round. Yes, he was. He almost made me want to buy Raza. He's so relentlessly positive. I want to buy this game now. I haven't even played it. I know. He did say Food Truck looks like it's going to be the next game. I don't know why they don't go with Goonies or who. I don't understand that. But, okay. Oh, wow. This is a long announcement, Bruce. It is. so they're having trouble with the UL testing, or it's going longer than anticipated. Gee, I wonder who said that wrong. Go ahead. Well, it says, obtaining a full system certification, oh, wow, is important for us to be able to offer a quality, compliant, and reliable product. The primary goal for us is for Rasa, well, no, primary goal for us for Rasa in February was to get a UL certification done. Unfortunately, the weather prevented that from happening. This is a more valid excuse, I think, than the last one. I agree. Than the all our vendors suck. This one's like we had a major weather catastrophe. Yes. The last update we received prior to the lab closing was that the USUL was close to being done. The Canada UL needed a few minor corrective measures. And the CE, what does that mean? Europe. Oh, was about 75% done. Since we have been able to, we have been unable to work in the lab for the last two weeks, We're hoping to get back on schedule early next week and finish the outstanding requirements. We're still being told it will take four to five weeks for the final certification and report once all certifications pass. This puts us into mid-April. Okay, now I've got a problem with this. You have a problem with every single thing he says. Yep. I just feel like God's against him now. Oh, Jesus. The Lord has said you're going to make a pinball machine about me? Uh-oh. You ain't getting any pinball machines out of here. We're taking our vitamins. We're saying our prayers. The guy's not against us because as another update, we have the lock bar and lighted side panel vendor issues remedied. Okay. We've got things remedied. Basically, let's see. We plan on updating customers again by the end of March. He's keeping people updated. Mm-hmm. You got to give him that. Yes, I will. I'll give him that. Because people have put money down. They have. So now you're responsible. Fantastic. Cancel. Yeah, will not run. Well, it says will not run in late June of 2021 as scheduled. The hotel arrangements have been canceled. I can confirm this because they did cancel my reservation. Bad thing. Well, let's start more positive fame. Pinball Hall of Fame hits their goal. Yep, 77K by one donator. It says 79K here, but one donator. Yes, one person donated. Maybe he's seen everyone. A check for $79,000 to complete the GoFundMe, basically to get them to their goal. How funny would that be if the guy's totally anonymous, and then he rocks up there on the, like, wallets open and he has to pay admission, pay for all the games. They're all broken. And then he says hi. What's the guy's name again, the main dude? Oh. The grumpy guy? Tim Arnold. Tim Arnold, that's right. Tim Arnold. Yeah, he's like, hey, Tim Arnold. And he's like, fuck off, I'm busy. And I'm like, oh, god damn. I save his life, but no one knows who I am. No, the funny thing would be if the check bounced. Tim knows who the guy is, I guess, so he would recognize him. So I would think he would get some kind of VIP treatment if he was visiting. I hope so. There was a cute little video, Mrs. Penn, being challenged by her daughter. I can't remember which one. There's what, Pincess and Penderella? I don't know which one it was. Oh, Pincess. It was Pincess. Basically a trailer for a school project. Man, they do cool shit in school. I didn't do that when I was in school. We didn't have computers. I think they're just a cool family. They're one of those, like, families where you're like, how come my wife doesn't love me as much as that? Why aren't my kids that cool? Maybe I can buy into the family and I can come over there and I can be like the son they never had. We also had lots of interviews. David Fix interview. Oh, actually, it wasn't. It was Jack Hager. It was American Dream. Yeah, that's right, David. American Dream, David Fix. American Dream of American Pinball. Whatever he's on, I feel like it's like a co-interview. Yeah. Let's see. Tom Capera was interviewed on the Pinball Network. Do you know who that is, Bruce? Not at all. He's the guy who did Cactus Canyon. What game is that? No, I know who Cactus Canyon is. He also has done a ton of mechs, and he's still doing mechs for Stern. But he's one of the guys who did the Giant Mnemonic Glove and the Corvette Engine. some cool mechs. The interesting thing is they asked him what he thought about the Chicago Gaming remakes because you know, Cactus Canyon is the rumored next one. He must be flattered and very excited about it. He said basically, I played some of the remake games, I just don't think they flip as good. I'm like, wow! Okay! Oopsie! I did not expect that reaction. I love how this was originally a thing and then someone proved that there was a delay, or tried to prove, using science and then CGC proved them wrong, like, no, you did the test wrong it's actually more accurate but then everyone's like, okay, so you've now proved that it's the same but I don't believe you and it still feels different it does feel different it's different especially Attack from Mars, that's one of the really different But someone should be able to prove, like, surely the smarts in this hobby, someone should be able to prove why. Because the jury's still out on why, right? Because they use the same mechs. Did they say something like there was originally a delay in the Williams code that, like, the flipper delay, basically, when you press the flipper button to when the flipper actually fires off, it's a variable between, like, 10 milliseconds or something really small. and with their version, they've taken that out or emulated the variation. I can't remember, but it was a very comprehensive post on Pinset, I remember. Oh, I remember it. I know who did it. And you can be as comprehensive as you want, but I played several Attack from Mars' originals and remakes and there is a difference. Yep. Period. If that's what you're saying, Ryan, that they have taken out the delay from the original code, then isn't it then the case that it does flip differently? because it may flip better or more efficiently. But at the end of the day... I can't remember if it was they took the delay out or they knew about the delay and then they randomized the delay, even though they could make it way more accurate. They randomized the delay. I can't remember. This was like three years ago. But all I remember is thinking the same thing as Ron. It's like, congratulations on explaining it. I don't believe you because it feels different and I can't hit my shot. Yeah. And Tom Capera's choice of words, too. He didn't say, like, they play different. He said, you know, I don't think they flip as good. Like, wow. Like, Attack from Mars, the lock shot. It's still much earlier on the flipper on the remakes. It is. It's still much earlier to the point where I have to trap up to hit it half the time. Yeah. You cannot do it on the fly. Not at all. I couldn't do it. Neither could I. But Ryan's in Australia, so perhaps he can. You guys have better power. Yeah, you get better power in a real long time. Like, your Jersey Jacks play way stronger than our Jersey Jacks do. That has been proven. Wait, really? Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. Brian sent us a video. He had, like, the left orbit dialed in. It came around like lightning all the way around. Mine doesn't do that. I could jack the flipper power up as high as possible, and it'll never shoot that fast. For real, this sounds like something that people would say to troll Australians. You're just getting all the better stuff now. Yeah, it's different power. Australia! That's right. He's going to say it like that. It's got to be like, you know, when you say America, you've got to just drop the front and it becomes. Australia. You've got to say it like, say it like S-T-R-A-Y-A. Australia. Yeah, it's a little bit better. You've got a bit of work to do there. Oh, my. Can I just ask a quick question? Yes. Thank you for educating my newbie arts. What is Cactus Canyon, and why is it being remade, and why is it so hot? I've never seen one in the wild, and I don't know anything about it. It was the last regular pinball machine made by Bally Williams. Before Pinball 2000. Worked Pinball 2000 with Revenge from Mars and Star Wars. And they cut it short because of Pinball 2000, so the code never got done either. So it's extremely rare and unfinished, which in the pin side world equals unbelievably valuable, and you must have it. I know how to play more. Gotcha. Okay, cool. Thank you. It's a pretty cool game, Jess. I think you would like it. Yeah? It's cute. Yeah. There's a guy who has one. It's got great humor. That's the best thing about that game. The shots are good. It's got a good humor. Nice. It's like a Wild West theme. So what else is on the news, Mr. Ron? Well, Ryan is not going to be with us for that much longer. I don't mean he's dying. I mean, he has to leave. So why don't you start your thing, Ryan? You have some stuff for us? Yeah, so the last two times I've been on, we've done the rip-off episodes where we basically just rip off other podcasts and fill their content, just like Head to Head did for Slam Tilt. Like, hey, what kind of podcast should we have and just like recent runs. But now there's heaps of podcasts, and the amount of content you can steal from other people is just amazing. So I don't know. What podcast do you want to rip off? Well, let's just get it. If Mike Keith on, we're done with the loser kids. Oh, loser kids. Loser kids. So we just have Elwin on in that. Elwin on, we're done. We'll all lose the kids. Like who hates Deep Root the most, you know, as much as Scott Larson? Oh, I don't know. Oh, yeah. He's got unhealthy hate for Deep Root. we can go final round where Jeff doesn't think that he sounds Canadian. He's like, I don't sound weird. I don't say anything about weird. He's not funny. Yeah. He sounds so Canadian, and oh, my God. But I'm in the process of becoming a more American. Yeah. We need more sponsors. Ron, get on this fucking sponsor thing. Oh, we need more sponsors. Yeah, we need. These guys are driving around in such nice cars and everything like that. We need more money. That's final round. That's not pinball profile. But, yeah, who could the sponsor be, Ron? Who do you think we could get to sponsor Slam Tilt? I know who. And I'm not making this up. This just arrived in my mail today. It's sitting right in front of me. It's what we call here junk mail. And usually I just throw junk mail out. But this thing made me do a double take. Because I look at this thing and it says, We save balls from the Manscaped Daily News. 20% off. I could get the performance package featuring the Lawn Mower 3.0, the Weed Whacker, the Crop Preserver, the Crop Reviver, which actually says Ball Spray Toner. What? What is that? What's a ball spray? I'm Googling this. This is, it's like a grooming kit, but they gave them cute names. Like the lawnmower is the groin hair trimmer. The weed whacker is the nose and ear hair trimmer. The crop preserver is the anti-chafing ball deodorant. This ball spray toner. I'm looking at this thing, and it's like this can't be real. And, nope, it is. proper viva is this ball spray toner is just what the doctor ordered for your buds below it's soothing aloe and witch hazel extracts keep your high friction areas cool calm and protected after a good shave so that's our official sponsor is Manscaped yes we got it Manscaped the grooming kit trusted by over 2 million men worldwide. Alright, let's go back to Pinball Profile and let's get Josh Sharp on. Oh, hey Josh. How you going? I'm the people's president, not you. Lol. Hey Josh Sharp, you come second a bunch of times. Lol. His wife doesn't let him play in tournaments. Lol, isn't that funny? Get a new joke, Jeff. Wow. And then, and then, Josh, what do you think about that? Are you actually interviewing me, Ryan? Or is this all about making fun of Jeff? It's all about making fun of Jeff. See you, Josh. Bye. Hang up on him. So that was Josh Sharpe and that was Tim World Profile. Wowzers. All right. Next one. You guys have like a little bit of a rule that you're not allowed to mention this person's name. So I'll have to dance around it. But this guy is the greatest podcaster of all fucking time. And I just want to talk about dream things, right? Because dream things are really important. And dream things sell games, guys. And you don't even need to do anything. You just need to close your eyes, everyone. Close your eyes. And let me play some music. And I just want you to close your eyes and imagine just, you know, can you hear that? Yeah. It's Transformers G1, baby. And I'm just going to take, pull my pants down. Can you hear that? Yeah. off from the prime. It's amazing. Ooh, yeah. I'm going to talk about this for three years and no one's ever going to make it. Okay, that was... He fondled himself very well. I get these letters from people and they don't get real. Next we got the super awesome Pinball Show. We've already kind of like made fun of it. I don't know. There's so many segments they have. I don't know, Ron, if you want to do an extra five days worth of editing to really tighten this podcast up. Or we could just fucking kick Jess off this podcast because she has not been in the industry for five years and her opinion means absolute shit. So, Jess, you've been voted off the podcast. See you later. You are the weakest link. Okay, so before I leave, I would like to contribute to the live laugh track because that is definitely a key component of the Super Awesome Pinball Show and we know how much I love a laugh track. So I will just leave you with this. That's all. That's all I've got. Four Man's Pinball Podcast. Jess, you're probably, you're their biggest fan, so what do we... She's got the man crush. All you need to do is get drunk and talk about cheese and maybe throw in a reference to firepower and clear coats. Done. Firepower. The pinball show with Zach Minney and Dennis and others. We're not going to do market trends, but... I'm going to sing! Oh, God. No, don't sing. Well, I'm horrible at singing, but we're Australian, and ACDC is kind of Australian. So, Ron, I'd love for you to be able to sing Thunderstruck for us. And if you want, we can do the na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na in the background or that might be an editing nightmare and you can just totally go solo. Ah, thunder. I was caught in a barrel of railroad track. Thunder. And I knew there was no second duck. Thunder. I raced and I fought. What can I do? Thunder. And I knew there was no help, no help from you. Thunder. And the ship turned on the ground. Thunder. Beat in my heart. The thunder of God. Show me your power. You've been thunderstruck. I didn't know those were the words. I had to bring this up. Is that what he says? That was amazing. Oh, I can barely breathe over