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The Pinball Show Ep 153: Toity, Hoity, Shucksy, & Gomie

The Pinball Show·podcast_episode·1h 45m·analyzed·May 21, 2024
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.039

TL;DR

John Wick Pinball underperforms sales expectations amid pricing concerns and market cooling.

Summary

The Pinball Show discusses John Wick Pinball's post-launch performance, Stern's production schedule, George Gomez's recent interviews addressing licensing controversies, market sales concerns, and new releases including Pedretti Gaming's Funhouse 2.0 remake. Hosts analyze why John Wick sales underperformed compared to typical Stern cornerstone releases, citing pricing concerns, market saturation, and design choices.

Key Claims

  • John Wick Pro sales are being restricted to locations only until August, with a deliberate strategy to push customers toward Premium and LE models

    high confidence · Host describes Stern's production schedule: location pros first (May), LEs in June, premium run early-to-mid June, with residential pro availability delayed to August

  • Lionsgate licensing restrictions prevented guns from appearing on John Wick playfield despite guns being central to the films

    high confidence · George Gomez explained in interviews (per Craig Bobby report) that Lionsgate and individual actors licensed for the game had restrictions on gun imagery on public-facing machines

  • Stern walked away from developing a Hunger Games pinball machine due to overly restrictive licensing

    high confidence · George Gomez revealed in recent interviews that Stern abandoned Hunger Games project because of licensor restrictions

  • Venom and Stranger Things are Stern's highest-earning games on location despite community criticism of Venom

    high confidence · George Gomez confirmed from Stern's internal location data that Venom earns top spot for most-played home games and Stranger Things ranks highly on location earnings

  • Spike 3 system will feature new CPU board, cabinet redesign, 4K LED screen, while maintaining Spike 2's node board architecture

    medium confidence · George Gomez mentioned in interviews that parts of new Spike 3 system could be seen before end of 2024, with described technical specifications

  • John Wick Pinball sales are significantly below typical Stern cornerstone release expectations

    high confidence · Hosts note sales are 'not Elwyn-esque' and discuss market feedback about cooling demand, though they acknowledge multiple factors beyond game quality

  • Pricing at $13,000+ is a primary factor causing collectors to skip John Wick purchases

    high confidence · Multiple sources report that buyers cite pricing as major reason for passing on this release; hosts discuss thousand-dollar price increases pushing people out of market

Notable Quotes

  • “To me, it just really stuck out this release because the first time a hobbyist or a residential would be able to get a pro is August. We're in early May launching a game, June, July, August. That sends a message to me saying, we want people to focus on the premium in LE.”

    Host (Zach) @ ~19:00 — Articulates the perceived strategic messaging behind Stern's production sequencing for John Wick; suggests deliberate market positioning

  • “I think at some point there are a lot of people where a thousand more is a thousand too much.”

    Dennis @ ~44:30 — Captures key economic insight about pricing sensitivity and the cumulative impact of Stern's price increases on buying decisions

  • “It felt like a mishmash of styles, and I think the decision to go with a comic approach was very odd for movies that are not based on a comic.”

    Dennis @ ~31:00 — Design criticism of John Wick art direction; identifies inconsistency between film source material and comic book aesthetic chosen

  • “The art was a miss for me. A miss. Swing and a miss. Yeah. It felt like a mishmash of styles... Neon Noir... Comic realism... It's not comic realism anymore.”

    Dennis @ ~32:15 — Detailed articulation of John Wick's artistic inconsistency problem—mixing neon noir with photorealistic character work creates visual discord

  • “I never make a buying decision on a game over art. The game can look like a dog. I mean, I own hoops. I mean, come on... But I would still buy it, regardless of what the art looks like, as long as the rules are good and the layout accommodates those rules.”

    Dennis @ ~34:45 — Establishes Dennis's design philosophy hierarchy: gameplay/rules over aesthetics; indicates willingness to reserve final judgment on John Wick pending hands-on play

  • “When the pricing went up, it's not like it went up for this game. When the pricing went up, it did take a lot of people out immediately for obvious reasons.”

    Dennis @ ~43:00 — Clarifies that price increases predated John Wick but cumulatively affected market demand for this release

Entities

John WickgameGeorge GomezpersonStern PinballcompanyLionsgatecompanyBarrels of FuncompanyPedretti Gamingcompany

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Barrels of Fun ramping production (18 games/week capacity) with Labyrinth completion targeted end of 2024, positioning for Game 2 reveal late 2024/early 2025; appears to be on track with stated timelines

    high · Factory virtual tour data: 222 units shipped, 750 total sold of 1,100 unit run; management confirmed completion timeline

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Pandemic-era backlash emerging: dealers who profited from scarcity (markup prices, limited stock manipulation) now facing reduced demand as market normalizes and buyers are more selective

    medium · Dennis references 'chickens coming home to roost' and 'schadenfreude' regarding dealer treatment during pandemic; suggests underlying sentiment among buyers toward manufacturers/dealers

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Dennis admits having not yet played John Wick Pinball; reserves final judgment pending hands-on experience, indicating rules/layout quality could change assessment despite art direction concerns

    medium · Dennis: 'Unless the rules blow me away... I can't see my cell phone in it' and confirms he prioritizes gameplay over aesthetics in purchase decisions

  • ?

    design_philosophy: John Wick playfield art direction inconsistent, mixing neon noir aesthetic with photorealistic character work and comic book styling creating visual discord; misaligned with film source material

    high · Dennis describes as 'mishmash of styles', 'comic realism', notes disconnect between noir setting and comic approach; criticizes inconsistency between different art zones on playfield

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Lionsgate licensing restrictions prevented guns from appearing on John Wick playfield despite films' gun-centric narrative; actors licensed individually with gun restrictions; Stern abandoned Hunger Games project entirely due to licensor overreach

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.316

0:00
Warning, the following episode contains adult language and screaming goats. Listener discretion is advised.
0:11
The Pinball Network is online. Launching the Pinball Show. This week on the Pinball Show, it's all about John Wick vs. Rudy as Dennis and I discuss the ongoing post-launch events of John Wick Pinball. updates to Stern Pinball's production schedule, George Gomez clearing the air, current market analysis and how game sales are affected, the new Funhouse remake game from Pedretti Gaming, other pinball industry news, and pinball market trends. The Pinball Show official club members this week get exclusive content covering what I like and what I do not about John Wick Pinball, and changing up our pinball lineups as Dennis and I talk about what has recently left our collections, what has come in, and what titles we plan on owning next. It's the Pinball Show. You want it, so here it is.
1:04
Pinball is a game of skill. For some, it's a passion and a lifestyle. It's time for the Pinball Show. It's pinball with personality.
1:16
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Pinball Show, this quaint, cute little podcast. Hey, I've been gone for a while. I should send a thank you to Greg Bone for podcasting with him while I was out. was in virginia well tell me more about her sorry sorry okay pinball let's talk about pinball dennis yeah pinball that's what people want to hear they don't like these 20 minute intros i know sometimes they cry about it did you could you see yourself living in virginia yeah virginia is more of a short-term commitment it's not you it's me kind of thing okay have you been playing a lot of pinball at all I have not been playing a lot. I got the new lock put on the coin door of my victory.

  • Barrels of Fun manufactures maximum 18 games per week, shipped 222 Labyrinth machines to date, with 750 units sold total

    high confidence · Craig Bobby reports from Barrels' factory virtual tour; Labyrinth production on track to complete by end of 2024

  • Pedretti Gaming's Funhouse 2.0 Limited Edition will be limited to 750 units at $9,999, with Classic Edition at $7,499

    high confidence · Craig Bobby provides detailed specs from official Pedretti Gaming announcement including feature differentiation between editions

    • “I feel like someone is going to capture me and do some lashing. I feel like I'm looking over my shoulder like, what did I do?”

    Dennis @ ~40:15 — References underlying community sentiment about dealers/distributors who profited from pandemic scarcity; suggests backlash is now occurring through reduced sales

  • “Stern still to release the Venom accessories, Jaws accessories, and we'll talk about the recent interviews with George Gomez, but he's claiming within a couple of weeks we may see John Wick accessories.”

    Host @ ~20:30 — Tracks Stern's accessory pipeline delays and George Gomez's updated timeline promises

  • “A resounding meh for me. The layout looked competent. Probably a decently fun shooter, but I didn't see anything that felt very unique to me.”

    Dennis @ ~27:15 — Sums Dennis's pre-play assessment: competent but unremarkable, lacking differentiators to justify premium pricing

  • “There are strong suggestions that not only are sales down for this particular cornerstone release, Dennis, but down so far that the entire industry may in fact crumble upon itself.”

    Host (Zach) @ ~38:45 — Hyperbolic framing of market pessimism; references broad community concern about sales trajectory and industry health

    • David Van Es
    person
    Brian Savageperson
    Dennisperson
    The Pinball Showorganization
    Funhouse 2.0game
    Venomgame
    Spike 3product
    Pat Lawlorperson
    Craig Bobbyperson
    Joel Engelberthperson
    Josh Roopperson
    Scott Larsonperson
    Brian Allenperson
    Labyrinthgame
    Jawsgame
    Black Knight Sword of Ragegame
    Hunger Gamesgame
    Elliot Eismanperson
    Flippin' Out Pinballorganization

    high · George Gomez explained in recent interviews that both Lionsgate and individual actors had contractual restrictions on gun imagery in public-facing commercial machine; Craig Bobby report confirms

  • $

    market_signal: John Wick sales significantly underperforming typical Stern cornerstone releases; market cooling evident across multiple indicators including pricing resistance and trading dynamics

    high · Hosts confirm sales 'not Elwyn-esque'; note that secondary market trading now risky due to depreciation risk; multiple forum discussions cited regarding sales concerns

  • ?

    community_signal: Elliot Eisman appears to be first-time full playfield designer for Stern; hosts note John Wick shows some design competence but lacks distinctive features or clear design signature compared to established Stern designers

    medium · Context suggests new designer on cornerstone release; Dennis's critique of 'competent but unremarkable' layout without unique features; unclear if confirmed publicly

  • $

    market_signal: Cumulative price increases ($13,000+ for LE) pushing collectors out of market; threshold effect where incremental thousand-dollar increases remove entire buyer segments

    high · Dennis: 'at some point there are a lot of people where a thousand more is a thousand too much'; hosts discuss that previous easy resale at same price provided purchasing justification now gone

  • ?

    announcement: Pedretti Gaming officially revealed Funhouse 2.0 remake with dual editions: LE limited to 750 units at $9,999 (includes new 2.0 code, new artwork, mini screen, RGB lighting) and Classic at $7,499 (upgradeable to 2.0)

    high · Craig Bobby provided full specification breakdown from official announcement including pricing, production limits, feature differentiation

  • ?

    product_strategy: Stern still hasn't released Venom and Jaws accessories; John Wick accessories promised 'within a couple weeks' per George Gomez's timeline, though history suggests delays likely

    medium · Craig Bobby notes multiple pending accessory releases; George Gomez claimed 'couple of weeks' during recent interviews

