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Pinball Roundtable Part - 4 with Retro Ralph and Cale Hernandez - Episode 66

JBS Show·podcast_episode·1h 23m·analyzed·Jul 10, 2025
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

Roundtable covers Harry Potter AI art scandal and Predator launch voice acting disaster.

Summary

JBS Show roundtable discusses two major pinball industry controversies from the past two weeks: the Harry Potter AI art scandal involving Jersey Jack Pinball and artist Jesper, and the Predator pinball launch issues with poor voice acting quality. The hosts analyze the AI usage in commercial pinball art, featuring commentary from Christopher Franchi on responsible AI use as a tool, and debate community reactions to the controversial Predator gameplay reveal and subsequent removal.

Key Claims

  • Jersey Jack Pinball artist Jesper confirmed AI was used in Harry Potter machine artwork

    high confidence · JBS hosts confirm Jesper released statement using ChatGPT-generated language (identifiable by AI output patterns) admitting AI usage

  • Jack Guarneri initially denied any AI usage, then took jovial 'who cares' stance when confronted with Jesper's admission

    high confidence · Colin's article and follow-up contact with Guarneri; hosts cite direct reporting

  • Community opinion on AI art in pinball is split almost exactly 50-50 down the middle

    medium confidence · Host Jamie queried ChatGPT to analyze website discourse, claims AI reported nearly equal split with outliers on both extremes

  • Christopher Franchi uses AI minimally (<0.01%) as a reference/visualization tool, not for core design work

    high confidence · Direct audio clip of Franchi's call into Cary Hardy's stream; Franchi stated use only for magazine covers and reference work

  • Wrong art file theory: possibly prototype/unfinished art was sent to printer Mirko instead of final version

    medium confidence · Zach (The Pinball Show) referenced this scenario on podcast; Kale speculates based on observable errors (three-eyed dragon, train) appearing incomplete

  • Jersey Jack is reprinting/fixing affected Harry Potter playfields

    medium confidence · Hosts mention hearing this unofficially but note no official statement from Jersey Jack

  • Predator pinball was leaked by overseas distributor before official release, showing more Arnold content than final version

    high confidence · Ralph describes unauthorized gameplay footage showing Arnold heavily featured, later pulled down; contradicts official marketing

  • Predator voice acting quality is extremely poor, particularly the 'Get to the Chopper' multiball callout

    high confidence · Audio clip played; hosts describe laughing uncontrollably at low production quality, speculate how it passed QC

Notable Quotes

  • “This is a major, major screw up. And Jamie, I don't know if you've seen examples of what's in there. I think there something happened here that people are not mentioning.”

    Ralph @ N/A — Suggests deeper organizational failure at Jersey Jack beyond simple artist overreach

  • “So time is of the essence, and if I can cut corners and say, hey, I need a magazine cover and knock one out, because I know it's not important if it's just going to be laying in the background somewhere... It's a very, very small .000 percentage.”

    Christopher Franchi @ Audio clip ~1:00 — Industry veteran's perspective on ethical AI use in commercial art; frames as tool for efficiency on non-critical elements

  • “I look at pinball machines as works of art, but I also look at them as toys. So both shoulders are just like, I don't know.”

    Jamie (JBS host) @ N/A — Captures core tension in AI debate: commercial product vs. artistic expression

  • “The general bulk of it should not be AI generated. The bulk of it should be either hand-drawn or, like, you take inspiration from the assets you're given from the license holder... The main core design should not be generated by AI. Like period.”

    Jamie @ N/A — States clear industry standard expectation: AI acceptable for polish/efficiency, not primary creative work

  • “How does that get through quality control? Can you imagine you're in a studio somewhere? Like, okay, do your best, Arnold.”

    Host describing Predator voice acting @ N/A — Expresses disbelief at production failure; implies systemic QC breakdown at Stern

Entities

Jersey Jack PinballcompanyJesperpersonJack GuarneripersonChristopher FranchipersonColinpersonBumpergeistpersonCary Hardyperson

Signals

  • ?

    product_concern: Jersey Jack Harry Potter features AI-generated artwork elements on playfield and cabinet; errors visible upon inspection (three-eyed dragon, train anomalies) suggest unfinished prototype art was sent to printer

    high · Jesper confirmed AI usage via statement; observable errors match prototype quality; theory that wrong file sent to Mirko in Germany aligns with artistic oversight patterns

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Multiple QC failures: Harry Potter had unfinished art reach production; Predator had voice acting quality issues pass approval process

    high · Harry Potter playfields being reprinted; Predator 'Get to the Chopper' callout described as laughably poor quality by hosts

  • ?

    industry_signal: AI usage in pinball art is becoming industry standard but remains contentious with community split 50-50; Christopher Franchi confirmed minimal AI use as tool, not core design

    high · ChatGPT sentiment analysis showed equal split; Franchi stated <0.01% of work is AI-generated

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Community sentiment on AI usage is evenly divided with extreme voices on both sides; Genghis (We Are Pinball) became notably passionate about Predator issues

    medium · Jamie's ChatGPT analysis; Genghis emotional reaction noted by hosts

  • ?

    product_launch: Predator launch plagued by unauthorized distributor footage leak revealing more Arnold content than final version; poor voice acting quality; confusion over feature completeness

    high · Ralph describes overseas distributor posting gameplay footage with extensive Arnold content; video was pulled; hosts reference poor voice quality evidence

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.251

0:00
🎵 Hello and welcome to the JBS show, part four of the roundtable with my buddies Retro Ralph and Kale Hernandez. And I've been gone to the bottom of the Grand Canyon for the last two weeks. We don't know where Kale is at right now. He hasn't told us, so we're going to get to that right now. Kale, where are you, dude? He's in a bathrobe or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I am on vacation. I'm at a Rise Hotel, which is a nice mid-century modern hotel here in Phoenix, attached to the Lilo Swim Club, world-famous Lilo Swim Club. Very cool. I have my table and everything reserved out there. It has my name on it. It's waiting for me for tonight. There's a beautiful tiki bar.
1:17
Oh, they have Dole Whip. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's great. It's a big deal, man. That's cool. So Rachel and I are doing like a staycation. Yeah. Nice. We wanted to be – it's 117 right now. We wanted to get in a pool. I know, Jimmy. It's 117 here in Arizona right now. No, I know. I left on Friday. It wasn't 117. It was Africa hot. I mean, it was still hot.
1:44
It was hot in the bottom of the Grand Canyon. It started getting hotter as the days went on because we did 15 days of a canyon river trip. through the Colorado, 226 miles. And it sure got hot.
2:00
I'm sure, man. And then it rained on us, dude. Oh, wow. Well, that probably felt good, though. What was the temperature at the bottom there?
2:10
108. Wow. Oh, damn. Okay, so I didn't think it'd be that hot. I thought you'd get some relief. No, it's hot. Oh, shit. Yeah, it's like Phoenix. It's Phoenix hot down there. Uh-oh. Diamant, hold on. I'll fix it. Your battery on what? This is amateur hour. What kind of amateur night fucking... Hold on, hold on, hold on. You just turned into the thing when you're in the 1950s and the TV goes off. What the hell happened? I'll tell you what happened. Now you're just a letter J.
Zach
person
Genghisperson
Stern Pinballcompany
Mirkoperson/entity
Spooky Pinballcompany
Harry Pottergame
Predatorgame
The Pinball Showorganization
We Are Pinballorganization
Pinsideorganization
Tilt Forumsorganization
Jamieperson
Ralph (Retro Ralph)person
Kale Hernandezperson
  • ?

    leak_detection: Unannounced Predator gameplay footage leaked by overseas distributor showing different feature set (more Arnold) than official release

    high · Ralph describes gameplay leak from distributor with Arnold content and 'Get to the Chopper' sequence; footage was removed after posting

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Christopher Franchi articulates position that AI is acceptable as reference/visualization tool for non-critical elements but core design should be hand-created; distinguishes between commercial product work and gallery art

    high · Direct audio clip of Franchi discussing use for magazine covers, pile of laundry reference generation; emphasized <0.01% usage; noted licensing constraints prevent 'from ground up' creation

  • ?

    operational_signal: Speculation that art approval process may have failed at Jersey Jack; wrong file (prototype vs final) may have been sent to Mirko printing in Germany

    medium · Zach hinted at wrong file scenario on podcast; visible errors in playfield art match prototype quality; standard art approval workflow would include PDF proofs that should have caught issues

  • ?

    community_signal: Insider knowledge of Jersey Jack situation is circulating through industry network; Zach (The Pinball Show) has proximity to someone involved in Harry Potter project and drops hints in podcast segments

    medium · Kale notes Zach's allusiveness about 'what if' scenarios with high specificity; references person now working with Zach who has intimate knowledge of incident

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: AI controversy creating secondary effect: legitimate artists without AI concerns becoming insecure about whether their work will be accused of AI generation

    medium · Jamie mentions 'not only that there are probably some artists out there that do do everything by hand and now they're thinking is does this look too perfect'