here. That was the best thing I've ever heard. See, Zach Many, you've got to play to your strengths. You fucking suck. That's the level you need to get at. Hey, Zach, sing better. Sing better. Play better. Last one on the list. I'm sure there's many more. I'm sorry for leaving out your podcasts. It's the Pinball Players Podcast. They don't podcast super often, but they do have the top five. So I want to do a round of rounds. And the top five satisfying shots in pinball is a satisfying single shot, satisfying shot after a combo, whatever it is. I want the name of the game, the shot, and why it's good. Who wants to go first? I'll go first. And is there no particular order, because I did not prepare. I failed. The lock shot in Deadpool. Agreed. That's on my list. Just the way it comes around and just kind of barely makes it up the ramp and then comes across. It's very reminiscent of Sorcerer, if anyone's ever played Sorcerer. Actually, the whole upper left is pretty much the same. It goes up and then hits the wire form, which rolls it down, and then just rolls it to the lock. Next. No, you do 05. Oh, I do 05? Shit. Okay. See, I could cheat and just say the same Steve Ritchie shot, but in like three or four games because it's reused so often as all my shots. I'll say the Steve Ritchie shot, which is used in, God, next-gen, high-speed roller games. It's basically the left orbit that comes around to the upper right flipper and then upper ramp, which he's done. Oh, I forgot, Spider-Man. There's just so many he's done that on. Surely you have one that you think he's executed the best in terms of what it means for the shot, in terms of locking a ball or a combo or the light show or the sounds. What's your favorite? It's got to be Next Gen. Next Gen's up there. I'll just go high speed, though. Okay. Because I think it's the first time you used it, so we'll go with that. Let's see. What other one? Oh, Payback Time. The two ramps on T2, which has been copied a lot. That's used. Basically, any game that has that same kind of, whether it's Metallica, because it does a mode when you hit him a certain amount of times. T3 does it. Giant Mnemonic does it and calls it something else. I always call it payback time. No fear. Yeah, no fear. I just call it payback time, regardless of what it's called in the game. Metallica's like, lady of Justin. I got into payback time, Metallica. I'm in payback time. I'm just trying to think of newer games. because the older games, it's more the brutality of them, not a particular shot. Just give him the four and be done. Jesus Christ. He's struggling. You like to see him flounder a little bit in the water, don't you? Help me, Spock. Help me. All right, let's go to Bruce then. Yeah, go to Bruce. You can keep on thinking about running. I'll keep thinking. Number one, attack from Mars, the jackpot lock shot with the diverter can, you know, change it to the right orbit. Not orbit, I mean the right ramp shot. Do I need the universal translator? What did you just say? Well, the lock shot for Attack from Mars, but you can either go up around to the right ramp, which is really the right outer ramp, or divert her right into the thing. Great shot. You feel like you're satisfying with that. Nice shot. Agree? Ron? Agree. Sure. Okay, good. number two, quick silver, sweepable drop targets. Fuck you, Bruce. It is, and you thought of it, didn't you? We're two for two. Let's see if you got the other ones as well. I'll interrupt him. I have another one along those lines. Five drop targets sweep on Cheetah. Yes. I've done it two or three times ever, but when you do it, it's like, was that even possible? How did I even do that? Yep. but I doubt that's what I was going to say. Three. Number four for me is definitely the Steve Ritchie shot, but I like it in next gen because you can actually lock the ball, you know, and gets into board trip. That's really the coolest thing I think for that shot. And, uh, number five, I'm struggling here too, but I'd have to say stars, spinners, spinners shot on stars. I really do. It's just, it's a fun, it's a satisfying, it's the combination. Left spinner or the right spinner? The right spinner with the chime going off at the same time. Like, just, it's a very satisfying shot. I have my fifth one. Okay. Right in lane, left spinner, alien star. Okay. I definitely agree with that. Jess, have you done your homework? Do you have your five? Yeah, I've got a list. Shadow, shadow, shadow. Shadow is on there, but I'll get to that. So mine is pretty categorized into two parts. I love, you know, we all know how much I love a ramp, love a long ramp. But I've also realized that I love shooting balls into things. So my shots are thus, number one, Deadpool lock shot. Number two, left ramp on Iron Maiden when I can actually hit it, which is not that often. Both long ramps, both challenging, big fan. Then we come to the hitting balls into stuff. It might be cheap, but I'm a big fan of the Demogorgon shot on Stranger Things when you actually get the ball in there. So satisfying. Hold on, pause. Did you ever see the Iron Maiden Tony Stark meme where he just rolls his eyes? Yes. There you go. Thank you. That's it. The catapult lock on Black Knight Sword of Rage. and, number one, Shadow Ramps. But, more specifically, when you use your Diverters to get all four of them in all four shots in a row and get Super Vengeance. My absolute favorite. So satisfying. No, the most satisfying shot, I think, the whole game, is the seven loops. The horizon, fancy pants. Not all of the skin. Wait, wait, do you mean the second way combo? Second way combo. Yeah. That's impossible in my game because of the feeds to the flip. I think you've got six, right, Jess? I've got six a lot of times, but seven, not a chance. That's hard. You said satisfying shots. You said catapult. That reminded me of the lock in Houdini. But I wouldn't call it satisfying. I'd call that more surprising. Like you're just amazed you actually hit it. It's like, holy shit, I hit it. Okay, Ryan. Okay, so I've only got two unique ones. So my Steve Ritchie shot that I think is satisfying is Star Trek, but not the next-gen one because I feel like I never play a really nice Dalton version of that game. So it's the stern Star Trek, and I think it doesn't mean that much, but it does mean something when you get double scoring. I feel like it's almost the perfect. my skill set usually aligns perfectly with like getting to 9.1 right when I get into Kobayashi Maru and just like doubling my medals and having a good old time with that. And I feel like it's looped perfectly with like you just do it from timing. The light's flashing your face and there's no way you can like properly do it without just flipping on intuition. So that's one. The Attack from Mars lock shot is definitely there. It just feels so smooth. The ball just kind of glides up, and then it takes a total right turn without sucking any of the momentum out of the ball. You know, hitting the light lock and then locking the ball, and then even the ball coming down the left and popping it over and doing it again. It's just perfect. And it's also, obviously, the jackpot shot in Total Nuclear Annihilation. And talking about the sound that happens, like when you build up enough jackpots, and if you build up one jackpot and hit it, it's like, like, you know, super jackpot. But if you hit like six, it goes... It's a good sound, Lyman. Congratulations. The side ramp on dialed in after a lock combo, left ramp, right ramp, middle, side ramp, always is an amazing shot for me. Like hitting a four-way combo