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern deliberately restricting Pro sales to locations-only until August while immediately launching LE production, signaling intentional strategy to push home buyers toward Premium/LE tiers

    high · Zach notes: 'That sends a message to me saying, we want people to focus on the premium in LE' with three-month delay before residential pro availability

  • ?

    technology_signal: Spike 3 system development confirmed with new CPU, cabinet redesign, 4K LED screen while maintaining Spike 2's popular node board architecture; timeline suggests public reveal possible before end of 2024

    medium · George Gomez confirmed parts visible before end of 2024; specified technical improvements while maintaining backward compatibility with node boards

    • 2:04
    Okay. All right. And that concludes repairs. Is it like a cam lock, or did you do the homeowner no key needed? No, no. It's a key one. It was one of those where there was no lock, and I just needed to put one in, and I was putting it off. What about those stupid circle arcade ones? I hate those. Why? Like the quarter circle with the little. Yeah, it's a quarter circle one with the key. Those gross me out. I don't know why. What gross you out? I hate them. No one has a visceral reaction to a lock. I do. God, it's so gross, those locks. What, do you work for Yale? What is this? Give me a normal toothed key, man. I don't like those. They're like ATM locks or something or casino slot machine locks. Oh, yes. Back in the day when you had that heavy burden of emptying the ATM machine at your local Piggly Wiggly.
    2:54
    I don't know. I just don't like them at all. You know what I thought I wouldn't like but I loved was I took the family a couple of weeks ago to the monster trucks. You ever done them? Sunday, Sunday, Sunday.
    3:09
    No. You've never been? No. Grave Digger. Like that whole. I'm trying to remember if I've ever been to a demolition derby. That might be the closest I've got. I can't remember. If it was, I was a wee lad. We still have people messaging us about the Children's Demolition Derby. I'm going this year. It's the end of June, I believe. Maybe that's all I remember is your retelling. That was an excellent rendition of the Children's Demolition Derby. I'm going to. But, yeah, I went to the monster trucks. I'd never been before, and I really loved it. Like, there's beer, there's popcorn, and there's a bunch of country folk yelling and kids with mullets. I loved it. Sign me up. I'll go everywhere. But it felt a little Harlem Globe trottery, though. I'm not going to lie. What, a little too exhibition? Is that what you mean? Like staged? A little staged. A little WWE. It's like, let me guess. Gravedigger's going to win.
    4:11
    Nonetheless, trucks still go high. You know, trucks still crash. So I liked it. But you knew coming out of the gate, the construction-based monster truck, he wasn't going to win. He's no gravedigger. His car isn't built like a big shark or something. He's like construction-ity. I'm like, oh, he's not going to win. If it was, would such a truck eat a ball? Oh, it would. It would be like Roadshow. Red and Ted. Red and Ted, yeah. I'm fucking going to bed. it's like let me put my balls in your mouth ted that's one of the worst games williams made i did not like roadshow i did still don't i still do if craig bobby was a monster truck would he be the mahogany table yeah he's gonna put a varnish on his opponents mahogany table rolling in oh man let's kick it over to craig bobby see what top stories he's conjured up this week. Hello and welcome back to the pinball show's top stories. I'm Craig Bobby. Yes, the start of summer in the USA is almost here with the Memorial Day long weekend right around the corner. And what better way to get that party started than with not one but two interviews with George Gomez, Chief Creative Officer at Stern Pinball. George made the publicity rounds this past week as a guest on the YouTube stream Flippin' Out with Friends show with host Joel Engelberth and then immediately trucked on over to the very popular Loser Kids Pinball podcast with host Josh Roop and Scott Larson. Now, as always, if you want to know the state of the nation with Stern, there's no better and more entertaining person to listen to than George Gomez. Of course, George's reason for checking in with the community, as he likes to say, was to firstly promote Stern's latest release, John Wick Pinball, where he spoke at length about the controversy surrounding the lack of guns featured in the game. Since its official release, some Stern fans have been quite vocal with their criticism of Stern's latest offering that does not feature or show any guns or art in the mechs found in the machine, despite many of the movie clips involving guns and weapons of all types appearing on the LCD screen during gameplay. As usual, George was quite candid, as he usually is during these interviews, and explained that the lack of guns related back to the wishes of Lionsgate, the licensor of John Wick, who had their own restrictions about where guns related to the movie could be used on a device like a pinball machine, which are often found or seen in a commercial or public setting. Also, some of the individual actors from the films who had to be licensed individually for use in Stern's machine did not allow or want their likeness to be used or shown with guns in anything outside of the John Wick film. Well, welcome everybody to the wonderful world of licensed intellectual properties. During his interview, George opened up about just a ton of topics related to Stern, such as... Believe it or not, Stern Pinball had started making a Hunger Games pinball machine, but the licensor was so restrictive that Stern decided to walk away from its development.
    7:39
    John Wick has a super cool topper that's already in development, but yet to be released. Yes! Stern Pinball will sell OEM speaker light kits for premium and pro models, like in the limited edition models, but without the cutouts. They will eventually be available on Jaws and John Wick. All LE games going forward will have speaker lights from the factory, and that Stern's expression lighting feature will also be used on more non-music themed pins in the future. Given all the flack that they've been given about Venom from the community, Stern was surprised that insider-connected data that they collect shows that Venom, along with Stranger Things, are two of the highest earning games on location, with Venom also taking home the top spot for the most played games in home environment. Gomez confirmed again that Stern's new Spike 3 system architecture and platform refresh is coming soon, parts of which could be seen before the end of this year. And while Gomez didn't confirm any release dates, he did confirm that the new Spike 3 system would contain a new CPU board, cabinet redesign, and presumably a 4K LED screen that he has mentioned before while keeping the node board architecture similar to the Spike 2 system that has become so popular and easy to work with for operators and homeowners alike. George also mentioned that the new Spike 3 system would potentially allow Stern to more easily vault older Stern games that use even older system platforms seen in games like The Lord of the Rings and Tron. However, nothing officially regarding either of these two titles was currently in development, citing that these game licenses would also have to be renewed or renegotiated again prior to production. And just to reiterate, George is unquestionably one of the most likable leaders in the pinball hobby, and I highly recommend taking the time to listen to both of these very informative interviews with him. In other news, Barrels of Fun Pinball opened their doors recently and conducted a virtual tour of their factory in Houston, Texas. Along with the tour, Barrels David Van S and Brian Savage did some Q&A with the viewers that also provided some interesting information about one of the newest manufacturers of pinball machines. Barrels of Fun currently manufactures a maximum of 18 games per week and shipped a total of 222 Labyrinth machines to date. They recently crossed the 750 unit mark in sales of Labyrinth, which is limited to a total run of 1,100 units. They said they are currently on track to be done with Labyrinth production by the end of 2024, and David and Brian did not want to make any sort of firm commitment about when they would reveal Game 2 from Barrels of Fun, with the leading rumor being the Bruce Willis action-adventure The Fifth Element. However, they did tease viewers by showing them the door that the work was in progress behind, and would be revealed once their current production on Labyrinth was complete. That puts estimates on their next reveal to be somewhere in the vicinity of late 2024 or early 2025. Speaking of new games, Prodretti Gaming officially revealed their new much-talked-about remake of the Williams 1990 classic Pat Lawler-designed Funhouse this past week. Say what? The game will come in two versions, a limited edition and a classic edition. Limited to 750 units, the $9,999 limited edition includes two versions of the game, the original Funhaus code and Pedretti's new Funhaus 2.0, Rudy's Nightmare code. Both games use a 21.5 LCD display in the back box. The LE also features all new reimagined Funhaus artwork by artist Brian Allen of Flyland Designs, RGB LEDs, a 4-inch mini screen on the playfield, RGB LEDs in Rudy's eyes, lit interior art blades, midnight blue armor trim, an apron with an RGB LED light show, an enhanced sound system, auto plunger, shaker motor, glare-resistant magic glass, and comes with an engraved fun house watch. Woo! Watches with Dennis, eat your heart out. The Classic Edition priced at $7,499 doesn't have the new art or the 2.0 kit, but is easily upgradable to the 2.0 version because it still comes with the auto plunger, mini screen, and fast boards. A 3D molded fully integrated topper will be available for sale for the limited edition model at a later date. The Classic Edition will have an add-on Rudy's Nightmare Topper available. Well, lots going on in the pinball world, but that's all for this week. For the Pinball Show, I'm Craig Bobby. Catch you on the flip side.
    12:22
    Thanks so much, Craig, for the update. We'll jump right into some of those topics, including Stern Pinball production updates. Last couple of weeks, Dennis, they've been building, they were building Elvira premiums. They were building Jaws premiums. Now, this last week, they built the location John Wick Pros. so those are already on location listener you can probably go to your nearest operator location in arcade and go play it and if they don't have it tap them on the shoulder gently and say hey why don't we have John Wick and they'll reply well we will get it very very soon we are just waiting to pick one up used honestly if I'm a location do you see what they all get for these launch parties they get hooked up I guess dealers don't get hooked up with all this swag It's a thing. Yeah. Greg was telling me, he's like, oh, do we get like transites? We get like toys. We get plaques. We get, I'm like, what? Banners? We get t-shirts? What the hell?
    13:25
    I'm still fighting to get my damn showroom banner for Jaws. They get a lot. It's almost like a flipping out stream. They've been shipping all those John Wick pros. honestly this week listener they're going to be producing john wick le's already wow they're on the line so they're going to fly out i'm i'm interested your thought on their continued production scheduling with new releases uh furthermore being that they're still capping those pros regardless of how many they're selling still capping that first run for operators only. They go to the extent of paperwork that needs to be filled out in order to only provide the dealer with approved locations for the pros. You would think to increase sales on John Wick, we'll talk about sales in a minute, not as heavy as like an Elwynn release. Would you think maybe they just say, well, we'll sell as many pros as we can and build as many as we can in this period of time and then ship them out? Or do you think it's smart for them to say, no, we need to get them on location, get hands on them and filter people more towards the premium LEs, which we will come out with right away, the LEs, and then how the premium that's going to be made early to mid-June. So we're named two to four weeks away from that. What is your thought on this scheduling? Well, I personally think they should stick with the scheduling simply because it is reliant on my joke about how when I ask for a pro, but I want the first one and I can't have it, and then I don't have to commit any money. That's like a thing. It's just shtick, and I don't want that disrupted. So I do appreciate it for that reason. In terms of a commercial reason, like if this is wise for them, I don't have a good feel for it. I get the logic of, hey, let's get the game out there, because what's the biggest problem that games have, especially why do unlicensed themes just not work anymore? unless you play an unlicensed theme, there's no nostalgic reason you would want it. So only gameplay can convince you otherwise. And that's not the case for a John Wick or any other known licensed entity. So in that regard, I think that structure makes sense. And the time frame, I think, is condensed enough that I just don't think it's a big deal one way or another. I think that the operators are going to get the pros one way or another. and whether or not people buy the game in the first month or the third month kind of doesn't seem like a big deal to me. So in that regard, I don't really think it makes much of a difference how they do the approach.
    16:06
