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Episode .90 :: The Electric Bat Cast

Electric Bat Cast·podcast_episode·1h 0m·held·Sep 17, 2023
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.031

TL;DR

Electric Bat Arc operators share earnings data, operating tips, and industry rumors on new podcast launch.

Summary

Kale and Rachel from Electric Bat Arcade launch their new podcast on Kale's 44th birthday and the arcade's 5th anniversary. The episode covers operating insights including earnings reports (Godzilla #1, Stranger Things #2), cash tournament mechanics on modern Stern games, and mailbag Q&As about game purchasing, Jersey Jack rumors, and essential spare parts for new operators. Discussion touches on theme appeal to casuals, progress-saving features in Venom, Pokemon pinball rumors, and Jersey Jack's unreleased Elton John machine.

Key Claims

  • Godzilla has been the top-earning game at Electric Bat Arcade since its release, only disrupted temporarily by new releases

    high confidence · Kale reports September earnings data showing Godzilla at #1; notes it's been consistent since release

  • Pulp Fiction will stay in the top earnings spot for three months after release

    medium confidence · Kale makes on-the-record prediction based on game quality assessment

  • Cash tournament feature is built into any modern Stern, SAM, or Spike 1/2 game via settings menu

    high confidence · Rachel provides technical details about tournament button installation and cost (<$20)

  • Keith Elwin has three games in Electric Bat's top 5 earnings (Godzilla #1, Bond 60th #4, Avengers #3)

    high confidence · Earnings report data; Kale notes Elwin's dominance in monthly earnings

  • Bond 60th was unexpectedly strong earner despite Rachel's initial skepticism about story-driven appeal

    high confidence · Rachel admits being wrong about game performance; attributes strength to competitive/tournament appeal

  • Jersey Jack's next release will be a Steve Ritchie title (Rocket Man/Elton John themed)

    medium confidence · Kale references rumors about Jersey Jack's pipeline; expresses limited personal excitement

  • Godfather machine price has dropped $5,000+ since launch within months

    medium confidence · Kale observes pattern: 'don't buy a Jersey Jack new in a box because you can get it for like $5,000 cheaper if you just wait a few months'

  • Theme recognition is the gateway for casuals to try pinball; progress-saving will drive retention

    medium confidence · Rachel explains casual player behavior at Electric Bat; Kale adds opinion on progress-saving mechanics

Notable Quotes

  • “You start as a millionaire, and then you become a thousandaire. It's an old pinball joke. It's decades old.”

    Kale @ Early segment — Classic industry joke about profitability challenges in pinball operating

  • “Godzilla has been on the top since it hit the floor, and the only thing that disrupts it is a new game, but that's only for maybe a month.”

    Kale @ Earnings report — Documents consistent earning performance and competitive dynamics

  • “Theme is the gateway but then saving progress is going to keep them coming back. That's dopamine 101.”

    Rachel @ Venom discussion — Analysis of casual player retention mechanics and video game design principles

  • “We're the salt flats of the pinball industry. And we see basically flipper parts and rubbers breaking.”

    Rachel @ Spare parts discussion — Self-characterization of Electric Bat's high-usage environment affecting maintenance

  • “I'm a huge Elton John fan. And even I'm not super excited about the pinball machine. But who knows?”

    Rachel @ Jersey Jack discussion — Honest skepticism about Jersey Jack's Elton John title despite being a fan

Entities

Electric Bat ArcadeorganizationKalepersonRachelpersonKeith ElwinpersonStern PinballcompanyJersey Jack PinballcompanyGodzillagame

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Electric Bat operating high-volume location; describes themselves as 'salt flats of the pinball industry' with extreme wear patterns requiring specialized spare parts inventory

    high · Rachel discussing flipper parts and rubbers as primary failures; maintaining inventory systems for high-use environment

  • ?

    community_signal: Electric Bat launching new podcast focused on operator education and community questions; positioning themselves as resource for location operators and route business advice

    high · Entire podcast concept dedicated to mailbag questions about operating, tournament running, and spare parts; explicitly not covering rules/gameplay

  • ?

    event_signal: Pinball Expo in Chicago expected to feature game announcements and surprises; Electric Bat planning attendance

    medium · Kale: 'It wouldn't be an Expo without a surprise. It may be game related'

  • $

    market_signal: Keith Elwin maintaining dominant position in arcade earnings with three top-5 games; consistent quality translating to operator revenue

    high · Godzilla #1, Avengers #3, Bond 60th #4 in Electric Bat's earnings; Kale notes Elwin's consistent success

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Jack Danger confirmed as Stern designer of Foo Fighters game; described as producing quality first Cornerstone title

    high · Kale: 'Stern jack who is... his first Cornerstone game right which is Foo Fighters'