to light, light lock and lock the ball. Not many games that do that. The fourth one is the, yes, I feel like Zach Many hasn't actually played Quicksilver. I know they're overpriced. It's pretty! But I feel like he hasn't played it, so he doesn't know what, you know, he's like, oh, there's that stupid thing in the middle. Ugh, ugh, ugh. It's like, yeah, it's there for a reason, Zach, because it's perfectly set up to sweep those. Sometimes you can sweep it into the left orbit spinner, and if you have the spinner lit, it's just like a validation of the sounds. If you have the little hole maxed out to 20k, that sweep sound is 80k. It's the sound of points. Bam, like in one shot, 80k, like more than a spinner rip. It's amazing. And the last one, which definitely isn't my favorite, but I'm saving it for last because it's unique, is the jackpot shot on, and not the super jackpot shot, but the jackpot shot on Indiana Jones. and I think it's because there's an opto at the front of the ramp and then when the ball is travelling up there, it starts the sound. It starts to like, ooh, you might be getting a jackpot and sometimes it rejects and it comes back down. But then when you finally get it, it's almost like you have anxiety when that sound starts. It gives you kind of like jackpot anxiety and then you get it and it's like, jackpot. Like a fucking machine celebrates you. And that's how you fucking make good games. and that's what the new thing is. The machine celebrates you, Ryan, because you've said that to me so many times. It just, it sounds like you just want the machine to jerk you off, mate. I do. And all my 90s machines, yeah, my 90s machines jerk me off and make me feel amazing and Attack from Mars says, you're amazing, you're like, I keep on going, you're doing a good job. I'm like, yeah. And then it'll still punish you. It's like, it's a perfect push and pull between this is a fucking hard game, But when I'm doing good stuff, it's telling me I'm doing good stuff. And besides, like, Alvira. We had push and pull. Hard. The Space Shuttle, the first game, they kind of do, like, it has the beginning of the sound, the entrance to the ramp. You hit it, and it was like, three, two, one. But if it doesn't make it, it'll be like, you know, launch, abort it. Yeah, I think that is one of the first ones. Quicksilver has, like, a drain sound, right? Like, if you drain, it starts to make, like, a certain sound, and then it plays for as long as the ball needs to go in the hole. But if you have the glass off and you're just testing stuff out, and then you hit another switch, it'll stop that sound. So Quicksilver has it, but it's for draining, not for a jackpot. Yeah, not for a new one. By the way, that Quicksilver shot, the sweep into the spinner, Keith Elwin said that's, like, the best shot on any early-stage game, I believe. So just saying. Just saying, Zach. And your shit silver is going to start getting taken apart, Ryan. Beautiful. I can't believe I sent a Quicksilver to the U.S. Yep I managed to find what three Quicksilvers in like six months The first one that got sent to you Bruce another one where a guy wanted Australian dollars for it and I managed to get it down to a reasonable price. It started too high. And that's what I've got now. And then there was one on eBay, and my mate wanted it, and I just went there with a boatload of cash, and I was just like, hey, dude, let me buy this before it goes to sale. And then I gave it to him. So I did manage to find three Quicksilvers in six months, so I know it's kind of impossible, but people don't realize how cool that game is in Australia. Anyway, the end. That was my segment. All right. Hey, Ryan. Can I add an honorable mention to my list? And I feel like you guys are all going to laugh at this so hard, but I'm going to put it out there. The shot on Stern Star Wars, I think it's the Endor shot. So there's like a little horseshoe, and then there's the ramp in the middle. Do you guys know what I'm talking about? The ramp is Endor. Yeah. Yeah, the horseshoe is Hoff on the right and Death Star on the left. Yeah, Endor in the middle. Okay, it's not a hard shot. It's not a particularly long ramp. I don't know what it is about that. I think it's the way that it kind of levels out, but shooting that ramp is like crack to me. It's so satisfying. Because it's the shallowest ramp. The top of the ramp is like one millimeter higher than like the height of a ball. It's like it can't get any more shallow. She knows how to make ramps, asshole. That's how. Is that why? Anyway, every time I hit it, I feel like I should be mocked for saying this, but every time I hit it, I'm like, yeah. It looks beautiful. Love a plastic ramp. Are we getting rid of you, Ryan, and we're keeping the girl? Yeah, I have to go to a 10-year anniversary celebration, which is five hours long. It's longer than an actual wedding. So there you go. Congratulations. No, not me. Not me. While you're gone, we'll talk to Jesse about pinball feuds and stuff. It'll be great. Yes. You're going to miss out on the rest. See you guys. All right, Ryan. See you, Ryan. Are you guys keeping me? I've brought nothing to this show, by the way. I've got no notes. You can bring everything. You'll listen and you'll talk and you'll join in. That's how we always appear. All right. So what else is on our list, Mr. Ron? We have the ball bag. Ooh, I love a good ball bag. That's our mail bag segment. So, yeah, I just think ball bags, though, he can be Bruce. Be offensive. Amazing. That is. Let's see. We have an email from Dr. John. Oh, people. Hello, friendly men. That's actually a sense. Let's see. Bruce chatting about variations in his Rick Flippers. Oh, yes. Let's see. Perhaps this may help. Charlie released this on Pinside. Okay. Let's see. Okay. Spent some time on the phone. This actually requires a visual. It's a long thing, but saying that, the Flipper Bats, the Flipper Bushings are wrong. Yeah, they're too long, so the Flippers are, like, way above the play field. But guess what? How long ago was that post? was. That was back in November, that post was, or October, November. And I got on the list right after that. The weird thing is, is they're the same part, the same bushing. Did their playfields get, like, a different thickness? I don't know. But here's the worst part. I still haven't gotten them, and it's March. Haven't got what? The bushings! Oh, I'm sorry. Fucking god, you're fucking good. there. Have you played Rick and Morty, Jess? I have. I played Ryan's and really liked it. It's fun. I've actually never watched Rick and Morty, though, so if you need to cut me from this call now, I understand. It's a good thing. Well, it's an Australian Rick and Morty, so it's going to play better. Because of the power? I think it's the power, honestly. I really do. It's the thunder from down under. Oh, God. Okay. This one's from Greg. It says, hi, fellas. In a recent episode, you mentioned Stern flipper coil stops and how you replace them as soon as you get a new Stern. Can you say more about this and tell us what coil stops you use for replacement? P.S. Prices are going crazy over here. A couple of Tron LEs going for $25K. What? U.S. dollars, $21K. And Standard now $13K. $10.5 U.S. dollars. $10.5K U.S. dollars. Wow. The coil stops, they suck from stern. They really do. I don't know what the hell the problem is. Yeah, I don't know what they're doing. Our Zach, different set than Zach Benny. Yes. And for the benefit of people who don't know what we're talkin g about. Our Zach, his Jurassic Park, he opens it up, shows me, and