    But obviously, at least historically, the LE buyers having to wait a little while doesn't seem to, I mean, maybe they grouse about it, but they still buy. So in that regard, honestly, I just don't think it makes a difference whatsoever. To me, it just really stuck out this release because the first time a hobbyist or a residential would be able to get a pro is August. We're in early May launching a game, June, July, August. That sends a message to me saying, we want people to focus on the premium in LE. We want the LEs, if people want to play this game, they play it in the best form possible, the LE.
    16:49
    That's a limited run anyway. They'll sell out all those before people can get their hands on Pro. And for this particular release, John Wick, there are going to be a lot of Pro sales, I think. It's a pretty packed Pro game. I mean, I see your point.
    17:03
    But I don't think they want to be changing their approach game after game. Like, oh, well, this isn't an Elwynn game, so let's do a different mix. I just think it's too much of a headache and confusing to everyone. The second run of Pro is going to be August. We talked about that. But June, if we're looking back at June, I said early to mid-June is going to be John Wick Premiums. They're making LEs right now. Also in June is going to be Jaws Pro and Premium Runs, as well as probably towards the end of the month, that rerun of Black Knight Sword of Rage Pro. Black Knight? Yep, that'll be end of June. And then, then comes July. Hmm. It's pretty quiet in July.
    17:40
    Historically, a terrible month for pinball sales. unless you bring out something new that's still old. Hmm, yes. With the sales of John Wick not being Elwyn-esque, I just wonder, listener, that maybe we see something in July. Yeah, you know, I haven't been hearing a lot about Munsters Pro being brought back, but it would be a game. See if we can get an overhaul in that rules department or what?
    18:14
    The rules are fine. Must be one of the few games I can walk up to and know how to play. Yeah, okay. Yeah, but I think next Cornerstone we'll see in September, October. So I just wonder if July brings us anything. That's all. Yeah, I would sit and wonder as well. Speaking of bringing us things, Stern Pinball still to release the Venom accessories, Jaws accessories, and we'll talk about the recent interviews with George Gomez, but he's claiming within a couple of weeks we may see John Wick accessories. Well, that would be quite a churn of events if they actually accelerate that timetable. You're damn right it would be. Stern did release over the last week or two here additional Black Knight shooter rods. We have not seen those for over a year. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Stern releasing shooters on something? Yeah, I'm telling you. So we're sailed.
    19:12
    Black Knight shooter rods are now available again. Bye-bye-bye. Bye-bye-bye! The other interesting thing is that the distribution network now able to sell the Jaws and Elvira game room banners in stock, flipping out pinball.com.
    19:30
    Hot damn, able to sell. Do people really want these banners? Yes, they do. They take up so much space. They're great. They're huge. You all must have mansions. I love that there's like a bootleg banner network. People asked, they were like, are these the authentic ones with two threading, two stripped border threading? Because the bootleg ones only have one strip of white threading. And I'm like, ooh. You got to be able to tell the replicas apart from everything else. I understand that. Let's talk about John Wick. You talked on Eclectic Gamers podcast last week. you and Tony went through the release and launch of Stern Pinball's second cornerstone of 2024, which was John Wick. We spoke about it, myself and Greg Bone, here on the Pinball Show, episode 152. So we've got through a lot of our opinions. But for those who listen to the Pinball Show and they haven't clicked on EGP yet, what were your quick and dirty thoughts on the game itself, whether you want to talk about art, layout, toys, max code, lighting, sound? Like, what did Sten Den think about John Wick? For me, just looking, I still have not played it. So I want you to have that caveat in mind. It was a resounding. Go to the arcade at Wichita. They've got one. Do they? Yes. I think we might have one up here in Kansas City now, too. I'd rather you go to Wichita. It's a two and a half hour drive, Zach. It's worth it. Have you seen the arcade? It's worth it.
    20:58
    I'm starting to think when I'm going to next get down to Wichita. I might actually get down there in August or September. So maybe in time for that next pro run. I'm trying to remember when my next work trip takes me down there.
    21:10
    It was a resounding meh for me. A resounding meh? Yeah, that would be my nutshell summary. The layout looked competent. Probably a decently fun shooter, but I didn't see anything that felt very unique to me. The toys didn't really impress me. I didn't think they were bad. I just thought they looked okay. I don't have a good enough sense on the rule set. But I did like that they had the clips from all four films. But I do need to note I have not seen film number four. So that would mean nothing to me at this current stage. Light show did look great. That's probably the high point would be the light show. But, of course, now expression lighting and on band pin. How could I not compliment the lighting? And the art was a and I'm not even talking about the guns that the art was a miss for me. A miss. Swing and a miss. Yeah. It felt like a mishmash of styles, and I think the decision to go with a comic approach was very odd for movies that are not based on a comic. Why is it with you and color?
    22:06
    You're so opposed to it. What do you mean? You just wear black and gray. Okay, I do wear a lot of black and gray. You said the same thing about Godzilla. You're like, I would have liked undertones and murkiness. Godzilla, look, Jeremy Packer, I think he went with the poster art approach, but I prefer a more desaturated, kind of aggressive, scary look to Godzilla. I don't criticize much when it's a Marvel thing and you're going to throw a bunch of colors. Here's the thing. All right. It's fair. And I don't want you to feel too judged, Zach. I don't want you to feel emotionally damaged when I say this. But and listeners as well, because I'm going to pass a really broad brush judgment thing about pinball people. And you're kind of unsophisticated approach to these sort of things. And I don't mean it to sound, you know, all hoity toity. I don't mean there to be toity on top of the hoity, Zach. I'm just saying pinball. It seems like the solution to everything is you just dial the saturation up as high as the graphic program will go. And you say it's good because the colors pop. And I'm like, can't we have something where it doesn't just look like we oversaturated everything? Now, this game doesn't look oversaturated to me, but the art decisions just don't feel to me like the movie. I thought of you when I was editing a tutorial video on how to play John Wick Pinball Pro. You can check it out flipping down Pinball's YouTube. But when I was messing with saturation levels, I thought of you. I was like, oh, don't, don't boost, Zach. Don't, no, don't touch that. And I'm not always above it either. When you pushed out all those, you had all those shirts designed for the pinball show. We had the Hulk 2D2 and Nordman. And I took the one, our main one, with the goat. And I turned the saturation all the way up. And I said, here, this is the version people will really want. And you know what? Honestly, I thought it looked better when I saturated it, too. So even I succumb to my own hypocrisy on occasion. but anyway sometimes you lack the hoity well looking at the look at it it's neon noir well kind of what a beautiful phrasing that's the thing the phrasing is awesome and I love film noir it's one of my favorite film genres whoever thought of that is that original to this marketing I've never heard that term before but I could kiss the person on their lips whoever thought of the term neon noir Stern let me know who it is now there's a whole wiki page you can read about on Neon Noir. But maybe that's because there was an album that came out last year. It was some Finnish band or something. I don't know anything about it. Some Finnish band. Some Finnish thing. Some Finnish. But anyway, if you look at the play field, it's really the play field in particular. I could get behind the Neon Noir approach, but then down at the flippers, it's almost that Franchi-esque photorealistic style of the characters. Yeah. And then when you move up towards the back of the play field, you have that weird diagonal slash of that comic cut phrase. To me, it feels disjointed, like there were different art styles that got merged together. That's what I don't like about it. What I called it on one of my promo videos was comic realism. I think that's a nice term for it. Except for the neon noir part. Comic realism. But when we get to the neon noir part, it's not comic realism anymore. That makes me want to get my glow sticks. We don't mix Monet with like a pointillism at the same time. Dave Fix does.
    25:50
    Oh, don't. I don't want to go back. Do you remember what I'm saying? Yes. I don't want to go back into that.
    25:56
    It wasn't Monet, though. Grizzly Adams did have a beard. What about, so you thought layout, eh, neon noir was a bit too neon for you. Fun. More noir, less neon. but very paint by number. Okay. The layout, not the art. The art is different. Have you watched any of the gameplay videos yet I saw a little bit of gameplay the Stern reveal All reveal So overall man for you You looking forward to playing it But until then, hard to kind of... Unless the gameplay with the... And again, I'm not judging the rules at all without having played it. Unless the rules blow me away, I can't see my cell phone in it. If the rules blow me away, my mind will completely change. Because as you know, Zach, for all my toy-diness on art, I never make a buying decision on a game over art. The game can look like a dog. I mean, I own hoops. I mean, come on. You just got shoes untied everywhere. That's a safety hazard, so I got extra violations of concern with that game.
    27:00
    But I would still buy it, regardless of what the art looks like, as long as the rules are good and the layout accommodates those rules. If you listen to feedback from different hobbyist forums, podcasts, videos, or even propaganda out there, there are strong suggestions that not only are sales down for this particular cornerstone release, Dennis, but down so far that the entire industry may in fact crumble upon itself. Care to comment?
    27:34
    I think that's a little strong of a take. I don't know. If you've not seen some of these providers, I don't know. I mean, but the way you said it made it sound like, and we're glad for it. Yes. Let them suffer. Let the distributors suffer and the manufacturers fall. Oh, no, that's definitely there. That's the headline news right now. Well, there's going to be, you got to understand, Zach. I feel like someone is going to capture me and do some lashing. I feel like I'm looking over my shoulder like, what did I do? Well, don't necessarily internalize all of it, Zach. But, you know, there are some people who felt pretty maligned about how they were treated during the pandemic when it came to trying to get games. Sure. And, you know, you couldn't keep anything in stock. Even total dogs of games were selling because people were just desperate to get anything. Go ahead and name one. There were some, like Halloween. and there were some games that I should say, there were some dealers who played games with people, you know, marking up prices above MSRP, things like that, and when chickens, you know there's a thing about chickens and that there's like roosting and sometimes they come home to do that and I think there's a little bit of that a little schweidenfrade going on there all I ask is for no one to kidnap me and lash me out The Village Square. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if that's going to have an hour or not. Now, on the other hand, like John Wick, even before we saw John Wick, we're coming off of an Elwynn game. Did anyone honestly think it was going to sell better than an Elwynn game? No. Nothing sells better than Elwynn games. And we knew the temperature of the market at that point. I mean, even if we take Joel's sales compared to other Elwynn games, they were softer. still great but still soft yeah things are getting a little tepid we knew and then we know summertime like there's a lot of factors going into this uh and needless to say one of them is what we are getting feedback on from a lot of individuals who may have bought ellies in the past they say pricing pricing is the thing for thirteen thousand dollars i just because of so many things going on And it's not just that I don't think it's worth 13, but there's a lot of things going on that make me pass on this.
    30:11