  • ?

    content_signal: Colin conducted detailed investigative reporting on Harry Potter AI scandal, contacting relevant parties and obtaining statements; coverage praised by hosts as superior journalism

    high · Multiple hosts cite Colin's article; Colin obtained statements from Guarneri and Jesper; also appeared on Nudgecast; recommended as definitive source

  • ?

    design_innovation: AI tools (ChatGPT, generative fill in Adobe) becoming standard in digital art workflows for reference visualization, background fill, and efficiency; artists using to generate inspiration images before hand-creating final work

    medium · Christopher Franchi describes using AI to visualize concepts, piles of laundry; Jamie mentions Adobe generative fill for cloud patterns as standard practice

    • 2:43
    I don't know how to... Here, I can fix this now, camera. What are we going to do, Kale, about this? I don't know. Are we keeping all this in? Just keep it in. I guess it's our show now, huh? That's cool, man. All right. So what happened is the battery got exhausted because I don't have any dummy batteries in here. They're in storage. So I tried to do this plug-in battery bullshit. Battery on what? On the ZV-1. So now how do I change the camera on Riverside to just do my Mac camera for a minute? Jamie. So you have to go into the settings. See the little gear at the top? Top right. Oh, look at that.
    3:22
    Yeah, top right gear. And you can change, yeah, audio and video, all settings. Just give me a second. I'll just use the shit camera for a second. Yeah, I'm just using my laptop camera. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Do the boo-boo cam. It's fine. Yeah, dude, what's up, man? Design. Where the fuck is this? Live stream. Oh, my God, this guy.
    3:44
    General. This actually happens every time. We usually just cut it out. Yeah, no wonder why Colin's canceling the Twippies.
    3:51
    Oh, wow. Oh, he cancels shit. Wow, hey, drink. He hasn't canceled shit. I don't know. What is he doing with them? No, I heard on a podcast he was thinking about skipping a year. Okay, you want to know why they can't skip a year? Because they have momentum. They can't. That's why. 100%. And how crappy would you feel? Spooky finally has a game that comes out that's a banger. and they're like, yeah, sorry guys, we're going to skip this year. Like, I'd be so pissed. No, he has to do it. We're going to convince him to do it. He's not skipping a year. That's what makes sense. I'll do it. Yeah. Jamie, what is going on over there? I don't know. I can't fix it. Is this real? Yeah, this is real. I can't. It won't let me change. I have to, like, come out and come back in. I'll come out and come back in. National Lampoons.
    4:45
    What year? I know how to do it. When we were growing up, though, you remember, like, the TV, like, the programming would stop, and you'd get like that. Oh, yes. And turn in the lines. The national anthem. Yeah, the national anthem would play. Also, who was it?
    5:00
    Was it like John Wayne? That was like the, you know, what do I love about America? Well, let me tell you. You know what I'm talking about? Yes. What's so crazy, though, is like today you can't watch the end of TV, but we can watch the end. We're like, all right, we're done with TV for the day. We've watched it all. We grew up in the best timeline. We really did. We did. It was a good timeline. Now you're echoing, Jamie. All right, hold on. I got to fix the echo.
    5:26
    I don't hear an echo. No, you sound like a robot. Do you not hear that? No. I sound great. That's so weird. You sound robotic to me. What do we do with this? Do I cut this shit out? I mean, it's kind of funny, but. Yeah, I would keep it. All right, fine.
    5:40
    All right, so I was gone. My camera. I just don't have my shit together, ladies and gentlemen. I'm sorry. I've been gone really peacefully for two weeks, and then I come back to some crap that's happening in our industry. So that's what we're doing. It's my turn of the roundtable. If you're new to the roundtable, where have you been? Let me tell you how it works. Each week, each month when we podcast the roundtable, each of us take a turn of steering the ship. Today is my turn. and what I thought I would do is not get us in trouble this time, which would be great, and two, go over the things that I missed. So I know I missed the entire Harry Potter AI scandal, if you will. Right. Is it a scandal? I don't know. Yeah. I mean, how can you not call it that? Okay. I mean. So what did I miss? What did I miss? Who's going to start? Who wants to start with this? I think Caleb. He needs me to go. Yeah, I do. Ralph's basically their employee now. He has to be careful about what he says. Absolutely, he does. Okay, so let's just run through it real quick because so many outlets have covered this, and we'll have to bring up Colin again. If you really want to do a deep dive into it, Colin did an excellent article. I mean, he did some real journalism, getting in touch with people, getting statements. Kudos. I think that's the best. If you want to know every detail, check out any podcast. Colin was even on the Nudgecast. Yep, okay. He didn't get to say a whole lot because it was mostly Ian talking, but you can check out the article. But anyhow, a guy on Tilt Forums named Bumpergeist did this very in-depth expose. I don't know what you'd call it with lots of descriptions of the art, plus examples where he like pointed out where I believe this is A.I. and why. And this person is a graphic designer. um nobody knows who he is but he or she exactly or she and this person bumper geist is familiar with the pinball industry and even he uh he or she was telling colin they have a uh a pinball machine that they cannot talk about in their basement so maybe they're working helping somebody with a homebrew or they have a whitewood or who knows something but they're familiar with pinball. So after this dropped, everybody jumped on it and everybody had their opinions. You know, oh, this is horrible. And, you know, you have the other side, which is I don't care. I just want to play pinball. Right. Where it gets kind of strange is Jack Guarneri was was contacted by Colin. Colin asked him about it, and Jack said there was no AI used in this machine.
    9:00
    Oops. Well, yeah, and then like a few days later, the artist, Jesper, who worked on this machine, on the play field and the cabinet of the arcade version and the wizard version, you know, of course, a different team did the cabinet artwork and on the CE. but he came out and made a statement and it was really obvious that he used chat GPT to craft this statement and I'm not kidding you because if you've ever messed with chat GPT you get a lot of dashes and you notice word patterns that the AI outputs and why wouldn't he double down on AI? If he used it for something, an IP this big, why not use it on a statement? So he released a statement confirming that there was a AI was used and it was real obvious. OK, then Colin gets back in touch with Jack and Jack's overall attitude was like, hey, who cares? He took a jovial. I mean, what can you do? Right. He took a kind of it seems like he took a kind of jovial aspect of it. He's a salesman. You know, he just wants to he just wants these things to move out the door. Right. So I think I think that was that's basically what's up. Right. What'd you say, Ralph? That's. Yeah, I mean, the Jesper thing was kind of what I expected him to say. He's he's like, look, it's he did say, though, he's like, look, I don't. And this this does kind of make sense to me. And I'd be careful a little bit here. But I think it's obvious that the team was not involved with what he was doing. So like he could have been doing anything and they would have just been like, oh, here it is. You know, here's the finished product. So I don't know that. Like the Jack statement. I don't think Jack. I actually think Jack didn't know. But he probably should have found out before he like I honestly probably would have said, I honestly don't know. I need to get back to you on that. Like that would have been a better answer. But but yeah, then that's then. Yeah, you caught us up pretty good. So that's where we currently are. And the community was like, I mean, Jamie, the community was like pretty much split down the middle. And I actually went so far as to, I was curious. So I went to chat GPT, which I pay for. I paid for a version because I have the whole, like, open AI thing. And I asked it, analyze all of the websites you have access to that talk about pinball and tell me where the community lies on this topic. And it was almost exactly 50-50 down the middle. Wow. It was kind of crazy. But then there was, like, outliers. Just like in politics, you have far right and far left. There were some people that were like going absolutely psychopath, like psychos on both sides, like apologists to the nth degree or someone that was like going to, you know, taking a magnifying glass. Like so it was going both ways. And then there was more people that were in the middle that were a little bit more reasonable. So there were places you could go on the Internet where they were having like a little bit more of a reasonable conversation. But, yeah, no, it was all it was it was kind of an interesting it was an interesting couple of weeks, that's for sure. I don't know where I stand with it, right? I haven't had time to really digest it yet. As a fan, I look at pinball machines as works of art, but I also look at them as toys. So both shoulders are just like, I don't know.
    12:22
    I think it's going to get to the point where you have to put a disclaimer on your art, this is AI generated. I think if they did that, some of this is AI generated. They might have been able to dodge some controversy. Has it hurt sales?
    12:38
    But, Jamie, how far do you go with that? Because, like, honestly, that every artist would have to say that it's AI-generated art. Because, like, I mean, I'll give you an example. Like, in Adobe, there's, like, generative fill, right? And all that will do is, like, and this is something that's, like, basic. It's not something that you would create a whole design based on. But you might say, hey, the clouds are kind of weird over here. I want to take this cloud pattern and give you something that fills it in over here. But like very minor, right? Like stuff that's like super small. But they're all using that. So like you'd have to say everything was AI generated. But like I think it's just almost safe to say, and I have a cool clip I want to play for you guys because I think it will like level set a little bit.
    13:20