there's, like, metal shavings all over from the coil stops falling apart. Yep. I don't get it. It's terrible. Coil stops are hard, obviously. The problem is they just fall apart, and then you lose your coil. Sometimes the coil drops out of the holder because there's nothing holding it in anymore. The coil stop actually holds one end of the coil in. So it's just I've been using Marcos lately. When I buy them, I buy like 20 of them, and then I go for about a year or two, maybe three, without having to touch anything. If I need them local, I get them from my local distributor at Amusements Plus. But, yeah, it's everyone that I've gotten from Stern out of a new machine. Suck! Yeah, same here, Marco. Yep. So we should have a checklist now. Hmm? If Jess is going to get a new Stern, say she's going to pick up a Jurassic Park, what's she's going to have to do on this brand-new game? You're going to have to replace all your coil stops. You're going to want to do that. Washers underneath all the posts. If you don't want a pooling and shipping to occur. If you don't care. They haven't been putting art around them lately, so. Change all your, you got to take all the rails out. The rails? Yes, the rails now. The gouges and the rails from Avengers and that kind of stuff, they're having that issue, so. Oh, you mean the, well, hold on, the ball guys, you mean. The ball guys, yes, the rails. Yes. No, the rails are on the side. No, no, I can tell them ball rails. You're confusing her. See, he confuses me, and I've known him for years. I would interpret rails as bull vibes. Sweet. Aha! Thank you! All right. Justification again. All right, all right. What else did you have to do? Different rubbers sometimes. Rubbers lately from sterns have been okay. You know, they kind of crap out. They're not as bad as you think. Check your plate field to make sure it's not warped. Yes. When I do that, put it in switch test and make sure they didn't connect something wrong. make sure all your options work. And then you end up playing the game on stream and your chat is telling you how your game is not working right, which happened to me. Right. Okay. Should I be passing this on to my friends then that just got a new JP? Probably. You could. These are all valid points. And change the balls. Discern balls still suck. Never use factory balls. Never. Never use factory balls because they suck. Just keep your car, though, in case somebody really pisses you off. You can throw them out the window and they'll bounce and go right through his windshield. Yeah, they would. I think that's it. Oh, and when you turn it on the first time, make sure the coin door's closed, which I didn't realize. When I got my Deadpool, I thought it was broken because I turned it on and it didn't work. Or was it Star Wars? It was one of the Spike games. The coin door has to be closed. It just sat there with a node board error or something on it. Like, what the hell is that? What's going on? So what you're saying is, if I buy a new stern and you can bring it home and then disassemble it and build an entirely new machine from the ground up. Sure. You've learned it all now. You've learned it all. Build a home, Bruce. There you go. Perfect. What else do we have on our list for news? Let's see. I think that was it. Okay. Then we can start on some topics. The twippies are coming. Hurrah, hurrah. The twippies are coming. Hurrah. Did you vote for the Twippies at all, Jess? I did. Cool. I did not. You did not? I did. Oh, you did. Okay. Did you? I voted for everything except one particular category. Yes. Which I never vote for because I think it's a conflict of interest. I never vote for favorite podcasts because I just feel weird if I'm voting for myself or whatever. For somebody else. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. So the proof is coming. Hey, I got my 545 bulbs. What's a 545 bulb? It's a wedge flasher bulb used in Dirty Harry and a couple other games. You're already wrong. It's a time-delayed bulb. It's a blinker bulb. Time-delayed blinker bulb, but it is time-delayed. And I got them on eBay. We talked about it last episode. and I got my 10 boxes of GEs. Congratulations. Did you know, Ron, I have a new podcast? Jess, did you know that Bruce has a new podcast? I did not know that Bruce has a new podcast. Please tell us more. It's on the Pinball Network, where me and Jess are. Amazing. Welcome. Thank you. Yes, a Pinball Plus podcast with me and Kathy. Okay. We had our first episode. We're going to be recording again, so come and listen to us. Watch us on Facebook, on Pinball Plus Podcast. Say hi. Make fun of me. Enjoy my wife. Oh, my. Do you have an email address? We do. It is just pinballpluspodcast at gmail.com. Okay. I think everyone starts with the Gmail accounts and just goes from there. And, Ron, how's your podcast going? I'm also on a podcast, another podcast, which is on TPM, which is called Silver Ball Chronicles. Yes. And we recorded last weekend, and we will be, or my counterpart, David Dennis, will be editing and releasing a new episode soon. It's going to be primarily like early 80s Williams, when Pinball was kind of dying, slash Barry Ousler episode. Okay. Okay, cool. Very cool. I'm a big fan of until they're wrong I just mentioned this earlier when Ryan was on the call and I wish I did but someone actually messaged me following our last episode of Jessie Day and they were like hey great episode why does Ryan wank off Bruce and Ron so much though he loves them way too much well we're lovable I'd agree. We're wankers. I'm here for the Bruce and Ron love. In fact, I think we should have a Bruce and Ron fan club. It would just be a full-on circle joke. It would be great. Cool. But at least you know that Ryan loves you, and I love you, too. Well, thank you, ma'am. Thank you. I'm far too private for a fan club. Wow. No way. Oh, yeah. No, he is. Yeah. Bruce tells everyone to hug me at shows, and it pisses me off. Just go up, give them a big old hug. Oh, yeah. And what happened, Trom, when I did that? They do. They did. Not anymore. Yeah, because of COVID. But, yeah. So, yeah, if enough people listen to your podcast, you might go to a show, and people recognize you, and it's weird. That's actually started happening at pinball events in Melbourne, and, yes, it is very weird. Yeah, or they'll recognize your voice. I know that voice. Oh, yeah. They don't know yet. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Especially Bruce. You can imagine if he starts yelling. Like, I've heard that voice before. Yep. Particularly when yelling? Yeah. Nice. So, Ron, this is news that nobody knows except for me and Kathy. Oh, God. Springing it on me again. He does this, too, on the podcast. So just spring a news. I have no idea what he's going to say. Okay. Go ahead. We are looking for another house. Oh. Yep. We're looking for a ranch. Oh, but I thought this was like the perfect place, and you have the co-op now to put all your games in. Why do you need a ranch again? The problem is this place, we're outgrowing even with the games out of it eventually. It is really tight. It's only a two-bedroom to second bedroom, which I'm in right now. It's like eight by eight. The second bedroom is really small. Plus, you know, I don't like renting that much. So we've been looking for a house. We think we found one. We'll know hopefully in a couple days, see what happens. So I might need somebody to help me move. Okay. Yes, the guy with the wrecked spine is going to help you move. Yes. Hey, I broke my spine. You only wrecked yours. I've broken mine. Yeah, mine's just