    So pricing is a big one. Sure. Though, obviously, when the pricing went up, it's not like it went up for this game. When the pricing went up, it did take a lot of people out immediately for obvious reasons. And you and I have had these conversations multiple times because I have been much more skeptical of the notion that, hey, it's only a thousand more. I think at some point there are a lot of people where a thousand more is a thousand too much. And I think the bigger difference, though, why it would change sales at this stage, even though this is not like we've seen, we saw the price increases prior to 2024. for. I think the big issue now is it was easier for a lot of people. And I remember you making this argument at the time because it was accurate on this show that when you can get any of these games and then still sell it at the same price you paid, it's not a hard decision. It's a lot harder now. And you have to guess like if this game ends up sucking and maybe we're not talking like old school WWE sucking, but just like this is like an average style game. Now we know its value is going to fall it's going to fall a lot so who wants to get stuck with a turd oh so you know like elwynn we you know we we in elwynn we trust safe gamble but but even with all of that will jaws be his worst selling game of all time i don't know because iron maiden was a pretty polarizing theme but sure but we'll see you made a good point there there was a lot of things It needed some check marks, and Elwin's a check mark. We've talked about this at NOS in before. But what we have here is we have a temperature, an environment in the market right now that would need something pretty strong to see sales continue at the pace in which they were over the last two years. I don't think anything could have done it. No.
    32:05
    Volume-wise, only dramatic price cuts. But even then, is that even sustainable, though? Even then. But what happened was you got a new designer in Elliot Eisman. Congratulations, Elliot, if you're listening to this or if somebody's listening and works with him. So congratulate the man for me. So we got that. I always have to think E.T. with him. Why did he do E.T.?
    32:28
    Elliot. Hopefully that'll get done. I don't know if that'd be a strong seller either. You don't think so? It's got nostalgia, unlike John Wick, which is only 10 years old. favorite films of all time. I am a huge lover of E.T. They probably wouldn't even have Reesey Pieces on the play field. They'd have Gomi Pieces.
    32:47
    What if it played just as bad as the Atari 2600 game? Have you ever played it? I own that. I still own it. I own that game. Mine didn't go to a landfill. But we have the new Elliot Eisman, which that's never going to be a selling point for the most part. Jack Danger did... That's apples and oranges. Well, no, new designers, not apples and oranges. Granny Smith versus Red Delicious, maybe. It is if that apple was doing streams as a hobbyist for 10 years prior. That's fair. So Elliot Eisman knew. And then you give him a thing. You're not giving him Harry Potter. You're giving him John Wick, which not a horrible theme, but not the one on top of everybody's dream theme list. right you go through 25 of the top themes that uh that pinball hobbyists want to see it's not on that list so you're already starting from behind and then you're giving them a summer release i think if anything probably the smartest way stern could have done this i would have probably done that all that combination too so and then book end it between an elwyn and a whatever's coming up jack danger coming up maybe uh over the last five years uh you got foo fighters and you got the elwyns probably the hottest games in the market bookmark something right in between summer were you expecting a dip in sales anyway we're themed maybe not as strong a new new designer so you got something coming in july maybe do you believe that i would have sold more games because I have a couple of podcasts versus Elliot.
    34:29
    I mean, I'm no Jack Danger, though, so I don't want to overstate it. That's where I'm – I would say yes. I mean, I've heard about giving your Amazon Prime sub is one thing versus actually buying a whole game because you like someone's stream. I would say yes. Okay. I would agree. But the selling point – I think it's less that. I think that got a lot of acceptance to maybe willingness to give it a go. But I just think his layout for Foo Fires is very unique, and this feels very safe.
    35:05
    Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. But the one thing going for Elliot is he's a mechanical engineer. Oh, sure. That's why I do expect that it will actually play quite well. It does play very, very well. We'll get into that. But yes, I can confirm sales have been down significantly on this release title. Let me ask you another question before you go on. Why do you think Stern used a new designer? They have a lot of them already that have multiple games under their belt. I mean, you've got Brian Eddy, you've got John Borg, you've got Jack Danger. We count the home pins. He's got multiple games under his belt at this point. You've got Keith Elwin. Why bring in Elliot as a designer at all? I don't want to make assumptions or speculations. I want you to guess. There could be a number of reasons. Maybe they're looking to the future.
    35:57
    Maybe they see such a talented person as part of their team. Many organizations do this. And again, this is totally like I have no clue. This is way off base. But sometimes you've got somebody that is a fucking star, and you can tell. but you don't have a spot for them yet, but you know where they're going, but they're not there yet, and that person may in fact go do something else that's simpler, that pays more, that gets more recognition, and if you sniff that and you smell that, you may expedite your appreciation for them to say, damn it, you're in our long-term plans. I'd really like for you to but I can't just give you a raise you know you see what I'm saying? I think I know where you're coming from I see this as an investment like he's already been inducted into the pinball hall of fame he's a mechanical engineer that is so damn good at what he does he is probably easy to work with based on the personality profile that what very little has been presented to us thus far.
    37:14
    There's a lot going for Elliot, and I think maybe that's why. And if he showed some interest in it already, he was already kind of piddling on things at work,
    37:25
    maybe that's when you get to George Gomez and said, you know, not everybody's going to be here forever. Some people might retire. Some people may have been taking other interviews with other companies. Like, we've got a plan, so let's give the kid a shot here. and hey if we're going to give him a shot on anything let's throw john wick his way see what he does with it i okay well thank you for guessing that would be be just simply a guess i so yes sales are down here's the thing though significantly down sales wise however a lot of people are surprised when i tell them this though i always because they're like oh are sales down Yes, I'll be honest with you. But here's the thing. It's still a stern pinball machine, listener.
    38:11
    So what many fail to remember is even when sales are down on a particular title like a John Wick, they still surpass the majority of everything else on the market, even being on their worst day. so i well i love this game from this manufacturer i love this game from this manual this list well john wick still outsold all of them so yeah it's they get their own comparison cohort still sold more john wicks than i did probably the majority of games on the market from other manufacturers what i'm saying and then at release dentist this is what always happens especially in a market that is softer consumers want reasons to convince themselves that they're not getting something they want even if like i'm a pinball enthusiast even if a game comes out that it's not my theme uh i don't particularly like there's still a part of me that wants it because i'm in the hobby i love pinball maybe not blues brothers i really don't care about that But you take another manufacturer game and I'd be like, eh, I'm not going to buy that one. I don't want it. But part of me still kind of wants it. But I need to convince myself of why I don't want it. Then it makes me feel better about my decision or maybe my inability to afford another new game. Just all these new games coming out. So I've got to blame it on something. Enter in gun controversy, in my opinion. No, you think that's the… A piece. I think it's a piece.
    39:51
    It's a piece. Every time that a game comes out, they're going to latch. They as in people who aren't going to buy it or people that want that reasoning. I'm telling you, you go back every title and there's always a thing. I don't understand that, though. Why not just say, I don't like it. Nope. I don't like it. Because it's not strong enough, and that's not what our society does. What is this? I mean, it's like a flex? When you get a niche little subculture, that's what they do. So that's why you see this controversy. When this thing came out, sales were low. You've seen the whole, this is not only a game we're not buying, but this game is offensive. This game is actually spewing propaganda. this game is involving our rights as us like it goes extreme and i think that's part of why usually a lot of times it's price a lot of times it's theme a lot of times but yeah this one you're always going to try to find one thing and and hammer it home because we've seen once other videos came out gameplay started coming out okay people said well i don't like that but There's video assets, but it does shoot awesome, but it's pretty. And then sales started coming back up again. So the nice thing about John Wick is what I'm saying. Sales aren't dead in the water. They've actually, there was a resurgence over the last week or so. Once additional information came out, like there is on every release. This is pretty typical. But jumping into that, there was a big controversy within the subculture. Let's be honest. Nobody outside of pinball knew about this controversy. But within the subculture of enthusiasts, people were very angry that there was no artwork illustrations of guns on the cabinet or the play field art. That was a big one, Dennis. What were your thoughts on the whole gun controversy thing? I thought that it's reasonable for people to have expected there to be guns in the art. And art's a strong reason for them not to want the game. I could completely understand them not buying it, but going through like this being some sort of weird conspiracy against the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution, a little bit of a stretch. A lot of people are saying that a lot of people don't know how many vocal individuals were saying that this was a conscious effort by Stern or even Seth Davis or George Gomez conscious effort to to to take a stance on gun ownership or carrying or anything with that. And then George Gomez goes on a couple of interviews and he explains their stern side of what was really going on. Now, listeners are going to have to decide for themselves what they want to believe. Pretty convincing from George Gomez, if you ask me. But nonetheless, I agree with you. Like, no guns with John Wick art? What?
    43:05
    That's pretty fucked. That's weird. I'm not saying I'm not a gun person. I'm not saying I am a gun person. But John Wick is guns.
    43:15
    I don't know how you get around that. I didn't notice it initially on the artworks. I'm trying to consume everything I can with it. But once it stuck out to me, I was like, oh, yeah, that's really weird.
    43:29
    That's bad. That's not good. We need guns in John Wick. But you know me. I'm a little video asset whore. So once I got that, I'm like, okay, I'd rather have it on the video screen than on the art anyway because I want to see the movie. But a lot of controversy around the whole lack of gun illustrations on the cabinet art. Speaking of which, George Gomez visits with Joel Engelberth at Flippin' Out Pimble and did an interview and expressed and explained why there was no illustrated gun art. And he said it was a restriction by the license or Lionsgate. It wasn't a Stern thing. And he pretty much cleared up the air. in a nutshell, video games have like a rating system. What is it called? ERSB, ESRB, whatever it is. He said even like toys, you'll see John Wick toys with guns or graphic novels, all of them have disclaimers, you know, 18 or older, 14 or whatever it may be. He said they came to Stern Pinball and said, hey,
    44:31
    does pinball machines in your industry not have a rating system based on age? And they said no. And he said, okay, well, So they essentially said if that's the case, then you guys are going to be classified, your product, a pinball machine. It's going to be classified as, quote, all ages due to it's going to commercial locations. Anybody can just walk up publicly and see this kind of stuff. So you're all ages. And with that, we're choosing for our license not to have guns depicted unless people can consent to that, a.k.a. pressing the start button and seeing it on the video clips. so that was an IP restriction and he said that's the truth as to how that happened we've had guns in games, we have no problems with guns keep in mind though, Deadpool, that same thing there, they had to have more fantasy blasters than they did guns James Bond even had restrictions on gun stuff the licensor didn't want any guns pointing at someone they couldn't have a Walter PPK feature within the game so there's even restrictions there is like but we work with work with what we can george gomez did say there is more sensitivity in general to gun restrictions and violence with licensors over the last you know over time but what really surprised mr gomez was that the conspiracy theories aimed at stern pimble stance or seth davis george gomez he's he was surprised that people didn't by default think well had to be the licensor he surprised with that do you do you buy it no he just decided to randomly lie have you not read pin side that's what people will say yes they're like no all right so so start so so let me get this straight so conspiracy theory i if you if one subscribes a lot or comes up with logic though well i'm just i'm just gonna point out if you see y'all in your if you in your own life notice to yourself concocting conspiracy theory, you might need to contemplate that maybe how you do analysis isn't the most straightforward or logical way. And I don't know if there's a way to fix that or not. Well, Occam's razor. But well, because this whole, like you mentioned, this whole Stern taking a stand. See, I don't know. The way I was taught to take a stand is you don't be all mealy mouth about like, oh, we're just going to pull them out and just like, that's us taking a stand. No, taking a stand would be actually saying something. Yeah, or just dropping, not doing the license altogether. And like most businesses, they seem to be in the business to make money. That's what they care about, yeah. So they don't tend to take a lot of stances because they're in business to make money. So, again, especially in the wake of remembering, it wasn't that long ago when James Bond came out, and they did have guns from the poster art on the game. You know, it's like all of a sudden, none of it made any sense, and everything that Gomez said made sense. So do I want to go bin myself into a pretzel coming up with a logic about how he's lying and this whole conspiracy thing that got completely fabricated by a bunch of people who don't work there is somehow true or just accept the simple answer that what he said makes sense with everything we've seen as outsiders on licensing. And it is what it is, because that's how it all works.