    Unfortunately, with digital art, you're using some of these tools. But I don't think that – here's where I like stand on it. the general bulk of it should not be AI generated. The bulk of it should be either hand-drawn or, like, you take inspiration from the assets you're given from the license holder. And even then, you can only go so far with it, right? Because the license holder fits a picture of Arnold Schwarzenegger. It can't look like some, you know, it has to look in his likeness, whatever they say you can do. But, I mean, I don't think you should generate, the main core design should not be generated by AI. like period like that that just shouldn't be done i think so but i'm personally okay with like because it's a commercial product i'm okay with it being like little things here and there that need to be done because it speeds up the process but if but if the bulk of it's like beautiful and looks great and it's mostly hand done or i say hand done but you know digitally created because that's probably how they're all being done these days like i'm cool with that that's like kind of where i stand i think you have to have a happy medium just because i mean i went back to uh i was getting into a little bit of an argument with uh with someone i'm not gonna say who it was we we came to a good agreement we came to a happy place okay actually good for you we both we both actually we both had like a pretty heated debate and then we came back to normal and i said like we were arguing back and forth and i go do you think that code development do you think code developers use use ai and they all do like code code 100 now these days right and uh but it's not 100 but you might be like hey i have this concept and you go is this gonna work and it'll do like some error checking on the code and then you so you're not writing all the code through it but you're going you're having it sort of speed you up so that you go oh okay i was going down the wrong path let me correct it um anyways we got to a common ground uh but i don't know i think because if you say it's funny because now everyone's scared because like emoto posted something the other day and it had like a little ai thing in it everyone's like do you use ai what are you doing she apologized for it and i like oh she's the loveliest person on the planet I know you can't attack a moto of all people. I don't know. But yeah, that's kind of where I'm at. But can I play something for you guys? Absolutely. Please. All right. It's Christopher Franchi. So I just want to set the stage. So it's Franchi. Why is your video shitty, though? I'm not sharing video. It's audio.
    15:43
    Oh. Wait, what? I'm just saying your video, you're like a little. Yeah, it looks a little grainy. But it's okay because it won't look grainy in the finished product. It's all right. Yeah, okay. So Christopher Franchi called into Cary Hardy, that guy that Cale doesn't know who he is.
    16:00
    Okay, come on. Now, since I know obviously Cary listens to this, I need to apologize. Oh, good. We're making progress.
    16:09
    A show for the people. But I don't know. It's an apology, not an apology because I legit did forget his name for a second. It wasn't – I know he thought it was some kind of like game. We were just having fun. Yeah, yeah. But I totally did forget his name. Yeah. No worries. So Kerry had a little – a few too many, and he called – I don't know if this was planned, but he called Franchi because he wanted to get Franchi's take on it. Franchi actually – Franchi was in the chat. I watched it. Franchi was in the chat and was like, hey, call me. I would like to make a statement on this. Okay. So that's what we're doing. So I'm not going to play the whole thing. And I only – and I don't – and if Franchi does listen to this, I just want to make sure this was just a small segment of what he said. And then I'll fill in the blanks a little bit. So we'll just listen to it together. It's maybe like 60 seconds. Is that cool? Yeah, go for it. All right. You know, this isn't what I used it for, but let's say I needed to make a magazine cover. Okay.
    17:08
    You know, I use AI to make a magazine cover and throw it in there. It's not anything important. It's not anything key. but the thing is doing an art package as much as people put so much on the importance of a pinball art package which is nice and I appreciate that it's like anything else commercial it's a job it's not something that's going to hang in an art gallery it's not something where I say look what I created from the bottom up you know actually a lot of times it's not I'm using characters I didn't create you know movies I didn't create, all kinds of crap.
    17:53
    So this is, working in pinball is far from it being mine from the ground up. So time is of the essence, and if I can cut corners and say, hey, I need a magazine cover and knock one out, because I know it's not important if it's just going to be laying in the background somewhere or whatever, it's not something I rely on big time, but it's not even something I rely on part of the time. It's a very small part of as far as if I use something direct. It's a very, very small .000 percentage but it's a great tool for, like I said, for visualizing things if I don't have a reference. If I need to draw a pile of laundry or something. yeah so so he anyways he keeps going on and on more seconds and i was leaving my body really oh i thought that was super interesting i could have listened to him talk about 30 more seconds oh my gosh all right so i thought you'd be refreshed like you'd last for like two minutes now or something he goes a little bit on and on on it but but his his main thing is like look sometimes i use it for reference like maybe i'm creating something and i i don't i don't i don't 100% have like a picture or source material, I'll use it and then I'll redraw based on the inspiration I get from that or the image I get from that. So I thought it was really cool that Franchi came forward like that and said, yeah, I use it as a tool, but it's a very small percentage of what I do. So I felt like he – I don't know. I felt like he addressed it and I liked what he said. Just to be clear, he said he hasn't – he has not used AI on any project you've seen that's been released. Yeah. The project he was specifically talking about, he said, is going to be released in a year and a half. Oh, yeah, a year and a half or something, yeah. Yeah. So he said it's not even Spooky's next game. That one's already done. The game after next, I think, is what he implied, right? Okay. I didn't listen to the whole podcast because Franchi started going into that area where he likes to say stuff he shouldn't say. And Cary was like, dude, okay, enough. I don't want to get you in trouble. He likes to share. He ended up sending Carrie a photo, and Carrie was like, oh, did he? Yeah, and I'm like, oh, I'm not showing this.
    20:09
    Well, and that's absolutely right. It is a great tool for all of that. I was a graphic designer. I was an art director at a packaging company. I worked with graphic designers, photographers. We wish we would have had tools like this back then. We wish. I mean, this would have sped up everything.
    20:31
    But but with with Jesper and Jersey Jack, this is deeper than just like I'm using a tool. This was a major, major screw up. And Jamie, I don't know if you've seen examples of what's in there.
    20:48
    I think there something something happened here that people are not mentioning this And the reason I the reason uh i think this is it it something that jersey jack not willing to make a statement about but i kind of been like reading in between the lines i was listening to the latest uh pinball show dennis creasel and zach many right and if you i personally i know zach i've talked to zach um information i've known about the industry has been relayed to Zach from people in the pinball network in the past. And I have no problem with that. But I just I know for a fact there are times when Zach knows things, but he can't talk about them on his podcast. So he'll bring him up in a like really nebulous fashion, like a what if? What if this happened? What if this? What if – Very specific. Like too specific to be a what if, right? Right. Yeah. So on the latest episode, he said, hey, Dennis, what if this happened? What if someone sent the incorrect art file to the printer, which is Mirko in Germany, right?
    22:07
    And Dennis is like, that doesn't make sense because anybody who's worked in the art department knows that it goes through an art director and then you get a proof. Even if it's done overseas, you get a PDF and you review it. But this is the interesting thing about that statement.
    22:23
    Excuse me. Somebody who knows plenty about what happened is now working with Zach. And you know they talk.
    22:35
    Ken, we just can't go another episode without getting into any bit of trouble, right? How is this any trouble? I haven't said anything. I'm sitting here. I mean, it's unbelievable. No, but think about this. No, but this was stuff that someone else said. Kale's just repeating what someone else had said. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah. No problem. I'm sorry.
    22:56
    Right? I don't know. Yeah, yeah. No, no. Zach said it on his show. Yeah. Right. The reason he would have an intimate knowledge of what happened is because he's working with somebody who was part of that project. Right. Very close. And, you know, they talk. I mean, friends talk. Not only are they coworkers now, they're really close, right? So Zach brings up this, that maybe the wrong file was sent to the printer. That actually makes a lot of sense. That makes a whole bunch of sense because when you see the mistakes that were left in this art, this does look like some type of prototype art that wasn't cleaned up. Okay, like the three-eyed dragon. Yeah, and lots of other things, the train and all that.
    23:50
    So that's completely plausible. Like they sent the file to Mirko. Mirko sent them a PDF, and they were just like, we've done this with Mirko plenty of times. He's never screwed up before just to prove it. And then he prints, I don't know, what, 100, 200 play fields. because because now i mean they said they're going back they're going back to fix this yeah so there's i mean has there been an official though like i don't know if that's it's like unofficial right that's what i've heard but i i you know i don't know yeah i will say this and i and i and you guys are going to expect me to say this anyway i love the freaking game it's so much fun to play and honestly this shit is for me for me i i i will say though like legitimately there's mistakes in there and that sticks right like no one wants to have a product they buy that has mistakes in it like that's just the way it is but luckily it has so many other redeemable qualities that like you can kind of i mean i don't even pay attention i mean it is really when you're playing over it these are really small things it's just you'd have to like really get close like i joked around my friend we were going back and forth and i i took a picture through a through an actual magnifying glass. And I was like, can you see it? Because, I mean, they're small. Some of the things are really, really, really, really small. But, no, I mean, I love the game. We'll talk about that, I guess, after. But where were we going to – oh, we're getting in trouble, are we? No, we're not in trouble.