disintegrated, so, yeah. Okay. Ryan's also got a cracked spine. Is this some kind of side effect of just being involved with pinball? Ah, no. Well, my back stopped before I was ever in pinball. I actually had cancer, so I broke my vertebrae. My vertebrae's dead. Okay, well, that seems like a much more legitimate reason than lifting up pinball machines. No, but I still do it. Ask Ron. I lift up more than probably most people normally when it comes to moving shit. Yeah, Bruce brought all my games downstairs. He's a nice guy. Do you have basements in Australia? Not really. It's not a very common thing, no. Do you ever, like, more raise ranches where you have this first level, if you're going to have something, like Ryan's house, it's on the first level, right? And then you'd live up in your second level, you know, like you had your family room and that kind of stuff, right? Yeah, generally, like, it would be, if it was going to be split level, then you would have a garage at the bottom and then a living area on top. Or sometimes, attics are not particularly common either. It tends to be like a separate shed on one level, like a separate garage, or a bottom level, but not really a basement. Why, do you all have them there? Most people, in certain areas of the country. What, certain areas of the country? Yeah, like if you were in Florida, no. Okay. But northeast, yes, even some midwestern areas for multiple reasons, maybe like a tornado shelter. it's kind of like the Queensland so that's a very tropical state in the north it's sometimes described actually as Australia's Texas so they have flooding issues it's known as the Queensland they build the houses on stilts oh wow so that's a very classic style there but yeah we really have basements we also don't really have as many serial killers as you guys maybe there's a correlation there Yeah, we have the most serial killers. We have the most crime, the most guns, the most COVID. We rule. America. I've actually got a really good song for you guys. Sorry to just segue here for a sec, but let me look this up. Have you guys ever heard the song America by Earl Dibbles? No. No, maybe not. I really need you to hear that song. Earl Dibbles is from Texas and may I read you an excerpt from the lyrics of Merica? Go ahead I feel like you're going to really enjoy this one They're back to back undefeated world war champs so take it cup and raise it up for my uncle Sam You know we sent a man to the moon and before we're done yeah we'll probably send a man to the sun. Merica I got a 12 gauge Remington on my gun rack stars and stripes flying high on the back of my truck because it's 4x4 America Buck Antlers, Colonel Sanders, Jerry Lee Home of the Brave and Land of the Yee Yee and Country Girls, America Wow So if that doesn't make you want to listen to that song immediately I don't know what will but that is my gift to you, my American friends. Wow. Thanks. I didn't get you anything. Oh, you don't need to. Well, before we wrap up, do you have any questions? Can we help you with your pinball education? Is there something that Ryan doesn't want to tell you that we can just bypass him? Yes. Look, if you guys have listened to the show any time recently, and if you haven't, I would understand because it's kind of become a garbage fire. Ryan doesn't really educate me on anything anymore. We kind of just talk garbage about, I don't know. Vicar, you two are like husband and wife lately. Well, Ryan's just perpetually cranky, so I don't get much of an education from him these days. The only thing I can think of from this episode that you mentioned, I don't know what it is. So my technical knowledge is still lacking. I think you said something talking about the new stones about flipper stops. Coil stop? Coil stop. Yeah, what's a coil stop? I don't know what that is. Okay. Ron, would you like this or do you want me to? Sure. Actually, it's much easier with a picture. But think of it this way. The flipper make itself underneath the play field. There is a plate where the flipper bat goes through. The shaft of the flipper bat, yes, I said shaft, goes through. Then it screws into a paw. Am I saying that right? Yes, you are. Right, that's a reference. Yes. And then there is a plunger. The plunger goes into the coil. Now, the other end of the coil, there is the coil stop. And basically, when the plunger gets sucked into the coil, it hits the stop. Otherwise, it would go all the way through and eventually would break. I would assume it would probably break the back. if it kept doing that. Yes. And the coil stop is just like it's a piece of metal, and then it has another piece welded on it. And that's where it seems to have an issue on the CERNs, where the weld just starts getting loose, and then the thing just falls off. Oh. Yeah. Not a good thing. So if you need any technical information, we are the ones to come to. Well, Bruce is, yes. Or Zach, who's not on the show right now, but yes. Yes. Perfect. All right, well, now I know what a coil stop looks like. You guys have educated me far more than Ryan has in the last six months, so I appreciate that very much. See, all Ryan's doing is dropping his seat around. The basic design of the coil stop is the same, but depending on the manufacturer, they can be many different depths, sizes, et cetera. Yes. Okay, cool. Deep flipper. Stop, stop, stop. It's like a 16-year-old here with him. 16? Boy, you're giving me way too much trouble. Okay, 13? 12. Okay. Well, I need to eat some breakfast, you guys, because I just rolled out of bed, and Ryan was like, oh, my gosh, you've got to get on the podcast. So I apologize for being tardy. Thanks for coming on. You're always welcome to come on. Thanks for having me. Next question, Buck, you can come on with us. lovely to speak to you guys I'm going to go and inhale some Vegemite toast Vegemite toast go ahead I'm not even joking I love a Vegemite toast have an amazing weekend guys thank you very much bye oh that was great wasn't it Vegemite I still have the Vegemite that uh that I see game does it go bad I actually do want to try it someday Yes, you can. So, yes, we're looking at a house right now, Ron, and the co-op is starting to come along now. We are ripping up walls and making entrances, and you still are game-less. What do you think? Excellent. I'm going to have to visit. Really? I would never expect you to visit. I've been gathering some initial stuff for the stream. Oh. because I'm a nice guy. I've got to help you out. Nice. Thank you. But it looks wide open. It's humongous. I'm assuming we can do the thing we talked about for Silver Ball Saloon, which is just putting the receivers in the ceiling. Yes. As long as it has line of sight, it's perfect. That would be awesome. If I go actually like five degrees, like say if the center of the room was the purest place, maybe like five degrees more north, it would be perfect. I'll have every site for every place. It's just the length of the HDMI cable and all that stuff. We're going to have couches in there again and chairs. Can you say the address yet, or is it still in development? No, we can say the address. Because it's a very similar address to one we're all familiar with on this show. You're going to be like, wait a minute. Okay, so what was the old address, Ron? 135 West Commercial Street, East Rochester. Did I get that right? Yes. West 135 East Commercial Street, East Rochester. Yes. So what's this co-op? 349 West Commercial Street, East Rochester, Suite 2965. So basically if I'm on the street and I just keep walking up, I will get the old silver bus. It's closer