    47:51
    So to me, no, I don't think he lied about it. I do think it's a little weird and maybe a little insular that they didn't really seem like they, when they found out about it, that maybe there would be. I could kind of see how they didn't foresee that there'd be a scandal because who immediately thinks, you know what? If there's not a gun on the play field, are people going to all of a sudden say that we're like taking political positions and stuff? But that it's since the whole like gun food thing is the movies that they still wanted to do the license. I think that is a fair question to ask. Yeah.
    48:27
    I think they would have walked away if they wouldn't have got video assets with gun use. Oh, probably. Yeah. But again, it just goes to show that's where the whole, to me, the conspiracy theory truly falls apart. It's like, well, why are there guns all throughout the video assets if this whole sending a message thing is true? See, that's the thing about most conspiracy theory. You scratch beneath the surface and it collapses over the weight of its own incompetence.
    48:56
    Yeah, nicely done. Yeah, you're correct. You've got to go check out this interview. Do I have to? You've got to. It's good stuff. But I already listened to Loser Kid 1, and I don't want to have to listen to 2. There was some different stuff in there. What's some of the differences? Well, did you know that expression lighting that we love so much on those band games, Not only is it coming to a non-band game such as John Wick Ellie, but very soon to pro and premium John Wick as well. And what was cool about that was George Gomez told us that the whole pioneering work behind the expression lighting system, actually Tim Sexton. It's a nicely done. Really? Nicely done Tim Sexton. I just gave him credit for designing the rules around the Hydra in Black Knight Sword of Rage. Or the hand. No, the hand. I love the hand. I was thinking the Hydra. So, yeah, nicely done. Because Stern did a Hydra in Deep Root. Remember, they were going to have a Hydra because surprising action.
    49:56
    But Stern's Hydra was better. And real. Yeah, well, that might be what made it better. Also, this expression lighting speaker system is going to come out as a kit, as an accessory for not only John Wick Pro and Premium, but it will be backwards compatible for all Spike 2 games. They're trying to compete with the third-party speaker lighting market. And compete they will because it's all integrated into the code. It's just like the topper thing. That's why toppers sell so well. See, this is why I didn't buy my burning building speakers for Godzilla. I knew this would be – I could feel it in my bones. And then people said – or then Joel was asking about the LE speaker lighting system and if we're going to see any continuation of that. And George Gomez said, yeah, moving forward, you can expect them on all the LEs, the speaker lighting system. That's awesome. Very cool. I love this kind of stuff. Also, speaking of licenses, Hunger Games. They were in the process of developing and building a Hunger Games pinball machine years back, and they terminated their contract with a licensor, George Gomez, saying, quote, I don't think it's good for you, and I don't think it's good for us. He went on to say it was very painful, and we walked away.
    51:13
    I would love to know what it was about that. They probably only had assets of that. Well, who's that annoying guy, PETA? That PETA guy, the guy named for the bread. PETA, quit dressing yourself up like a rock and do something useful. They didn't have, what was it, Jennifer Lawrence, right? Yeah. Was it? Yeah. She had Kansas Girl, I think. Yeah, Jennifer Lawrence. Well, we have a town called Lawrence. Speaking of controversy in Kansas, let's bring up that kicker yoke. Bunker. Whoa, bunker. All right. Oh, talk about sending a message. You see, it ain't subtle when you send a message. That's right. You go out there and you send a message. I won't even touch that. That's Patreon level right there. Okay, let's see what else we got here. Oh, yeah, the CERN Pinball has the highest earning games per George Gomez and the most played games in arcades. He went on to say, quote, not too far in the future, we're going to have the largest footprint of games. How do they know, though? I don't know. I mean, given their production level versus all the others, I don't have any doubt that they actually do, like, across the world, make more money on Stern versus any other pinball machine for operators. But this kind of reminds me of when we'd hear claims from, like, oh, well, the Galactic Tank Force is the biggest earner. And then I find out it was one week with one operator, and they just put it in. That right And it like okay well you were honest but maybe misleading Numbers don lie Maybe misleading Yeah sometimes numbers don lie but sometimes numbers do lie And it like why is that true in this instance They do lie. They lie a lot. In this situation, it would be hard to confirm that because my argument would be a lot of these really small, old, danky operation games where you see one pinball machine in the corner or two that don't really work. those aren't new sterns those are an old adams family that's an old solid state game like the big locations that have more than five pinball machines they're easily quantifiable yes probably the footprint is there but like old rickety crusty bar down the road from me local tavern if they have one pinball machine in the corner it's an old bally williams or it's an you know it's an old early salt state yeah i think a lot of that comes down to whether or not if it's the The owner of the venue supplying the games, I think you tend to get that. If they're working with operators that run the routes, that's how the new stuff. Owners don't want to manage both. They're busy running a business, selling food or drink, constantly keeping up a rotation on a game. That is a big labor of love, unless that is your labor, which is running a route. Yeah. Isn't that what Greg does? He runs a route, right? He doesn't own the venue. Correct. Yep. He just places them there. He just operates. Well, that lets people have more modern stuff and not have to worry about maintaining it because what happens when it's the owner that owns them? Not always, but I'm stereotyping. You get what you just described, some broken down frontier that the crickets don't even crick.
    54:20
    There's hoity but not toity. Yes. We wondered when Spike 3, when we're going to see that, George Gomez saying either this or the loser kid, he's saying maybe by the end of the year. And what we're going to see with the Spike 3 operating system, more power in every way, better everything. It's really just a chance to improve upon any of the issues that they've had over the years with Spike 2 operating system. We're going to have a continued node bus system, which I approve of. I think it's great. And then Joel asked, I found this interesting, asked about a cabinet redesign for the new series of Spike 3 games. And George Gomez confirmed it is part of it. That's exciting because that's going to screw up your lineup. and this amuses me. I think that it's just going to be the head, and it's just going to, which is a problem still for me. But the head's the key part to lining stuff up. That's the part you really care about. I don't think they're going to change wing size much, and I think it's just going to be to accommodate a larger LCD screen, in my opinion. Oh, they're going JJP. I don't think they're going JJP. They're not going 27, but I think they're going to. Remember Jack Danger used to mock up a – I think there's a mod that came out with a larger screen but a smaller spot for speakers on that black thing. So I think it's going to be black speaker panel modification more than anything. I could be wrong.
    55:44
    Maybe they can move the audio back to mono and make those just one speaker. Pretty much mono anyway. Stern Pinball, see. Insider Connected growing so much the company is going to need a new department. just to compute, organize, and analyze the data coming in. Back catalog of games and dipping back into it recently for Black Knight Sword of Rage Pro. We're going to see more of that. East Coast and West Coast Press Tour. Similar to video games, they invited some people that were non-pinball people. Dennis, how well did that go? I guess it depends if you're a pinball content creator, because I saw some that were downright pissed. Wow, it was bad. People were angry. they were like we got no guns or no pinball talk about talk about sending a message that you don't care about the pinball content creation community see that was a message i feel like maybe an accidental message but a message yeah all right i was fine with it you know what's weird i don't want to go out there stern typically it's like surprising to people like why why weren't the pinball meet when were the pinball media invited this has not been a stern thing that they've done And they've had, like, Carl at IE Pinball. You know, they get out a game to him because I think he's helped with some of the animation stuff, tutorial, attract mode kind of stuff. So, but other than that, they've worked internally. They've always been internal. They've got Jack Danger there. They've got Tim Sexton there. They've got Ray Day there. They haven't really branched. So, when people were, like, so surprised, I'm like, what? Stern hasn't done that. That was odd to me. But nonetheless, their whole expanding out and actually inviting non-pinball people, that was different. Because I've seen the influencer-based stuff, which I think is a really good idea. But the influencers got to be big.
    57:45
    Some of the influencers that they brought in, they were smaller than straight down the middle. I didn't look into them. And the views were small. So that was a bit odd to me. I'm not saying the content was bad, but sometimes when you bring in people that know the content, they know how to film it a little bit better. That's all. But I think reaching outside of pinball people to get a new audience is smart. I don't think anybody would argue with that. But, yeah, some of the content creators were a little upset that they didn't just lend an invite. but they still do have the goal of having some pinball media up there here soon. So we'll see. What, like 12 weeks after the game came out? Who cares now? Yeah. And where's my invite? The pinball show might not have gotten invited. I don't think they'll be inviting Kerry Hardy either.
    58:42
    Nonetheless, I don't think it's necessarily invites went to only people who have praised their stuff either. But yeah, if you damn the entire company, then yeah. They just got to do that. There's this new video game. I think it's in Alpha right now. I can't remember the name exactly. I think it's called Marvel Rivals. It's kind of like an Overwatch knockoff. Anyway, they've been doing this Alpha stream like last weekend, and they invited content creators on Twitch to stream it. And then it came out that their disclosure agreements that they all signed said that they weren't allowed to say bad things. Oh, that's tough. Oh, well, then it came out, and of course that looked horrible for the company. So then they said, we're now amending our agreements so people can feel more open to share their true thoughts. Well, that's not what you wanted. You wanted people to go, this is the best game ever. Hashtag Overwatch killer. Hashtag Call of Duty is a duty. Hashtag Overwatch killer. George Gomez did bring that up. He said whenever they did reach out and bring in those entities, they were embargoed for the information material. Well, embargo is a normal part of content media, though. But he said they didn't set any restrictions to that media person's experience. They could have hated it. As seen with a video of one of these non-pinball – I can't even call them non-pinball people. They might focus on other things because in their background when they were giving their quick review, they had two JJP machines in the background. And so I'm like, well, it's not like they're not pinball people. If they called the flippers the flappers, I think you can call them the non-pinball people. Okay, fair enough. So that was all of that.
    60:31