    25:25
    I can't get in trouble again. I already got in trouble once. For sure. But at this point, Ralph and I were talking yesterday about what are our opinions on what does this mean for the future? So, I mean, we already know AI is going to be in future machines. Chris Franchi verified that, right?
    25:45
    But, like, you have to think artists are on hyper alert now. Right. Anyone that are using AI. and not only that there are probably some artists out there that do do everything by hand and now they're thinking is does this look too perfect or is this you know am i going to be accused of using ai like they're going to get insecure about their own about the stuff that they're not even using ai exactly exactly yeah yeah i know i actually happen to be married to one you know an excellent artist and so and being an artist yourself i understand you know i i don't know where the future holds um again i'm torn it's is it a toy is it a piece of art is it both i don't know yeah i mean i think yeah i mean it yes i love the art yeah i mean i love the art on pinball i always you know that that is that is one of the elements that you look at and you You know, we critique as people that either play them on location or at home, right? I mean, some people literally won't buy a machine if they don't like the art package. They'll get a premium because they think it has a better art package than a pro or vice versa. So it is a big part of pinball.
    26:59
    I mean, Franchi brings up a good point. He's like, look, it's not like the stuff that Rachel does that is in a gallery, but it's still something that's in your house and you see it every day. And like for me now, I have kind of a little bit of an interesting dilemma because I've actually put the games that I like the art the most at the corners of my like of my rows because I want to see them. You know, like I love the Godzilla 70th with the sheen they put on it. So I have that one like at the end. Yeah. I mean, art's a big part of pinball. So it's it's going to be something that people are going to continue to talk about. Yeah. Thanks for filling me in on the A.I. art controversy. and we'll see where that lies. I think it should be over, though, right? It should be done?
    27:42
    Yeah, the conversation's kind of moved. I think people have moved past it now for this part. I mean, because I'm on both of those pin-side threads. Now they're just talking about other stuff now for the most part. It kind of pivoted toward Predators. Terrible Arnold, which I have an audio clip of. Let's do Predator. So I missed the entire Predator launch. Jamie, this clip is very short. Okay. When I do get to it. So you've got to pay. I will give you 100% check. I will. It's super short. It's like less than 15 seconds. Tell me when to go. I'll pop a new Zen. Well, I wasn't going to do it yet. I was interrupting you before you. No, I'll be totally ready with a new Zen. Oh, you want to just go into it now? No, no, no. I want to go into what the hell happened with this launch. Because I only listen to a few podcasts since I've been back because I've been busy at work. and I did listen to WAP and when Genghis turns on you did something wrong did you listen to this? I ended up listening to it because you told me to and I was like hey am I being too critical? Did Genghis really get upset? and he kind of did and for him to get mad that takes a lot he lives in the nice land he's so happy in Denmark and everything and then all of a sudden boom he just got pissed off that they didn't listen to him, apparently. Or whatever. I wouldn't say he's pissed. You know what I mean. He was passionate, passionately excited. Better way of saying it. Better way of saying it, yeah. So I have not listened to, well, he played a little bit on it, on theirs, but I want to hear your audio of the fake Arnold.
    29:27
    You guys, I listened to it before this thing. I have to have played it a couple times. He's like, play it as much as you want. You've got to really listen to it because what's the guy's name over there? Is it Daniel? I can't remember the guy's name. I probably have it wrong. I think so. I can't remember the guy that runs that company.
    29:44
    He's really, really dry. He's kind of talking over when he says get to the chopper multiball. He's talking over a little bit. So listen close because they miss a complete line. I don't know if you guys remember the line. It was run, get to the chopper. That was the line. run get to the chopper so just just you're gonna be like i mean seriously you're gonna feel like i'm laughing before i even play it it's so bad i mean you guys ready let's go ready things we get as well now we start uh chopper multiple in the jungle What's going on here? I haven't been paying attention to any of this release, so Ralph's going to have to fill us in. You're not getting one for the bat? No. My side hurts when I listen to it because in the beginning, he's trying to run and get to the chopper. It's the weirdest thing. I don't know what happened.
    31:00
    How does that get through quality control? Can you imagine you're in a studio somewhere? Like, okay, do your best, Arnold. He's like, it's so bad. I don't know, man. I don't know how this happened.
    31:15
    I don't know how that gets through. How does that get through? So correct me if I'm wrong, Ralph, but at this launch, at the beginning when they first started talking about it and showing sneak previews, it seemed like Arnold might be in the game, right? And this strung along for what, like one, two weeks, something like that? There was controversy on this game too because what ended up happening is that – so we kind of – it was back and forth. Is Arnold in the game? He's not in the game. Napark had been in an article. They're like, we're not really sure. No one was sure. So then the game launches. Everyone watches the trailer. People are kind of into it. They're like, hmm, looks okay. Then some, I think it was a distro. So some distro overseas posted gameplay that he was not supposed to show. But it got everyone pumped up because in those clips, it had plenty of Arnold. I think it even had Get to the Chopper. It had everything. And his face was pretty visible and everything. So people were like, this is awesome, right? And no one said that it wasn't authorized or whatever. Why this person had that code and why they leaked this or put this video out, I have no idea. Maybe he wasn't supposed to. I don't know that part. But anyway, so that came out. So then it was like, oh, wow, this could be actually kind of cool if they have this much movie assets and Arnold's all in it. And then when that got pulled down, then everyone's like, why'd it get pulled down? And so now there was everyone was talking without data, right? We don't know anything yet. We just know the video's pulled down. Oh, this is BS. What happened? blah blah did they not have the license to use everything so everyone started freaking out well then then uh i think it was like a week later they published the real video which is this audio clip i played right and like arnold's like you know his head's not there or or it's like you know arnold from afar so arnold's still in it but but like from a distance you know so that so it's not you kind of there's sometimes you can kind of see his face but it's like they're really trying you can tell to edit it in a way that he's like um didn't they do this with uh didn't jersey jack have to do this with uh with uh jack sparrow a little bit like he's not really ankles and his knees yeah so so anyways so uh yeah so the it was weird because this was a very dramatic launch because people were got really annoyed in the beginning because they teased it forever it was like they kept showing teases and some people were upset because they were like why aren't they doing it through like an official outlet why are they using a youtuber which i had no problem with but i'm just saying people were critical of that if you would be critical of that that would be funny come here no no i didn't care that he was doing it i just i think people's got annoyed because it was like these little tiny pieces and at one point they're just like dude just show us the thing like stop teasing so i went down to the river like the second tease and i'm like i well they'll release the gameplay while we're down here but i mean i don't know to me like the audio thing I would be like, hey, can you give me your Arnold real quick so I can see what this is going to sound like? And if I got that, I'd be like, all right, we've got to find another Arnold. That's not the right Arnold. I'm okay with using someone to do it, but not that guy.
    34:21
    No, you remember Shrek, right? Stupid Family Guy remake Shrek, right? Yeah. Those voices sound really good, okay? You can get good voice actors to mimic people. Voice actors, all right? Those voices sound really good.
    34:40
    I mean, it really sounds like Eddie Murphy. And you're like, holy shit, how the hell did they get Eddie Murphy? Yeah, but, man, we are – think about who's doing this. I mean, ABBA? Yeah. You know, I mean, it's like you're saying, man, this not great pinball machine deserves A-plus quality voice acting. I mean, come on. but how do they show a thousand of them? Here's why I'm critical of it a little bit. They got Alan Silvestri, and I know, Jamie, you said it's cheesy. Alan Silvestri, to me, make that da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Like, that music's iconic to me. I know you think it's cheesy. I like it. No, I love it. Okay. I know, Jamie, you're in the minority on that one. But, like, they got the original soundtrack. Not all of it. He did say the rest of the tracks in there are inspired by kind of like what they did with Harry Potter. The only John Williams track in Harry Potter is Hedwig's theme. Everything else is David Thiel inspired by, which is really good, by the way. David Thiel's shit is, I wish, my one beef, sorry, I know we're talking about Predator, but my one beef about Harry Potter, they need to boost David Thiel's soundtrack. Because I got to hear all those tracks individually. They're freaking so good. He is bomb. David's a master. He is the man. Like, seriously. So anyway, so I guess why I was upset is that you went and got Alan Silvestri's soundtrack, and then the voice guy you got is like, like, what are you doing?
    36:10
    I'm sorry. This is cracking up. No, I don't think. I guess another bad launch, right? I mean, what are they doing? How do you sell a thousand? But did they really launch games good? Didn't they do some wicked random thing? What was the game where they, like, brought it to a nightclub, and they were trying to bring – do you remember this? This is Pinball Brothers. They were trying to rip the curtain off of it, and it was, like, getting stuck. Oh, no, I didn't see that. Yeah, I think it was ABBA. I think it was ABBA going, all right, here it is. Boom, remove the sheet. Imagine, like, Stern doing a launch, and they're going to remove the sheet to show it, and it's stuck.