to the highway. Okay. So that's the funny thing. We are only literally two blocks away from the old Cedar Ball Saloon. Wow. And tons of parking. Tons of parking. It's truly like the sanctum. You're going to have to walk a little bit, but it's not a bad thing. We all need some exercise these days. So what you do is you go around the back of the building. You're going to go up the main. There's three entrances. You're going to go to the furthest one, which is the most to the west. go in that entrance go up the stairs and just keep on going make a right and keep on going to the end. Excuse me and you'll see the sign for the Rochester Pimple Co-op. We are not open yet so do not take this as come on down and check us out. All our listeners especially the many ones in Australia are just just leaving right now to go there. They are. I think they are. But I just don't want local people because they've already been biting at the bit which is nice to see. They're biting at the bit? Yes. But we're going to have about, I think, about 45 to 50 games. So it will be very nice. Yes, so if you miss the Silver Ball Saloon, the Silver Ball Saloon lineup will be there. Mostly, yes. Mostly. Yes, it will be there, plus a couple other newer games, some older games, which is really nice because of Zach. EMs, baby. Yes, we have three games already in the building, but they're just in the storage area. And the good thing about the co-op is we're offering repair work. So if you have a game local in the western New York area, we can do anything. We're going to be doing play field swaps. We're going to be doing basic repairs and getting machines up and running for people. So it is the way to go. Do you think this might be a location where Zach's Homebrew might make a debut? I think so. Oh, definitely. And we're going to stream repair work. That's going to be one of the plans, and also streaming tournaments and everything like that. we're going to have food and beverage there for as in bobbles and cans of chips and that kind of stuff. You know, just the basic stuff. We're not going, oh my god, drastic. If you bring food in, you can bring food in. Not a problem. Just, you know, you got to eat in a certain area, not by the games, but in our seating area. So it should be really cool. But ETA, we're not even close yet. I'm excited though. Yes. Hopefully, they're talking. Have you heard that they're actually talking about a herd mentality by the end of the summer. A herd mentality. I don't know what that means. Sorry. The herd, we're 70% sorry for COVID. The herd. Herd immunity. Yeah, thank you. That's what I was saying. I like your term better, though. Yeah, mentality. It is going to be a mentality because you have to break through all these stereotypes we've now made for the past year. But by the end of summer, with all the vaccinations that they're hoping for. We'll see. I hope so. I hope for everything because we've lost four other businesses in the past week have now closed in Rochester. So it is not getting any better with certain businesses. And it's mostly businesses that are either restaurants. Some of them are like, you know, like we had a Sky Zone, which is like the trampoline thing for all these people, for the kids and that kind of stuff. You bounce up and you do all the bouncy stuff on these big, humongous trampolines in the place. The one in Rochester just closed. So it's not good still. It really isn't. But what is is the Rochester Pinball Collective. Coming soon. Coming soon to a theater. Oh, and one more thing. I got the passport visa for our contestant. Oh, we're talking about Stu McVicker's opponent that Bruce is bringing in a ringer from Europe. Yep. And I had to get a visa, so I had to sponsor her since the COVID and all this stuff. So it's not going to be easy, but I think her plane's going to be coming in like two or three weeks at least. All right. Stu said he's ready. Yeah, because I don't know if he's ready for this challenge. He thinks he's had challenges before, but. I already told him we're streaming it, and it's going to be great. Yes. So I'm very excited about this. Anything new in your life, Ron? Let's see. I was putting earplugs in games before the podcast. Oh, you guys trying to set up. I didn't realize you can't put them in the old sterns. No. Yeah, but you can in the valley. You can't in the stern. I was just like, damn it, I didn't realize that. I thought it was just the Gottlieb that you couldn't do it. No. Yeah, and I screwed with the spinner on Meteor for like an hour trying to get it to spin better. I had to use my last original stern spinner that I had left. so I'm recording I think tomorrow with Kathy for the pinball plus podcast just remember the pan don't pan it's not easy this editing thing so more props to you oh my god hold on I gotta mark this wow mark the date in history oh my goodness yes it's almost It's taken me four years and nine months to admit that you have a hard job. Just think, we're almost coming up to... What are we going to do for our five-year anniversary? Five-year anniversary in June? June. Five years. Damn. Five fucking years you've been stuck with me doing this shit. See, I'm still trying to figure out should I edit out the C word because it was here a few times. Oh, it was there a million times. I'd love to see. You need to beep it. Like a beep. Just a small little, you can do like the C-U and then just get the N and then T. See, we're trying to be, you know, a lot of our audience is Australian. And for those who don't know, that particular, like the C word in Australia is extremely common. It's like, it's used for men and women. It's just used as like, you know, how you doing, you know, so-and-so. But in this country, it's just like, you can't say that. That's taboo. Yeah. So, I, yeah. All right. So, this has been episode 162 of the Slam Tilt Podcast. Let's say hi to everyone. Say hi. Top rope pinball. Yes. If you want to stream, he said to plug him. Yep. See if I'm a bonus. Check out his interview on Final Round Pinball. Great. So once you're past all our negativity and you want positivity, listen to that. Yes, definitely. Steve is a good, kind-hearted person that, you know, you hope the best for him every time you talk to him and hear from him. That's the nice thing about him. And hi, Zach. You can check us out at slamtillpodcast.com. The upper right-hand corner has all the links. I've been streaming at least once or twice a week. Did you this week? I didn't see it this week. No, I was streaming this week. I got my usual four to five people. I didn't see it. Honestly, I didn't get the message. I would have been watching at work. Ah. Okay. Damn, I could have had six. You could have had six. And then we will give people a heads up on our Facebook page when the matchup. The battle of the century. Yes, the battle of the century. Where is she from again in Europe? I'm not allowed to tell you yet because it might tell you what kind of style she plays. Okay. Well, we know Stu McVicker is from Romania. Yes, I know. I know. I heard about that. All right. So we can be reached at slamtillpodcast at gmail.com. I think I said everything at this point. I think we're done. So let's do the gimmick. Goodbye, Bruce. Goodbye, Frank Castellano. We'll be right back. Oh my. You freaked me out, Bruce, when you said, what the fuck, you made me think that I misjudged the hour by an hour or something. I'm like, did I miss it by an hour? They've been waiting for an hour and ten minutes? That's fucking classic.
  • Pinball is now legally allowed to be played on location in New York State