    George did say he'd like to see gameplay streaming a little bit closer to launch in the future. Well, that's up to them. I mean, they have the people to do it. Yeah, that's what he said. But I think Joel did a really good job of reframing that because I don't think that's ever good. I'm not crazy about whole streams as the first time you see a product kind of thing because so much can go wrong. Joel said, well, like for Jaws, there was a video, one game video that came. That's smart. I agree. But again, we've talked about this a lot. Yes, we have. Go listen to it for information about accessories. It sounds like Jack Danger's up next with a different coder than Tanya O'Clyde because he's director of one of the Insider Connected team stuff. Dwight and Brian Eddy are going to be teaming up again. George Gomez saying get ready for more XP, baby. And Raymond Davidson very shortly is going to get his own shot at lead programmer. Go listen to Loser Kids Pinball Podcast. They cover a lot of the stuff as well. They also talk about why Lord of the Rings probably will never happen. Or if it does, it's going to take a big effort to remake. George talking about them taking risk on some themes using Iron Maiden as an example. And also kind of lumping John Wick into that as well. talking about the quote overabundance of designers that you were talking about, Dennis. A little tease as to maybe not seeing the end of Jurassic Park Home Pin? Question mark. And George confirming they do not have the Tron license. Not to say they wouldn't remake it because everybody's like, oh, Tron's coming out, Tron's coming out. Well, if they don't, look, guys, if they don't have the license, then I think it would be a while before that would come out. And then Loser Kids brought up something to the effect of Deadpool and Wolverine's coming out as a film. You know, have you ever thought about going back to the well of the whole Deadpool thing and Wolverine? And George Gomez says, well, you never know. I'll just leave you with that. Also, go check out gameplay videos by Stern Pinball and Joel Engelberth, Flippin' Out Pinball. Other people have been doing gameplay as well. We've got on Flippin' Out Pinball some features videos, tutorial videos. Go consume it all up. Bye, bye, bye. Next big topic this week. Pedretti Gaming in the news big time. launching Funhaus remake. Dennis. Rudy is back. I can't get it, unfortunately. I made a rule for myself years ago that there wouldn't be no creepy clowns in my house. Even though I enjoy Funhaus, I was like, eh, it's still got a clown on it. I guess you're not going to get yourself a hot dog. I still will say it all the time. Get yourself a hot dog. We'll have mayhem. Oh no, not this again. Suey!
    63:04
    Suey's going to make a guest appearance on the version return to the suey midnight limited monster i watched rudy with corn stuck in his teeth and then you find out later that that was suey oh it was him all along chasing grannies so pedretti gaming launches funhouse remake a little bit different than what we were thinking though because this is in collaboration with licensor planetary pinball supply remember pps is like the rights holder to the Mallory Williams games. They work with CGC when they do remakes or work with Haggis when they did them. So in collaboration with them and also the pinball company. The pinball company is a dealer. So I think the way this worked, I should know better probably because I'm selling these games. The pinball company essentially is like what's going to be the main dealer for these things. Then they opened it up to a couple additional dealers, including Flippin' Out Pinball. But they're coming out with two models of Funhaus. Those who want just, I just want the classic. I want the goods. What everybody knows as one of the greatest, most iconic pinball machines of all time. It's Funhaus. It's Rudy. It's the talking ventriloquist dummy that you can shoot balls in his mouth. He's creepy. The Funhaus closes and then things occur and all of that. It's Funhaus. Non-pinball people can identify with Funhaus. There's a couple pinball machines, Dennis, and this is one that I think is so nostalgic that it has reached non-pinball people. Agreed?
    64:34
    I think, fair point, it's tough compared to something like Addams Family which just had so many games out there. Same kind of thing. That's one of them too. It's not nearly at that level but I would say it is one of the most recognizable. Twilight Zone is in there. There's a couple of them that just... It came out just before the start of... Well, because Addams Family kind of shepherded in that last huge 90s pinball resurgence. And this was obviously just before the DMD era hit. Yeah. So they're coming out with two models, the Classic. So for those that just want the Classic, the only differences for the Classic essentially are the extended display, more like a CGC color animation display rather than alphanumeric. And you get RGB lighting, the auto launcher, which is people would love to have. So auto launcher. So you can use 1.0 without the auto launcher, or the classics come with 1.5 that has that auto launcher feature as well, and the animation, I think. You can still pop it down to 1.0 in here at Boone or the voice of original Rudy, for people who want that. And then the other edition is what they're calling the Midnight Limited Edition, limited to 750 units. Pricing on these games are classic at $74.99 plus tax and shipping, Midnight Alley's, $9,999, right under $10,000. They're building them right now, and they plan to have all of them. Here's a big window for you. They want to have all of them built over the next 9 to 16 months.
    66:07
    I pushed a little further and got the number around 12 months. They would love to have them all built within a year here, if not sooner. But they're building them right now. They're going to trickle out over the next year or so. The big thing, the difference between the two, besides being limited, Dennis, was Brian Allen was commissioned out to do this Ellie artwork. And we're talking full Ellie artwork. The entire cabinet was redone. Translight redone. Playfield redone. Plastics redone. Animations redone. Everything. All redone. And I've got to say, I like Brian. I like his artwork. In the past, I'd probably hang up Brian Allen artwork more so than display it on a pinball machine. This one actually worked for me. This one and it might have been Whitewater. There's another one that kind of worked for me. But this one worked for me. Whenever he did the stuff for Funhaus 2.0 kits, some of that stuff did not work. But this still has almost a callback to the original with a lot of the compositional choices they made. and it's a lot cleaner looking to me. So I thought whenever they presented it to me, I thought, well, I'll be a classic owner because hell, you try to build a brand new game for $7,500, good luck. You're like 12 grand. So I was like, I'll be a classic buyer. But then I saw this and I'm like, no shit. I think I'm an LE buyer. This is sharp. I like the artwork here. Other things that the LE have that the standard doesn't include the Artblade light shows like Pinball Brothers does. They've got the special armor trim, the blue. Oh, yeah, the midnight blue there, shaker motor, the glass enhanced sound system. Oh, Rudy's got eyes now, RGB lights behind his eyes. It's kind of cool. They've really leaned into making the Midnight Limited much creepier.
    68:05
    The whole art package is a horror show. Dennis, you also get the Funhaus engraved watch. Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock. Watches with Dennis. I thought it was like a timepiece, like a, what do you call it, with the chain? Pocket watch? Oh, pocket watch. Yeah. I haven't seen any pictures of the watch. I don't know what it is. Yeah, it's not supposed to say that. What are the specs on it? What's its movement? I'm going to be very judgmental about it. I'm going to be pretty judgmental about it. I know you are. That's why I was interested to see what you thought about them, including a timepiece with the Ellie. Other things to note, a lot of people were concerned, listener, that like, well, this is, is this going to be like Alien? Is this going to be like Queen?
    68:50
    Pinball Brothers? Like they're confused. Is it Pinball Brothers? So this is different. Euro Pinball Corp is kind of over umbrellas over everything. Pedretti, picture Pedretti being like the manufacturer. and then pinball brothers contracts pedretti to build their games so so on this it's still pedretti building it but like a lot of the parts they're standardized parts though a lot of the complaints from pinball brothers stuff's like metric stuff this is not metric this is the majority of the parts here are going to be the ballywilliams parts they're going to be sourced directly from planetary pinball supply i know the pps is even going through some of the like a lot the assemblies before they even send them over to Pedretti to manufacture these games. So that's a relief for a lot of people. So is Pinball Brothers and Pedretti, like, at one point I thought Pinball Brothers was buying Pedretti. Is that not what has happened? No, that's not what, yeah. I don't know who the owner-owners are, but I know that Euro Pinball Corp is the umbrella. Okay, so they're both under the same umbrella, but they're separate subsidiaries. Exactly. Okay. That's enough. That's all I really need to know. Pedretti is the one that makes them all, but the choices as to parts and different things, that kind of stuff comes from different entities. And this is a partnership through Planetary as well as the pinball company in a sense too. There's a lot of names involved. We've got pinball company. We've got Planetary. We've got Pedretti. Flippin' Out sells it though. Look, we're just here to service. and sell selling products. This is a lot of LEs, too. 750 is a lot. I thought so, too. But they're selling. I knew they would sell because... Funhaus is popular. And then when you add some more code to it, it's one of the first mode-based, kind of quasi-mode-based games. It's very popular, very iconic. You reach a lot of demographics with an original theme like this because it's more already an established theme through hobbyists. So it's selling. It is selling. I didn't know. We're getting close to selling all of our alleys. It's close. Close to sold out with us. What do you think about the game, Dennis? I mean, I enjoy playing Funhaus. Do you think it's a smart move? Do you think they sell all 750? Do you think that this is successful enough that all of these associated companies will be doing an additional remake in the future? It may be successful enough for that. I don't think they sell all 750 of the Midnight, though. and I wouldn't have started with this game.
    71:27
    Any other ones that you may have started? Sure, Adam's Family. Okay, Indiana Jones, Twilight Zone. Yeah. Would you have went with any John Papadukes over this? Because there's an argument there that I won't tell you who I had this conversation with and I said I may have went with a J-pop theater magic kind of thing before this. but yeah I just wondered what you thought yeah I think theater would have sold better it would have been the one this one's pretty convenient though because from a coding aspect some of this 2.0 stuff is done you know are they using a lot of the stuff out of 2.0 do we know some of that stuff is being used it's being detailed a lot more other stuff is being added so yeah they're fleshing out a lot of the stuff hmm okay well i do like the fact that that does that would make so i think that's probably some of it i do like the fact that people buying that standard they can actually upgrade to 2.0 if they want to this isn't something where they're held out of being 2.0 like haggis tried initially so tried is an operative word though because they even caved that's so 2.0 game system uh they can upgrade to that. You can also add things on like apron RGB lighting, I think. You can add shaker motor. You can add a topper. Now, here's the other thing with the LE. I forgot, listener. The individuals who buy this Midnight LE, limited at 750 units, another selling point is later on, they're going to have a topper that comes out that only LE buyers can use. How about that? So you can have a topper that's similar to the one they have now for your classic. You can buy that as an accessory, but only the LE buyers will be able to order the LE topper accessory. Well, we're kind of past the year of the topper, so not the biggest deal.
    73:25
    I'm looking forward to getting my hands on one of these. I know that Pinball Traders, a good dealership that's selling these, took production samples to Golden State Pinball Convention this last weekend. And that's why sometimes a lot of chefs in the kitchen here, because I don't know if it was a taking it there is fine. But you've got to know that if you take a game out to the public prior to having official video launch stuff, that the first impression of any kind of moving product you have machine is going to be through not only. What's taters, precious?
    74:06
    You're going to get that. But also, if you agree upon, I think, Dry, who's a pretty well-known streamer in pinball, streams for Stern, Marco kind of things.
    74:18
    He got his hands on one. And if you allow him to stream on one, just know that that's going to be the first impression. That's all I'm saying, that that's going to be the first impression. I think within 30 seconds, Dry was already speaking negatively about the game. He hadn't even got through it yet. So they should have had him sign that agreement where it could only say nice things. Well, no, I mean, people have relationships, you know, just maybe I'm looking too far. I'm just saying that sounds a little toady to me. I like gameplay videos presented to people. Yes. And I agree that a pre-recorded curated stream to show off things and not dealing with live stream shenanigans is always the best way to initially portray a product. But they have that choice. However, I've been in this hobby, Zach, for over 12 years now, and they just don't do it. They just don't. It's been 12 years.