    36:41
    People are like, hey, guys, let's not air that. They kept it. Right. They're like, we'll keep it in there.
    36:46
    Yeah, why not? All right, I also, so Bow on Predator, not a great launch. We haven't played it, so we have no idea. I know. It might be fun to play. I don't know.
    36:59
    Expo, you would assume? Yep. Yeah. I think that's when we'll see it. Because they said it's going to start shipping in, like, August, September, I think, time frame. Okay. Speaking of, are both of you guys going to Expo? Heck yeah. Of course. Okay, good. Of course. I want a media pass.
    37:17
    Yeah, Rob Burke. You got to get this guy a media pass. Actually, we should all get media pass. I mean, you probably have one already. Don't be a wormhole, because that's just going to piss me off. All right? It's Jamie Virgil. Let's go. Yeah, JBS show. Come on, Rob.
    37:32
    What else do we want? Oh, Jaws 50th. Looks pretty cool to me. I got to see it. I saw George Gomez right when I got out into the hotel. Took my shower, watched George Gomez. Yeah. You know, I don't know how you can complain about this thing because it's the same price. It's a different trim package. You just have another option. I don't know. And you're getting added benefits from if you don't own a Jaws and you buy a Jaws. Now you have the Sparkle play field. You've got the Brass Wire forms, which is pretty cool, I think. Pretty cool. Yeah. I mean, I think what they did here, because they had foiled the last special of anniversary or whatever when they did the foiled artwork, which probably definitely cost them more. They probably said, hey, let's not do the foiled artwork. Let's put that money into the play field. Because you know they just moved the money around, right? So I'm cool with that decision. I think it's awesome. Like, it's really cool. And I dig the fact that, okay, if you're going to celebrate an anniversary, what's the most iconic Jaws thing? The movie poster. Yeah, the movie poster. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, let's make it look like that. It looks really good to me. The only thing that I, the only critique, if I was saying, hey, change something on the art, on the side of the back box it has, like, the fin, I think they should have used that cool Jaws 50th logo and maybe put that on the top and then put maybe the shard or something different underneath it, Because that logo is really cool, and it's not represented anywhere else on the game except for the little sticker thing they're giving you. They did that with the sticker. I've got to admit, though, I know everyone's ripping on the sticker, but it's kind of a weird thing to call out as the sticker, because everything else was enough. You didn't have to say. The sticker would have been like, oh, cool, if you saw it, but I don't know that you needed to put that in the trailer, but whatever. Right.
    39:15
    I like it. I think it was cool. Jaws 50th, three yeses for it. Taylor Buckley of Eureka Heights just bought one for his home. Oh, nice. Yeah, he's got it. Congratulations, Taylor. Yeah, he's pumped. Can't wait for it. Dude, Jamie. I don't know where you were going to go next, but it was at the end of the bat. We finished the tournament. It was really fun. Oh, my gosh. Such a fun time. Last night. Yeah, I didn't do the best, but it was so fun it didn't matter. I was having a blast. Huh? Yeah, I shook his face off. So we're at the end of the night, and I'm like, oh, man, I should see if anyone's on X-Men because I want to check out the new code. and Kale was over there and I'm like, I had played a couple games and I'm like, dude, like they are like, I mean, I already liked the game because the layout is badass. I thought the code kind of needed help. And man, if this is one of a couple more updates coming, I was so stoked playing it. It like changed the games for me in a major way. It's freaking fun, dude. It makes sense now to go to the future. It makes sense to get the hell out of the future. um that's awesome way to go it's really cool and i think they added i saw a lot of animation like some tweaking to the animations that weren't there before like there's the um the whole uh what's it called who's the dude that does the special shot uh i can't think of it right now gambit is it gambit's shot yeah maybe yeah so the gambit thing that lights the action button that they change the way that works i mean it's it's so good it's it's it's like Honestly, if this is phase one and they're going to do more, I'm stoked for this. And then I didn't get to play John Wick because they updated code on John Wick too, which I'm hearing really good things about too. I asked several people at the bat. They're like, dude, they got rid of the enemies thing. The enemies blocking the shots and everyone's liking it a lot more now. Right. So what you have, it's basically the team that did Bond, James Bond, working on these two games. So there's a deep rule set coming for both games. It's just going to take some time. You know, they had to shuffle things around. Yeah, but that X-Men, I mean, we're talking about for modern Stearns, this is the most unique layout. So cool. And probably the most unique one we'll see in a while. And it kind of like broke the mold. I think it gave some of the designers a little more freedom, like, oh, well, let's try some really outside-of-the-box stuff. I mean even and we were talking Ralph and I were talking about this how great just that X Pro is I mean you can really Yeah I like the X Pro I bet you can find the mean if if you can find this game pick it up now because it is it is a hit and it only going to get better and it a screaming deal i mean at the time it was released it was like the most expensive bomb for a pro that stern had released i don't know if if you know dnd took that title with that whole dragon mech or anything but you're getting you're getting a killer deal if you pick up the pro Yeah, I hadn't played the pro as much as I did last night. And I was like, I'm cool with this because I know a lot of people. Remember, Cale, you and I were talking about it. The hand thing, they actually did change the way that functions, though. So the hand breaking the wire form only does it during a multi-ball because people were complaining. That makes sense, though. That makes sense. That was a good complaint. I shouldn't be killed for a good shot. but now that it's in multiball, especially during ball save, who cares? Let's go. That's what they did. It's less risky now, obviously, unless it's like your last ball of your multiball, but you know what I mean? To me, that was such a cool design change, because it's cool when it happens, but it's not cool if you're having this banger game and all of a sudden it's like, boop! You're hosed. Shit. It pisses you off. I mean, you'll want to play it again, that's for sure, but yeah, I'm stoked on it, man. I think I might I was telling Cale, I'm like, shit, I kind of want to get I kind of want to pick up a probe before people get in the know because once they get in the know then the prices will probably oh don't put it on the podcast right yeah i mean no one's gonna know no one listens to this well it depends on when you release this we have a little time right oh yeah i might release it friday so you get on pin side right now you better hurry up the prices the used prices on a pro are really good right now on that game so bang there you go yeah what uh what else did i miss those were the three that i have written down well they updated code also we didn't even talk about this they did they did code for wick they did code for x-men and then they won dot owed jaws and uh metallica code oh that's right metallica code since jamie's been gone yeah they're spitting out code i mean yeah there was that week and i was like man this is hot right now they're going crazy with the code but it's cool to know like that they're go i it's cool that they're recognizing like hey look x-men i mean People really loved it when it came out. Expo, do you remember Expo? People were freaking out. I mean, Stern killed it at Expo. Between that and Metallica, they owned Expo last year. And I mean, I think there's enough people that there's enough interest in X-Men that I'm glad they went back and did it. And I'm glad they're not abandoning John Wick either. Because as much as it gets hate maybe in the media space, I can talk to people at the bat, players at the bat, and they love that game. players like it so i don't like it but i'm not a player but why don't you like it he's not a player i'm not a player i'm 3700th in the world that's why when you're 3700th in the world you can't hit a ramp and every freaking time i go to the pop pumpers to the nightclub whatever the hell that is that's the the red circle club yeah yeah i don't want to go there i have no why because i Why do you want to go there? Because I'm going to train. That's why. I constantly train. Well, sometimes, Ralph, when it goes into the little dance club, it bounces around, right? And then if it comes down and doesn't hit that stand-up target. Yeah. Gonzo. Yeah. If it just, like, misses it, you have to work for it. And that's what I like. Did you play a pro, Jamie? Yeah. Okay. So I had the LE. It was a bad decision at the time. I shouldn't have done that. It was out of haste because it was so pretty. I was just about to say, that is a beautiful. The John Wick Ellie is freaking gorgeous. The John Wick Ellie and the X-Men Ellie are like really pretty games.
    45:54
    That freaking, yeah, the stained glass, back glass, like get out of here. That thing's awesome. No, they're very pretty. I just don't like Wick. Give it another chance. Ralph, we need to pull him out of this. Give it another chance, Jamie. It's a good game. It really is a good game. I would. Eureka dumped it pretty quickly.
    46:14
    Oh, no. Was that John's game? Oh, yeah. He dumped it. He dumped it quick. Because people were playing it? It was only earning during the contracts. The contracts were fantastic for it. But once they were out of contracts, it would drop all the way down to the bottom. So John's like, they're not updating the code. They're not giving me contracts. See you later. Now they're updating the code. Yeah, and I haven't played it. I just listened to people that had played it, and they did say, like, it's a little bit more forgiving too. Because, like, it can be brutal. When you miss, it kind of reminds me of, like, if you're missing a shot, it can be brutal. Because especially if it hits those slingshots, those things go crazy on that game. and then you hear the gunshots going off, you're all freaking out, and then before you know it, the ball drained. But I think they're being a little bit more generous on some of the ball saves. I'll give it another shot. I'll go on pinball map and find one immediately. Yeah. There you go. Good job, Jamie. Thank you very, very much.
    47:13