    high confidence · Ron Hallett: 'Hey, but we're allowed to play pinball now in New York State.'

  • Ryan C. has access to higher number of newbie players through location machine rentals driven by GNR wait times

    high confidence · Ryan C.: 'a lot of them are renting pinball machines because they've bought Guns and Roses there's a massive wait'

  • “the truthful version is that I drove an hour each way to this tournament to pay $15 to play five qualifying games and then not get an opportunity to play anything else”

    Jessie J. @ tournament experience section — Describes negative first tournament experience illustrating broader tournament infrastructure problems

  • “Well, because I run my own tournament. So I'm like, well, instead of doing that, I'll just run at my house in the dirty dungeon... So why would I try if I can do it myself?”

    Ryan C. @ tournament distance discussion — Illustrates how established players opt out of mainstream tournaments due to frustration and ability to self-host

  • “I mean, they can't score. So what's the yeah but what's the wizard mode what are you trying to do”

    Bruce Nightingale @ Beavis and Butthead game design discussion — Highlights challenge of designing pinball around IP where protagonists cannot score

  • Josh Roop
    person
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    Stern Pinballcompany
    Jersey Jack Pinballcompany

    high · Ryan C.: 'the games that are shit that come out at the start... Deadpool was pretty average... They don't sell, then they become better, then there's no stock, and then those are the ones that have a higher end price'

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    product_strategy: Manufacturers will not reduce prices when supply chain normalizes; price increases are permanent and tied to demand rather than cost; strategy mirrors automotive industry

    high · Ryan C.: 'It's like a car. They're going to keep on pumping up as much as they get. They'll hit the brakes when nobody's buying.' No expectation of post-COVID price reductions

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    business_signal: Jersey Jack discontinued Pirates of the Caribbean and would need to re-acquire license for future production; implies licensing agreements are term-limited and expensive

    high · Ryan C.: 'You had your chance to buy Pirates, and you didn't. So they're not going to make them again. They have to get their license again. I think they're hoping for another home run of money.'

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    community_signal: New/casual players at locations consistently fail to understand flipper button placement and repeatedly press center/launch button instead of side flippers; represents systemic UX/education problem

    high · Multiple examples documented: kids pressing middle button to launch and start game, not understanding side flippers exist, continuing to press middle button after drain despite flipper feedback

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    venue_signal: Significant performance variance between themed machines at location: Godzilla doing 2x other machines, TMNT outperforming Avengers by 30-40%, Rick and Morty underperforming; playability matters more than theme quality

    high · Ryan C.: 'Godzilla's only been on location for two and a half weeks, but I've checked, and it's doing, like, double every other pinball machine'; TMNT vs Avengers comparison showing theme/music quality insufficient

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    regulatory_signal: New York State now legally permits pinball to be played on location; pinball had been restricted/banned in state prior; change attributed to Governor Cuomo's departure

    high · Ron Hallett: 'Hey, but we're allowed to play pinball now in New York State'; reference to 'normal Cuomo tirade' and expectation of legal status change with his exit

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    content_signal: New pinball podcast launched: Jessie J's Pinball Adventures, co-hosted by Ryan C. and girlfriend Jess; part of grassroots growth strategy using personal relationships to onboard new players

    high · Ryan C. announcement: 'So you are now officially on a podcast that's called what's it called? Jessie J's Pinball Adventures. So I met a girl called Jess a while ago... and she's pretty into it, man.'

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    competitive_signal: Multiple barriers reducing tournament participation: geographic distance (1-5+ hour drives common), late event times (1am+ finishes), entry fees, poor attendee experiences, small prize pools; leads established players to self-host instead

    high · Jessie J. described 5-hour round trip for $15 entry and 5 games only; Ryan C. noted tournaments run 'way too late', drove 3.5 hours with 1am return; now self-hosts to avoid mainstream tournaments