    75:17
    I do think that the pinball company is working on some content for this. So hopefully we'll have some Travis Meary stuff here soon. Or maybe even a flipping out stream or promo video stuff. Who knows? You want to talk about Barrels of Fun? They had a tour They opened up their live streaming To take people around the factory Show them production A little bit on Labyrinth That was very welcomed This company continues to do things right Because this was another good PR move People love the transparency here And a lot of Positive feedback based on this Live streaming video So nicely done, barrels of fun It was David Van Ness, CEO and Brian Savage, CBO, that walked people around, answered some questions.
    76:06
    Details-wise and numbers-wise, I got this information from NAP Arcade, indicates that they manufacture games over at Barrels of Fun Pinball three days a week, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Their maximum production per day right now is about six games, and they've built and shipped 222 Labyrinth games to date, which was last week, and they just crossed 750 units sold, so they're on track to being done with production if they sell their limited 1,100 units by the end of 2024, and they continue to add code and rules, and they've got plans to continue that for time to come. And people are really liking the code on that game. But that's like the group of Rick and Morty, so it doesn't surprise me. How do you feel about the transparency here? Is this stuff interesting to you? Do you think it's a good move? Do you think this is a moot point? Are you surprised by numbers? positive or negative, where are you at? Yeah, no, I'm not really surprised. I'm okay with the transparency. I think there's a lot of marketing potential, you know, goodwill, so to speak, that you can win with it. You just got to be very, very careful that if things shift and you become non-transparent, it will look a lot worse than if you just never were transparent in the first place. So you got to basically, you got to look at the haggis scenario. Haggis gets, I mean, there are a lot of good reasons one could criticize what's going on with haggis obviously but the fact that they were so transparent and then weren't called extra attention to the fact when they were all of a sudden not sharing information and then it starts looking real cagey so i wasn't surprised by any of the numbers or anything like that uh so in terms of everything that sort of came out with this i think it it fits with kind of where i was assuming they'd be as a new manufacturer i kind of love that they got 250 games built nicely done yeah I think it's a reasonable pace, given how new they are. Yes, but again, given that they're a basically brand new company, I'm not surprised at the count.
    78:05
    I'd be concerned if it had been 22 instead of 222. As an aside, I just wanted to say a quick congratulations to you, because when I searched Funhouse Pinball Remake in Google, the first thing that pops up on websites is Pedretti, and the next is Flippin' Out. So you're doing quite well on your SEO. Oh, well, terrific. Did you go ahead? There's like a purchase button. You can just I told you no creepy clown, no creepy clowns in this house. But what if they come out with my dream theme horror film based around Stephen King's it?
    78:38
    Well, it's really the toy. Like, I could probably I don't know if I could get past the Brian Allen art here on the game. He made Rudy creepy all throughout. So that one might have been a no go even with it. I don't know. I've never seen it. either version and I never got through. I only got about halfway through the book and I got annoyed and quit reading it. I get that, but man, please. You a Tim Curry fan too You know I might make an exception for Killer Clowns from Outer Space because I have a soft spot in it It just Rudy My problem is with Rudy It not those inherent clowns What about Annabelle? I've not seen that either. Okay. I didn't know if you were creeped out by it. It seems like it's more of a dull thing. I don't know. It's just the way his mouth had to work to eat the ball. I could probably tolerate it, but since I said it in the past, I don't want to change my mind and show weakness, so I must remain strong. You understand. Eyes like a porcelain doll.
    79:33
    What, are you trying to do Jaws? That was, yeah. Shark's got dead eyes. A doll's eye. I think I want an It-based pinball machine. Well, maybe Spooky will do one. Spooky. It's a popular franchise at this point. You would think it would be an obvious one to do. They're going to do the mini, or they're doing a series now based on it. I think it's an HBO series, Welcome to Dairy. I was going to say, what are they going to call it? It is?
    80:03
    Or maybe it's? Apostrophe S? Will we use the apostrophe? I guess it depends if we're saying it is or not. Anyway.
    80:11
    All right, so good job, Barrels. American Pinball. Good job, American Pinball. They're having a Memorial Day sale now to May 31st. $500 off any game they sell besides Barbecue Challenge.
    80:23
    You almost had a sale. I do have some in stock. So if anybody wants to save $500 on GTF. at least, or I think I've got a Hot Wheels Classic.
    80:35
    What else do I have? Oh, Houdini Deluxe has got a couple of those. Save, save, save. Jersey Jack Pinball. Hey, they had a new podcast. I heard it just a couple of days ago. Yes, man. It's so good to hear Ken Cromwell. He's very talented. He was very lucky. I would have normally unsubbed from a podcast by now. It's been over a year. It's surprising that you listened to that. Yeah. I still just happen to have it in my feed. Hashtag no regrets for you.
    81:03
    I've sacrificed many on the altar of efficiency. So welcome back. Ken Cromwell did another episode with company founder Jack Warnary, programmer Bill Grupp, designer Steve Ritchie. Very refreshing episode, as Ken's work always is, so go listen to that. Bill had some good stories. I liked that part the best. Yeah, it was really, really cool. and Steve Ritchie just cracks me up. God, he is something, that guy. But then again, arguably maybe the best game that they've had. That's what a lot of people are saying. Too bad no one can afford it.
    81:41
    Let's see what else. Oh, Guns N' Roses version 3.0. They got guns all over their roses. I was waiting because the timing of their release, I was waiting for something cheeky. Oh, so you're looking for guns. Yeah, that's what I was waiting for. Our plants are armed with guns in this game. Speaking of guns, Pinball Brothers. They got a lot of guns on their Alien game. Yeah, the one game people buy from them, so they have to keep doing new versions. I can't wait until we get the Bishop edition. Look, ABBA is shipping in June.
    82:14
    Mama mia. So they're shipping in June. All the call-outs are Bishop. He's just saying robot stuff. Good morning, Mother. Alien toppers are slowly shipping.
    82:26
    Slowly. Why do all these manufacturers have such a hard time with toppers? Hashtag Lior. Lior's making those toppers, and they've had a lot of conflict over where he lives right now with wars and stuff. So it's been a damn mess. But they're starting to slowly trickle out. Those of you who have ordered from me, I'll answer the emails, but they haven't given us an update. I've asked a couple times. Soon. We know some are coming soon. You know what else is coming soon?
    82:58
    That new Furiosa movie. Are you looking forward to that? I think I'm going to see that in theaters. I'll probably see that. Yeah. No, coming soon is the listener right here who is yet to subscribe to the Pinball Show club membership. They're going to go to patreon.com slash the pinball show right now to help support this show and our efforts to bring them the weaving of gold. But what they can get right now, if they go and sign up to the pinball show, to patreon.com slash the pinball show, is they can sign up at the $10 membership, Dennis. And that will get them not only private Discord discussions with all the TPS fam, but it's going to get them exclusive content that they can hear. Including this week, we're going to talk about, you know, moving the collection around a little bit. Changing things up. What's Dennis looking forward to? What's on the chopping block for Dennis? You know, recently, I've had some games leave my collection Uh-oh Games that have been there for years Which ones left? Why did they leave? What's coming in? You'll hear that all exclusively as a member of the Pinball Show In addition to that, we also have a segment we like to call What I Love, What I Don't with X This is going to be John Wick with DPX DBX, BX, BX. John Wick Pinball. What I love, what I don't about John Wick Pinball. I got my hands on one. I've played one. I'll tell you what's great, and I'll tell you what's not so great so that you will know and be informed and will already have your decision made up on whether you like it based on this pin fluency. That's true. So go sign up right now, either the $10 official club membership level or the $25 club level. speaking of the $25 Nordman club level members we're going to have our happy hour hangout this Wednesday 8pm the 22nd or if you're doing the $10 club upgrade to the 25 and come join and hang out with us you'll see the link when you're in at that level you should see it immediately on the Patreon itself got the post up and everything with the link to the chat. Absolutely. The $100 Screaming Goat Club members, they got the goods. They get the private conversations between me, you, Dennis, and them privately. They get the paywall polo, which they've received. They get to come on the show in the future. They get carte blanche. Some of them utilize it quite well, too. We'll get messages, hey, Dennis and Zach, what are you hearing about this? And we reply. straight juice and speaking of club members we've got to thank specific ones right now dennis our screaming goat club members you heard it we gotta thank you rodney thank you for being our little bobcat no needs for guns because you will attack a wife if you need to oh shoot that fucker thank you again jablonski love and appreciate your support that's right bumblebee bumblebee will protect himself the stings right in your neck swell up thank you rob see none of these none of these entities need guns they've got their own built-in protection you gonna fuck with a panther dennis i think not panther seems like something that could probably take a bullet and keep coming depends on the depends on the uh the bullet but yeah thank you frank we appreciate your support as well as you swoop out of the sky and peck our eyeballs out how you gonna shoot a gun when you can't see oh wait have you seen john wick for the one issue i love the whole look listener i love the whole thing he's blind but that's how you know it's fucking chi man he's in the zone like i think it's cute i think it's kind of awesome however at the end of the day still blind like John, pick up the fucking gun and shoot him. Like, come on. You can't dodge bullets. This isn't Matrix. All right. Thank you, Falcon.
    87:11
    Dave, speaking of... Keep yourself safe. Shaker motor. Okay, maybe he needs to pack, because I don't know what you're going to do to the shaker motor. Throw it at them? Red Tremor wouldn't have a problem taking them out. As well as their cabinet. Yeah, he would. Price must be paid. Yeah. Holy shit. Thank you, Joe. We appreciate your foxiness. I think maybe a fox. Rabies. Maybe. Rabies. Maybe. In a few short weeks later, they're gone. That's right. Just wait. Charlie, thank you so much. We appreciate your continued support and your love. You're the bell. So, frankly, you don't need to be protected, do you? Who fucks up a bell? well the joker in the original batman movie did trying to take out the bell that michael keaton used to knock a bad guy off or something and i thought that was venom oh there was a bell in that too or the chime thing yeah in the spiderman 3 yeah there was a sound like that hurt his little symbiote head so see that's a weapon in and of itself the bell a big dong Were you in Virginia? Is that where you're at? You're in Virginia? Yes, in Virginia Oh man, sounds like a blues song The dude, William Thank you The dude didn't have a gun He had a rug It really tied the room together too Just because we're bereaved doesn't make us sad Sir, please lower your voices Man, don't you have You know, something else we can put him in You know That is our most modestly priced receptacle. God damn it! Thank you for the support, William. People missed it last week, Dennis. Why didn't you do it last week? You know what? There was just so much to cover. You could skip this week. We've covered a lot. You can't skip what some people call the heart of an entire industry. And look, I didn't say that. That's just like what I read in the headlines. Like when I go to Pinball News or I go to Nap Arcade, that's just how they describe... I'm going to put it on this website right now and I don't see it. Scroll down. I did. Now I'm just reading about Abba's launch party.
    89:27
    I don't give it the monikers. I simply am a conduit within it. I am the host of it. In and of itself, I'm petty. I'm small. I am but a bug to be squashed by the grandness and the genius that simply is. Like a worm. it's pinball market trends.
    89:49
    I like your style, dude. That's right, ladies and gentlemen. Pinball market trends. I'm going to give you the ups. I'm going to give you the downs, but I'm going to keep it real because numbers don't lie, and neither do I. Training up this week is none other than the Elwins. They're keeping a lot of us dealers in business.