    Can we do – I haven't talked to Cale. I've only had one conversation with Ralph. Can we do a Dune update?
    47:21
    Yeah, we're sending it back to barrels. Really? Yeah. Damn. yeah it's uh we just um we just don't have the time to help them try to iron everything out on this game uh the uh they asked us for help with like um and and first of all i want to say that whole team has been great to work with it was um a a stark contrast between american pinball when We had similar problems with Galactic Tank Force, and David Fix was blowing smoke up our ass just saying, there's no problem. This game's perfect. Nobody's complaining about it. But with Barrels, I mean, David and the employees were like, yes, we understand there's issues.
    48:15
    So that was really refreshing. Okay. That's a bummer, man, because I know people really like playing it. Yeah. And we tried to help them as much as possible. They asked, like, what they asked, what should they how should they be beta testing things? And Rachel did an incredible write up for him, you know, about like keeping the game on for 24 hours a day, testing it with four player games. Just this stuff that that I think people building a machine aren't going to be thinking about. But an operator is, you know, so. Because think about it, you bring up a good point on playing it with four-player games. If someone buys that for their house, how often do they play a four-player game? I bet the percentage is really low. Correct.
    49:05
    So I can totally see that's a really good piece of advice. I can see someone going like, Rachel's thinking about all the variables that would happen on a – but that's a good – if you battle test it for a location, then it should be rock solid for the home, right? As long as you can – Do you think – For sure. You know, it's interesting. I was thinking if I didn't talk to Kale, so I didn't know this about Dune, but I was like, okay, if we bring up Dune and it's not working, you know, how many labyrinths are out on location? Like they sold 1,000. How many are out on location across the United States? Is this a home-use company or is it a mixture of both?
    49:44
    How many labyrinths are out on location in the United States? Well, it's not apples and oranges. It's a different company now. And David has been completely transparent. He tried something different with this game. Okay.
    50:00
    And so with Labyrinths, this is the reason we decided to get a Dune. Everybody who has a Labyrinth, especially operators that we've talked to, have said it's fantastic. But for one thing, I think they had like twice as much time. they had like four years to do labyrinth okay they did not have that much time for dune and they tried things differently this time um you know at uh david even mentioned he was like this this time we were trying to do do stuff like the big boys and i didn't get him to clarify that but it kind of sounds like you know releasing a game with just like base code and going and cleaning it up but i don't think they realized how buggy the code was okay yeah and would you know how many labyrinths there are in the u.s if you're curious i just yeah go ahead how many 200 right no it's less than 200 what do you guys think the number is i thought it would be 150 you're talking about on pinball maps yeah like how many you think there are man like 30 actually it's a little bit more it's 101 which isn't like that's a lot more than i would have thought almost 10% of their build. Well, I mean, they made 1,200-something. So, I don't know, 9%, 8%. I'm not a mathematician. There's literally only one in Arizona, and it's at Starfighters. It's the only one. My point would be, how many plays does the bat get in a two-month period compared to that of a home user for the lifetime? Honestly, how much? What do you think? you're talking about like the average consumer who buys pinball i'm talking a brand new banger of a game that goes and hits the bat i'll have to ask rachel she's got to be like it's got to be like okay yeah it's got to be like 100x or something thousands so how often is a thousand per you're gonna get a thousand games in their home game not that's just not gonna happen my My most played game in my collection is Jaws, and I have like 487 plays on it. You already mean 487? That's a lot to me. To you, but at the bat? I mean, yeah. Also, that happens in what? How long does it take to get 500 plays on a game? Probably like two weeks. A couple weeks, right? If it's a popular game? Yeah. Two days. Two days? Are you serious? Not at all. Two days? Yeah.
    52:34
    Holy shit. My point is, right? Damn. Here's my point. I'm not trying to be a shill. My point is, if the number one arcade, I sound like my cousin Vinny, if the number one arcade in the world gets a first off-the-line machine and is playing it 10 times as much as 90% of your customer base is getting, that might not be a good test market for your machine. Or it might be the best test market and send them the beta and let them bang the hell out of it. Well, it would be the best test market if you did it before, not after. Well, no, you bring up a good point, but the game just won't play well for two hours. I mean, if you go back and watch Carl's stream, it was malfunctioning in that stream. You know, he had to open the coin door and re-level the worm. He had multiple times he had lights, play field lights lock on, and that's in a two-hour stream. So this isn't the case. The game is literally not ready for public release. Okay. This is a different situation than it's getting rode too hard, right?
    53:50
    Look, I'm trying, right? I'm not just trying for that. I'm spitting facts, baby. Let's go. I didn't anticipate this. Okay? So I'm lost for words. But what I would say is, here's one for you. When we got Led Zeppelin, we got one of the first Led Zeppelins that ever came off the line. We got a Led Zeppelin LA came to the worm. Oh, God. Dude. It didn't work for shit. Yeah. Okay? The electric spinner, forget it. Never could get that to work. Garbage. Right. It was garbage. So, unfortunately, this can happen. And I just hope that they make it work because it's a beautiful machine. And I heard the new code is really great. Dude, it is very cool. Yeah, I played it. I just think the difference, Jamie, in your example and this example is like Stern. No, no, I'm just saying, like, think about how Stern reacted on Dungeons and Dragons. It was like probably 20 games left that factory with a dragon that was messed up, which was really just the motor that needed to be replaced. And they, boom, fixed. and the thing is they can react that way they have like a giant supply chain they can get those stepper motors quick this is this is like defcon is it defcon 5 the highest i don't remember is it one or five i don't remember how that goes let's say it's five because i remember this is like wait but five with teeth is bad and defcon is good i don't know anyways uh that's deep tracks from the other episode um no uh this is like this is like a big issue when you're a smaller company You know what I mean? Because now, I don't know how many of these games are going to go out in the same condition the bat one did. But now you've got to go field fix it, which could mean you've got to replace more than 10, 20. You know, that's a big cost for them. So it's like, you know, maybe the answer is they take some of Rachel's suggestions on how to QA stuff, and that will help solve some of these problems because maybe they don't just do, maybe they don't battle test them enough or didn't anticipate like they've never tested them in an environment that gets that much use right to your point kale also you're like well it didn't get that much use and it was already bro i i did get to play it while it was working i only played two games i i was like wow if it worked i would have i would have loved to play it more actually that's the thing it actually was a really cool my experience was actually pretty good yeah especially with the latest code if you could play that if you could actually play it it's super cool if you want to see what it's like go check carl's stream he he explains that he knows the rules very well and uh it's a cool beautiful lighting system was pretty sick to set the mood yeah yeah definitely in a dark room in your house it's really pretty cool all right i'm not a show you try okay i'm not a show i'm not trying anything i just like i just know people that work there i know all of them yeah and they're great they're really fantastic phenomenal people they're fantastic And I wish it would have worked out for you. It didn't. And we move on. Right. You know, there we go. All right. What else did I miss?
    56:58
    I guess I can. OK, let's I'm going to my segment with WTF Jersey Jack social media, you know, because last time I talked about how, like, during the Harry Potter launch, all they were showing me was Toy Story 4 in every game except Harry Potter. But now they're showing – now I see – when I open my Instagram, I see nothing but Harry Potter. That's perfect. That's what I want to see. That's what you want to see. But they made a huge, huge blunder. And I've seen – you guys have probably noticed it.
    57:32
    I'm a huge Bruce Springsteen fan, okay? Are you familiar with the boss? Yeah. I lived in Jersey for a little bit. I have no choice. they they did the biggest screw-up that so many other brands and companies have done in the past they did a post for the 4th of july talking about i didn't see this in my feed this is new news i don't know what you're gonna say so they did a post for the 4th of july and it was great video of people working in the factory putting together harry potter's or some some other game and uh talking about their it's all american made and in the background they're pumping born on the 4th of july a song that's very not very american that's not i mean the song is about us sending soldiers over to vietnam to kill the yellow man yeah and then and then the way the government mistreats veterans that's right brands need to stop using this song they think it's some kind of jingoistic anthem and it's not so many like political people use the song too and it doesn't make any sense yeah right and and it's like why like why like i don't they need to get a grip on on their social media and i mean i heard they're doing it they're outsourcing and i don't know it's not you ralph is it no okay i have one post that i made that was in collaboration with them and it was off it was when i released the feature but no i'm not doing the social media okay all right good uh i'll tell you a funny story we're down in the canyon right since we're wrapping up we're i'm down in the canyon and uh we're staying on it when you when you raft the grand canyon you stay at night at different beaches and they're man-made not man-made they're made beaches from sediment right one they're mostly sand and it's you have so much sand on you when you take a shower when you get out it's totally it's unbelievable but one day we stayed on a thing called ledges i told