    90:11
    Training up is Jaws, Godzilla, Jurassic Park. Thank you, Keith. Holy moly. Now, the reason I'm being a bit cynical, but the truth of the fact of the matter is that anytime a new game comes out, we always see a boost in games like Jurassic Park, Godzilla, and Jaws. It never fails. I'm just glad there's a new title in Jaws that has joined that lineup. Deadpool's on the fringe for us sales-wise that it kind of does that too. People want to wait. You almost see like a lull right before a big release by Stern Pinball or even George Jackson. Because people are like, well, I was going to buy a Deadpool. I was going to buy a Jurassic Park. But let me make sure that the new game isn't just the tits. Is that a phrase? Is that appropriate? I mean, it's a phrase. I don't know if it's an appropriate one. I would lean towards no. Oh, sorry. Sorry, listener. It is not the tits. It's the Virginias out there. I don't know.
    91:11
    But once it gets announced, somebody's like, okay, John looks cool, but I was going to buy a Deadpool. I still think I'm going to buy a Deadpool. So they end up pulling the trigger. Well, Deadpool does have a whole katana ramp.
    91:25
    I wonder if there will be a mod for that to change it to like to an M16 or something ramp. People are already making decals. Now they know that Deadpool was deliberately given blasters because of licensing requirements. No, wait. It was all part of the conspiracy. I love that we're getting the decals, the cover-up decals. Remember Mandalorian where we got, what's her name? Kara or Tara or whatever. But yeah, we're getting those as well. Bring it all, whatever floats your boat, people.
    91:54
    Also turning up this week is, just objectively, it's the Labyrinth. Not only does that company continue to check the right boxes in the public's eye, but on the Pinside Top 100 list, it jumped in there. It's got enough reviews now. Falling at number three. congratulations oh my god why do you even cite such a number three you know what i think it holds i'm going to make a bold prediction i think the labyrinth holds within the top 10 for the remainder of the year that's a that's a pretty significant prediction if i might say so i mean that is pretty significant i will agree okay we'll see if it happens yeah i gotta get a trend up labyrinth because that's falling into the non-stern what people end up signing up for whenever a new release happens so that's helping as well also training up this week i gotta give it to him it's my homie gomi i've got to trend up george gomez you don't have to numbers don't lie neither did he he didn't he gave straight juice to people so did joel i'll turned up Joel, too. Joel practically works for you. He is so good. He's so all shucks-y when it comes to interviews. The guy's got it down. The industry trusts him. The shucks-y-nism, don't you find them a little aw-y?
    93:13
    No, I think it's endearing. You're hoity. I'm toity. He's shucks-y. We've all got our roles here. What's Gomez, then?
    93:23
    Homie. Oh, that's right. I walked into that one. You're just like, homie, duh. That's right. Shucksie homie. It sounds like a really bad law firm. Shucksie homie.
    93:37
    Toity hoity shucksie homie. You know what? I think we know what our next shirt will be. It's the title of this episode as well. Wow.
    93:48
    Toity toity shucksie homie. Wow. Okay, yeah. I've got to turn him up. George Gomez. Why am I so captivated by his conversations that he has?
    94:02
    I'm hook, line, and sinker every time he's on a show. It's the same reason why you like Dwight Sullivan so much. You can hear their enthusiasm for pinball in everything that they say. Yeah, and regardless of, you know, I'll go on Pinsider on Facebook and be like, oh, he's on the damage control tour and all that. And you know what? Yeah, why wouldn't he be on different podcasts to inform people with facts if they are not perceiving or interpreting the launch of a product to be fact-based? Yes, I would do the same thing. The only difference is like Joel reached out to him. You know, Loser Kid reached out to him. So it works better if you're on a damage tour if it was the other way around. But nonetheless, every time I hear George Gomez, it's just I read through a lot of bullshit. And I'm sure George Gomez, like any other human I've met, is probably full of shit in a lot of ways. But I get his genuine love for not only pinball, but for design. And I could consume that forever. So training up is always going to be George Gomez whenever he appears on shows. I can't say the same, though, for things that are training down. Dennis and training down this week are all of those original Funhaus machines. Oh no What about the 2.0 kits? Do you not smell the coil dust from the 30 year old parts? Oh well I mean I always smelled those Geez oh those Those switch terminals Oh the humanity Corrosion Yeah so what happens when a game Gets remade like Funhaus Is the value of the original Has now dropped Again I'm just reporting The facts people like it or don't like it, it is what it is. So if you had an original funhouse, especially a restored one, oh, you lost a little money. That's okay, though. You probably restored a funhouse because you really enjoy that game, so love it up. There's nothing wrong with that. What possible purpose is value if you're never going to get rid of a game, right? Well, I mean... Nonetheless.
    96:15
    It still makes people feel sad. It still does. So yeah, with that remake, that's what happens to the originals. They drop in value. Also trending down this week, same goes. It's Metallica's. The Metallica's have held value for so long. But when people are sniffing, another iteration of Metallica in the looming distance. That's what's going to happen to value of those games until we see what they're cooking. Maybe they're cooking up just a vault and no changes, in which case it will drop the value of originals to a smaller degree. But if they add something to a Metallica and it's better, you're going to see a hit. If they reimagine Metallica, maybe it's a whole new game. If the rumors are correct about a Metallica making another appearance, then maybe it doesn't affect as much. but when we're in this purgatory of not knowing, the values are dropping. That's just the way the game goes. Also trending down this week is the seasonal onslaught of negativity and impaired social communication and just general decency, Dennis. Why are people so fucking mad and angry? I don't get it.
    97:38
    Here's my thing. If you're in pinball as a hobby and you can't find joy in it, get the fuck out of here. What are you here for? Go collect stamps.
    97:50
    Go somewhere else. Why must you sit and spew your bullshit to people that are trying to find an escape from their everyday work routine or family conflict bullshit or anything that us humans have to deal with? A hobby, by definition, I think, is supposed to include things like enjoyment, purpose, happiness. some people like to be miserable yes amen fuck uh all i'm asking is for you to look in the mirror people and if you are so unhappy about this hobby find a different hobby hell i will help you find i've been a lot of hobbies there's a lot of good ones out there maybe pinball's not for you is all i'm saying and if you look around and this is the first time you've really noticed really there's negativity that's probably you check yourself at the door there's no deals of the week because people shit on one line there's always people whether it's arrows or bullets from exalt off shotgun we don't judge here on pinball market trends we're just here to report the facts because numbers don't lie neither do i on the heart and pulse of this industry pinball market trends all right dennis where can people catch you they can always reach out and click the gamers podcast at gmail.com gmeasy you can reach out to the pinball show at gmail.com as well follow like and subscribe to us we're doing the facebooks for the pinball show too and instagram i don't know if you've seen this but recently i put some little um teasers from our Patreon episodes. I've put some teasers on the Instagram. So if people could go follow that, we'll get a little following. We'll add some more stuff over there as well. And sign up. Patreon.com slash The Pinball Show. Help support us. Get more Zach and Dennis. And everybody's happy, except for the people who are not. You know, there's people that sign up to that and they're still angry. Shit. Hmm. Well, maybe they want more Greg. Did you listen to that? You probably didn't listen to the extra episode, did you? I haven't heard that one yet with Greg. Yeah, that was a good one. Because I was traveling in Virginia. Too busy in Virginia. Poor Virginia.
    100:11
    I want to get that checked out. All right. The sponsor of this show is none other than my shilly-ass company, Flippin' Out Pinball.
    100:31
    When I think of pinball, I think flipping out. Flipping out. When I buy, buy, buy, I buy from flipping out. Buy, buy, buy. You go listen to Jason at a pinball party. He had one hell of a podcast this last week, too. He gave me the feels. I really liked it. He was like, Jason's transparent to a fault. He didn't give a shit. And that's what I love about him, even if I don't agree with him. I still respect that. But speaking of flipping out pinball, people, look, if you want to start threads that dealers are in panic mode and all this, you don't watch out. I'm going to lean into it, and I'm going to start pulling at the heartstrings.
    101:15
    We're struggling over here flipping out. Dennis, the doors are about to be closed. People, you've got to buy from us. Feed the children.
    101:24
    Buy, buy, buy. See? See what they're going to do? They're going to get that. No, I wouldn't do that. Product showcase this week for Flippin' Out Pinball. Should you decide to buy one or not? It's a Funhaus remake. It's got to be. I'd go with the LE. Only a couple spots left. Bye, bye, bye. FOMO, motherfuckers.
    101:39
    John Wick Pro Premium LE spots. I've only got one LE. No. You can make your mind up. I've got a handful of LE John Wick spots. Premium first run. I've got a handful of those spots for the upcoming June run as well. Next Stern Cornerstone, if you went on the interested list, let us know. Give us the title that you're dreaming and clamoring for. We'll put you on the list for it. Jaws Pro and Premium in stock. Godzilla Pro in stock. Foo Fighters Pro and Premium in stock. Get yourself a topper for that, Foo Fighters, too. Stranger Things Pro and Premium. We've been selling Stranger Things lately. Hot little title. Venom Pro, Premium, and Ellie. Just talked to an owner yesterday of Venom. He still says, hey, for all the haters out there, they just need more time on it because they wrong. It's a damn great game. Jurassic Park Pro and Premium, Star Wars Did you hear George Gomez say Venom was the most played game at home based on Insider Connect? That's interesting. Did he say at home or just in general? I thought he was talking arcades actually.
    102:41
    Yes, I did. I heard about that. I think the main thing though is because of the progression, people are going to log in for Venom more so than any other game. If you don't care about achievements, so you don't care about NSR connected most of the time. Yeah, makes sense. So I think that because of that, though, the play count's inflated. I'm sure it's true that it's the highest NSR connected, but I don't think it's fair to extrapolate that to its success. I agree. Still an interesting data point. Very interesting. But all the other Stern stuff, y'all, Deadpools, Avengers, Iron Maidens, Turtles, we got it. Come and get it. Labyrinth, still taking pre-orders for that. Elton John, Platinum, and Collectors we do have in stock right now. Toy Story 4 LE and CE and Stock Guns and Roses. I think I've got one of those left. Pulp Fiction, get your order in for that, as well as Looney Tunes, Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I still have an Ultraman. Please, somebody buy the damn thing. I think I've got two. ABBA? Gimme, gimme, gimme. Queen? Please, please, please.
    103:40
    Galactic Tank Force LE, fuck, $500 off. Maybe $1,000 off. Houdini, Deluxe, Big Buck Hunter. Ooh, Raw Thrills has got that new basketball game about to come out this week. Someone send me a link to that. Boom, shakalaka. Yes, it's coming. It's going to be expensive. I dare not ask. It's going to be awesome, though. It'll probably be expensive. Tell me when $500 off. Toppers, Shaker Motors, Insider Connect kits. We did just get it flipping out, Pinball, a restock of the headphone adapter kits that people love so much for Stern. So get that ordered today. Flipping out with friends. Check them out. Joel streamed John Wick last week. I think it's going to be John Wick this week. Maybe some Stranger Things in the near future as well as Funhaus. ABBA. We've got it all coming. So follow, like, and subscribe to not only FlippinOutPimble.com, but also Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok and YouTube.
    104:35
    All right, Dennis, teach these people something. Zach, I don't understand. He's back! I don't understand it, Zach. Everyone's talking about John Wick And the lack of guns on the playfield And they should be talking about The lack of plastic ramps on the playfield All these ramps are metal I see three ramps and zero plastic How can you have true speed Without plastic ramps And always practice safe pinball And if you find yourself in Legal issues I don't know maybe gun related Remember to call Hoity Toity Shucks
    105:14
    Look, Zach, people can either consume the entertainment or they can avoid the entertainment. You will sell them a seat, but they'll only need the edge.