ralph this and this one guy who's dehydrated the day before wasn't really paying attention he This place is called Bloody Toes. Well, he falls and gashes open his leg. Like real bad, right? Like wrecked 15 stitches. Poor Todd. And so the next day, they have to helicopter evac his ass out of the Grand Canyon because this is going to get Mercer. He's going to die, right? Yes, but his trip is over at this point. It's over. You're leaving the Grand Canyon. So the helicopter's coming in, and this is how terrible I am. John Spates, Mike Flanagan, me, and Janine all went on this trip together. And you've met all of these gentlemen. And me and John start singing Paint It Black, right, like from a pop-up list now, right? And then we're doing CCR, you know, any helicopter song we could possibly think of. And as sand is being spit in our face from this massive parks helicopter. So I want to take the time. And Todd, if you heard us sing in paid in black, it's just a cool helicopter song. It was no offense to you. And I hope you get better, buddy. And I hope you get down to the canyon again. But be careful on levels. Are you not going to tell the other part of the story? What? Oh, then. So the helicopter comes. He skipped the part, which kind of makes them both seem like jerks. This is the best part. So not only are we singing freaking Vietnam songs, but he's getting ready to leave in the helicopter. The bandages him up. And I go to John. Hey, who's going to take his beer? because you have a limited amount of beer, Cale, and I was actually drinking like one beer a night. Wow. So it became Lord of the Flies once this guy took off. So I go, John, go up to him and ask him who's having his beer. So John goes, all right. So John walks up to the guy. He's getting bandaged. He's getting ready to get a helicopter back, and he goes, hey, Todd, who's getting your beer? And the guy got all pissed off. Wow. He got all fired up. He's like, they're escorting me out of the Grand Canyon. You're asking about my beer. He's like, yeah, are you going to use it? I mean, what are you going to bring it with you? Can't bring it with you.
    62:17
    So I just love that. You know, John, the story is even better. It's great. But what's so awesome is that is that what Jamie's not telling you is Jamie. Jamie was like, I mean, I'm going to think it, but I'm not going to say it. But if I say it to John, he's going to do it. So you used John to do your dirty work a little bit because you knew John would just say anything. Yeah, I already knew that. I might have done that. Sorry, John. I love you. You know I love you. John isn really a filtered kind of guy No I just wanted a guy beer Yeah You know Was it good beer What was the beer Just so I know Some kind of local Arizona IPA Was it like Four Peaks or something? Yeah, there was a Four Peaks and a, I don't remember, something out of Flag.
    63:06
    Oh, cool. You have some good breweries. Was it Mother Road? Mother Road is good. Yeah. We have one of those. The two Arizona guys figured out the two breweries. Nice. Awesome. You like how I called it flag? I want to move the flag. Yeah, flag. You're so in the know, man. I'm in the know with Arizonans. It's beautiful. It is beautiful. What a state. I really had a great time. And I can see why you don't even want to leave the state on a staycation there, buddy. You love the state. 114 degrees. 117 right now. Remember the Chamber of Commerce? The guy loves Arizona, ladies and gentlemen. I just fell in love with the Grand Canyon. I'll go there again. And it's just such a beautiful place. If anyone hasn't seen it, the stars, dude, you can see satellites going across the sky. Oh, that's wild. It's wild. It's unbelievable. Because we were lucky because we had no moon. But with the moon up, you can't see anything. You don't even need a headlight. Todd would have been fine. He wouldn't have gashed himself. The moon was up, but poor Todd.
    64:12
    That's all I got for us. one hour. Not bad. We didn't get in that much trouble today. I'm losing you guys.
    64:18
    I'm waiting for my connection to stabilize. We hear you, though. I hear you perfect. I don't think we got in. I'm pretty sure I'm in the clear on this episode. I don't think I got in trouble for anything. Yeah.
    64:31
    I didn't get in trouble. Cale, you know, he does things. You think Cale's in trouble? No, I don't think he gives his rat's ass if he's in trouble. You know, we're going to have another guest. we were who we're gonna have well we were gonna try to surprise you with your buddy but uh because he's been texting oh hell no no no no no we're not doing that i was telling him about his our buddy that's been texting us a lot lately and we were gonna have him surprised not happening oh he can't hear us damn it i know shoot well that's not happening No, I knew you would leave, so I didn't want to. I wouldn't leave, but I'd be like, come on. I wouldn't do that to you. I wouldn't leave, though. I wouldn't leave. I'd only leave the chat. Oh!
    65:28
    Kale, can you hear us? I don't think you can. You guys both sound like Cylons right now. Oh, man. That's a bummer. I could have gone for another 20 minutes. i miss these two ladies and gentlemen i miss them right i hadn't talked to him i had a satellite down at the bottom of the grand canyon i'll tell you this and i had a satellite called a zolio and you know your iphone can pick up satellite messages yeah but you need that zolio thing right to like don't need the zolio if you point your iphone right to the part of the sky and it'll show you a connection with a satellite every 10 minutes and you can get downloaded text. Oh, that's cool. So then why did you get the Zolio? Because I didn't know that. I didn't know that that was even a possibility. But in hindsight, I did close a deal down there, which was kind of nice. But it is nice to be not – I only did the Zolio like 20, 30 minutes a day.
    66:34
    Because, you know, when you're down there, you don't want to deal with that crap. Yeah, you want to be in the moment, right? Yeah. But I couldn't help myself. I started chatting with Ralph, and Janine goes, if you're spending extra money to talk pinball at the bottom of the Grand Canyon with Ralph, I'm going to murder you.
    66:56
    I'm trying to update. I'm like, Jamie, you've got to find a satellite signal. I've got juicy stuff to tell you. It was a good thing that you listened to Janine, though. You don't want her to be upset on vacation. No, it was wonderful. It was wonderful. Cale, I hope you have a wonderful staycation at the Rise. Thank you, Jamie. Are you signing autographs tomorrow by the pool? Absolutely, yeah. Come on out. I don't know when you're going to drop this, but we will be at the Lilo Swim Club today and tomorrow.
    67:27
    So come on out. You guys are back. I had another topic to talk about. Let's do it then. Let's do it. Go ahead. And then we'll just do an abrupt end. Give me your last topic. Yeah, you guys are crystal clear now. Okay. So Ralph and I got a little more data on something we talked about on the last round table, where how many eyeballs, eyes and ear balls, we have to reach out to in the pinball community. uh jamie thought it was like 100 i mean uh 80 to 100 000 right right at&t stadium yeah uh so we got some more data like ralph looked up what you looked up like uh like pin side users and what was that number i mean it was you remember yeah it was a little shy of a hundred thousand but that was pretty good like i thought okay that's more than i thought and then and then if you looked at and And then if you expand the search and say, like, it's tough because you go, like, active users of Kineticist or active users of Nap Arcade. And then you have to go, all right, well, because it's hard to get this data. You're like, are they also on Pinside or are those completely different audiences? So, I mean, it could be as high. I don't know, Cale, what we ended up at. But, I mean, it could be as high as, like, north of 100,000, somewhere in that area of, like, total people you could reach.
    68:49
    Yeah. And I think we almost nailed it with 100. Well, I ended up with another data point where I called my good friends over at Marco's Specialties and asked how many customers they have in their database. Good question. It was 300,000.
    69:08
    Now, some of these people, they've been in business for a long time. Some of these people aren't with us anymore. Some just have a pinball machine that's been in the basement with the family forever. and all they did was buy a rubber kit and, you know, one purchase, rubber kit, maybe a flipper rebuild.
    69:26
    But, you know, if you think, you know, you cut that in half, you're getting about to that number that Jamie initially said. So I was able to pull up the thing that I did the research because I didn't know it off the top of my head because I wasn't sure you were going to talk about it. But I have it up. So this is where I forgot I did it this much. Can I get a joke, Coke?
    69:48
    Absolutely. Do you want me to pause then? Yeah, I'm going to have to have one, dude. All right, I'll repeat that. I'll repeat the part. And I couldn't.
    69:58
    Well, then, real quick, Cale, this is what the number – Joe, do you want to wait until we start? Yeah, yeah, wait until Jamie comes back. The numbers are kind of crazy because I did active IFPA.
    70:08
    Even though I don't know if it's valid, it tried to pull valid IFPA. There's a lot, unfortunately. So it's tough because – anyway, should I restart, Jamie? Yeah, go ahead. Just keep going. I'm not even going to edit this. I'm going to put an orbital Albert. Okay. We came up with our number around like 100,000-ish. That's what we thought it was. But then I was like, all right, let's grab data points that expand beyond like maybe pin side. Let's look at total IFPA players. The problem with the IFPA number, though, is like Cale knows this. There could be someone that plays one tournament and never plays ever again. But they do have an IFPA number now associated with them. And so that number is over 100,000 in just those active IFPA memberships. So you're like, okay. So that kind of matches the other number we thought. Then there's – and I don't know how they get this data. Like I don't know how they actually got this. I saw it on a website. It was like casual home collectors in the U.S. And this was people who own at least one machine in their home. and this is based on estimates from like grabbing data from pin side distros whatever's public and game sales data that's available that's more historical now keep in mind it's historical so these could be like 90s sales it's saying that that number and keep in mind it's estimated so it's a wide gap it says that number could be anywhere from 200 000 homes to 500 000 homes wow so now that's like but that's more of a believable number to think a person that has a single pinball machine in their house, right? You could get behind 200,000, right? I can get behind 200,000. Do you think that's fair? But you have to remember the initial question, which was your question, Ralph, was how many people are out there that are- Oh, consume the content, right. Right, exactly. That's a whole different story. Just to think about this, when I was working at Marco's Specialties, I was on the phone all the time doing customer service five days a week. and it really blew my mind how many people called in and didn't didn't even know about pinside because lots of times you know people people would buy a flipper rebuild hey how do i install this and i'd be like you know well if you go to pinside uh vid does it has a great thread on everything about rebuilding flippers and they're like what do you even talk what is pinside that like that happened more than you would think there are a lot of people that just own a machine and just play it and don't don't pay attention a lot of them don't even know the people that were playing these games they've just been in the family for so long some of them didn't even know these games were still being made that surprised them so so i think when you're talking about a population of people searching out pinball content. I think we – I'm surprised. I think after all this and looking at the data, I think we did nail it at 80 to 100,000. Yeah. Yeah, and then so if you wanted to – So 80 to 100,000 are searching for content or kind of in the know?
    73:16
    Kind of in the – I think that's probably your potential reach, right? Okay, that makes sense. but i bet consumers could be half that number you could be at like 50k to say like who actively like always consumes that number is probably way south of 50k i think oh wait right don't you think it's gotta be yeah so what do you what would you guys say that all right let's just say that what now we're trying to break it down to people that consume like podcast youtube videos spotify stuff I think that's probably like $20,000. I was going to say totes, my goats, $20,000. Which then you start going, wow, we are really small now. You know? Like, holy crap, we're really small now. I don't think we're totally wrong, but I kind of don't think we're that off. I know we're using estimates, but I don't think we're that far off. No, we're not. There was this kid on the river. He's a social media expert. And he goes, so he's trying to see what my base is for the podcast. And I said, dude, I'm a niche on a niche on a pimple on a niche. Yeah. Okay. That's what pinball podcasting is. And we get thousands of downloads and views and thousands for this roundtable. And I think my max could be another 2,000 to 3,000. And here's what's awesome about that. Ready? I know we're tooting our own horns here But to me, if you are getting Above a thousand Somewhere between a thousand to five thousand You're reaching a pretty considerable amount Of the overall audience Right?
    74:56
    Where another, where like someone Creating Nintendo Switch content would be like What? You know, they're getting like 50,000 Views for a video going, what? How many? That's nothing, right? But to us That's actually really good Yeah, I guess So for those of you out there making content, don't be discouraged if you're in the 500 range because you're getting there. Like you're close. That's great. You're there. You're basically there. You know, I remember when Rachel and I first started streaming pinball during COVID, we were ecstatic because there were eight people watching us. Yeah. I mean, we were just like, dude, this is awesome. Eight people are actually watching us play pinball. On YouTube, my numbers are right there, 8 to 25, right? Care less. I'm having the time of my life streaming on a JBS show. I could care less. That's what it's about, man. I don't know how long you want this to go, but Ralph and I talked about another topic. Oh, boy. You even talked about it before you left.
    75:57
    Streaming. YouTube. Oh, that's right. YouTube, Twitch. What should we be doing now? I'm only doing YouTube. I'm following the guy to the left of the screen to me, Ralph. I am only doing YouTube. And with the YoloBox, it's just so seamless. It's so stupid proof. There's certain things that we're starting to work out. Ralph and I are figuring some stuff out. But I'm only YouTube. I don't have to upload it from Twitch back to YouTube to keep it forever. I have abandoned Twitch. I feel bad because I have some really loyal people over there. Right. You did use Twitch. Were you getting better numbers with Twitch? Like live viewers? I was. But you like YouTube better right now? Yeah, I like YouTube considerably better. Why don't you stream to both?
    76:53
    Because then I would have to. My opinion was this. I have to start all over again with the JBS show and the new stream. Why would I start over on two new channels when I could just start over on one channel? That was my biggest sticking point. That makes sense. The second sticking point is you really got to engage with people on Twitch. If you're not using your bits and you're not using all that shit, it's just not – you're not going to get the economic return. And I wasn't. And so I thought, well, I'm just doing the same show. I might as well just do it just on YouTube. Does that make any sense? Yeah, totally. Yeah. Yeah, we're doing Twitch right now. We're enjoying it. But the better quality of YouTube streaming is kind of making me think about making the Switch. Although Twitch is going to bring 2K. They did announce that. And I'm on the list to hopefully be able to beta test that. Yeah. But, man, I just – the vibe. And, you know, I think you both have done Twitch, right? I mean, just the vibe. Oh, you haven't. No, I didn't do Twitch only. The only reason, I mean, definitely I would say, and I could be wrong on this, it seems like because of what Deadflip started with Twitch, it has a considerable pinball audience that's there to consume that content because they have their own established channel for it, which I think is awesome. They have a category for it, which is awesome. The only reason why I didn't do it is because I had already been on YouTube. Before I even thought about streaming pinball, I had already been on YouTube. for like four years so i'm at at that time i was at like 50 000 subscribers and i'm like crap man it would have been like starting over yeah so it wasn't really a decision on which platform would be would be better had i started from the beginning it was more where i'm at now does it make sense for me to start my another channel but to your point though kale this is where it could actually make sense maybe it would make sense that i just stream to youtube and create a new twitch channel for it and just see how it goes it doesn't hurt anything to have both you know what i mean it It doesn't hurt to stream to both places. Right. It's just more audience.
    79:10
    You would think. But I like being streamlined. Like I'm just – I'm in one channel. Right. This is where you find me. This is where the chat is. And I know you can combine everything, but I like to think – I like to keep things streamlined. You have to use Restream, and it is a pain in the ass. Right. Okay? Because we saw that at the Twippies. It is a pain in the ass, right? But with the YoloBox, we just click two buttons. So it's apples and oranges there because just the technology that we're using. But I did learn something new, Jamie. We won't cover it here. Offline, let's talk about it, though, because I discovered it costs some money, but I discovered a cool thing you can do with YoloBox that just kind of changes. It gives you more options, but it has a cost associated with it, though. We need to call Colin, too. Let's end on this. We need to call Colin.
    80:04
    And Colin, Alzheimer, listen, we're having the twippies. It's going to happen. It's going to be great. We're just going to find a new location. And we're not doing this year off stuff because it's just going to kill the momentum that we built. Colin, you have the Clydesdales that want to go out and run. We want to run. We want to roam free. Let's roam. You're asking the Clydesdales to be like, hey, guys, I know you're these really buff, motivated horses. I need you to sit in the stable for 12 months No, we're not going to sit in the stable We want to be free I want to run Let us out Let us run We have all the technology Open the stable, damn it Don't close the doors and throw away the key and lock us up Why would you do that for a year? Come on, Colin No Yeah, it's a no-brainer Even if it's like a mauler I mean, you could just do it Just set up the laptop and do it, you know It's just like it has to be done It has to happen Yeah It has to happen. Can you imagine? Hold on.
    81:02
    And I don't even know, Caleb, you might hate me for saying this. The audience, if we were to host it at the bat, they would go ape shit. They're such an energized audience. They have so much energy there, man. They would go crazy. It would be pandemonium. Pandemonium. We have a stage. We have a PA. We have a UK tap room. It's right there. The stage is there. Yeah. Dude, I wasn't even thinking that. Yeah. All right. We got to do a conference call. We have a full bar. We have three bars, a stage.
    81:33
    We're going to do it. It's a freaking no-brainer, Colin. It's either going to be at the bat or it's going to be somewhere because we have to have this happen. We can't lose the momentum. Right. It was a good show. It's going to be better this year. Would Rachel kill us? Would Rachel be moved? No, she would love it. She'd love it. You'd probably hear us. Rachel's like, what are you doing right now? Let's let this dude go and swim. He's in a beautiful robe. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I know. No, I have another topic. Do you really? Do you seriously? Do you really? I can come up with one. No, yours is next time. My fucking dog won't stop barking.
    82:10
    Can you hear her? Yeah. I mean, it's not a problem. It's just Bagel. She's just being a hill. She missed us.
    82:18
    Okay, ladies and gentlemen, you can find Retro Ralph on YouTube, on Facebook, on Instagram at Retro Ralph and Retro Ralph Live, his two channels on YouTube, and of course the Electric Bat. You can always find them on Twitch, at Electric Bat, and all the socials at Electric Bat Arcade. You can't miss this. These are the two guys. They're the ones. The Clydesdales. The Clydesdales right there. Okay. Right? I don't know. I'm already regretting this Clydesdales thing. No, this is great. We are the traveling Wilburys of pinball. I mean, let's go. Thank you guys so much for this. I appreciate it. Missed you both. And can't wait for next month. It's going to be great. It'll be Kale's turn next month. Yeah. Everybody's looking forward to that one. Oh, boy. All right, gents. Thank you so much. Appreciate you both so much. Have a great trip. And say hello to your lovely spouses for me. I appreciate it. Have fun at the Rise Hotel. Signing autographs tomorrow at the pool. Kale Hernandez. Thanks for listening, guys. Appreciate it. Thank you. All right, bye.