  • $

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.180

0:00
Okay, ladies and gentlemen, we are live. This is, what do we call this, the Batcast. Welcome to my podcast, The Electric Batcast. Welcome to Rachel's podcast called The Batcast. We are recording from Phoenix, Arizona. On my birthday, I'm 44. Happy birthday. Thank you. What a great, we've had a great day already. Yes. We went to JL. We had pastries. Had amazing pastries. and then right now we have decided to set up a podcast. Yeah, why wouldn't we? Happy birthday to you and most importantly, excuse me, happy birthday to the Electric Bat Arcade. The Electric Bat Arcade is five today.
0:46
Five. I started it on my 39th birthday. How about that? September the 16th. Yeah, also Mexican Independence Day. So many reasons to celebrate. How about that? Arriba. all right happy birthday is that what you say yeah reba that's what you say and we're joining a little rise right now uh yeah so this is our first podcast we don't really know we what we're doing we have a rough outline we're gonna we're gonna pick up where we left off on um with it with a pinball party with a pinball party splinter group splinter group we really have no idea what we're doing we're in rachel's library having a good time and we're going to need your help to uh make this podcast better we want to know what you guys want to hear about um operating uh doing uh starting your own rk starting your own route um and we we have a mailbag we already have some questions we're going to touch on right now we probably won't get to all of them but um And we'll jump into that in a little bit. So basically, that's what this podcast is about. We're going to be talking about what we do. What we don't do, which me and you are not big on. Like, if you want to know about rules and gameplay and things, that's not us. If you want to know about things that break, things that earn money, things that don't earn money, ways to help have fun tournaments, things that, you know, mistakes to avoid, that kind of stuff, we can help you with. The other stuff, other people can tell you better about. We're not a rumors podcast.
2:31
We might sprinkle some in. You will. We don't know anything, so it's all a rumor to us. Yeah, so this is basically about the pinball biz, not manufacturing, but how to be successful and make money and make friends with pinballs on location. You start as a millionaire, and then you become a thousandaire. Oh, that's an old pinball joke. It's decades old. But we started as thousandaires.
Stranger Things
game
Venomgame
Pulp Fictiongame
Scooby-Doogame
Bond 60thgame
Godfathergame
Marco Specialtiescompany
Game Room Goodiescompany
Steve Ritchieperson
Foo Fightersgame
Jack Dangerperson
Pokemongame
Pinball Expoevent

market_signal: Jersey Jack secondary market prices declining significantly ($5,000+) within months of release; pattern observed with Godfather

medium · Kale states: 'don't buy a Jersey Jack new in a box because you can get it for like $5,000 cheaper if you just wait a few months'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Venom game features progress-saving mechanic as differentiator to attract casual/video game players; Electric Bat cautious about reliability due to feature complexity

    high · Rachel discusses progress-saving as retention tool; Kale expresses worry about reliability of new features; purchasing Pro model due to concerns

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Pokemon pinball machine rumored to be in development by unknown manufacturer; discussed as high-potential title for attracting younger demographic

    low · Kale: 'the rumor is some manufacturers working on it maybe it's stern i don't know i've heard this rumor'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Rachel's initial skepticism about Bond 60th earning performance was wrong; game performed unexpectedly well, suggesting non-story-driven competitive themes have stronger operator appeal than assumed

    high · Rachel: 'I assumed... it would earn very well its first month and then fall off... They're into it'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Progress-saving functionality in modern Stern games positioned as gateway mechanic to convert video game players to pinball; framed as key retention driver

    medium · Rachel: 'theme is the gateway but then saving progress is going to keep them coming back. That's dopamine 101'

    • 3:05
    I was a hundredaire. Yeah, you really married up. Oh, boy, I tell you what. You married into a thousandaire. So we're going to do operating. Also, one of the fan favorite sections, your what's earning section is a big hit. We're going to be doing that here. We're actually going to do that today. Yeah, I can tell you. I know people are excited about that. We'll do a mailbag. If you guys want to know anything, if you guys want to know anything about operating, the electric bat, if you want to know about Arizona pinball, running tournaments. Pinball parts. way to get good parts uh email us electric bat arcade at gmail did you just have to read our email address yeah after i like to i just like to be sure i'm giving the proper email because i don't use that email rachel uses that email um uh also we're going to talk about you're working on a module i am i'm working on a module an rpg let's not let's not get to that just yet okay so right now i want to get into the earnings report this is this is what people get excited about starting off with the dirt let's let's get let's get on to it what do we have what's what's hot right now number one do you have any guesses uh let's see we brought in escape from lost world but i don't That's not going to beat any of the newer Stearns. I'm going to guess. That's a 50 cent game. And this is for last month. This is September, so this is earnings for last month. August of 2023.
    4:51
    I'm going to say it's Stranger Things. You would be incorrect. Really? Keith Elwin, you've done it again. It's Godzilla. It's back to Godzilla. Yes. How does that keep happening? It is such a good game. We know that, though. There are many good games. So basically, Godzilla has been on the top since it hit the floor, and the only thing that disrupts it is a new game, but that's only for maybe a month. Yeah, one or two months, and Godzilla will drop to second or third place, depending on if a brand new game comes out. When Pulp Fiction comes out, that's going to be the top burner, I'm guessing. I'm going on the record as making the guess.
    5:35
    For how long? Oh, I think Pulp Fiction will stay in the top spot for three months. Three months. Okay. I'm going to write that down. Yeah. I'm going to hold it to you. You don't even have to write it down. It's public. Oh, it's recorded right here. Okay, good. Yeah.
    5:50
    Okay, so what's number two? Stranger Things. Boom. I nailed it. Premium. I nailed it. Yeah, you were very close. Stranger Things. And Stranger Things earned 80% of what Godzilla earned. So it's right up there. Well, it's right up there, but 80% is... It's right up there minus 20%. 20 right 20 is a pretty big difference right for us for the top place in the second place um game three avengers another elwyn avengers though i think you should know was the game of the month less okay the cash game of the month cash game of the month that always gets that always gets a bit of a boost can we can we uh touch on that because i i still get a lot of questions from operators about how to do this cash game. Yes. And it's built into any modern Stern, SAM, Spike 1, Spike 2. Yeah, under the start button, any game that has like a hole for a tournament, like a fake plug there, you can plug in just a start button, a tournament button. And in the settings, you can start a monthly tournament. There's a few different kinds. The one we like to do is just a high score tournament, and we give cash prizes for the top three players. The way that it starts is we start the pool with a $10. We donate $10 to the cause. And then after that, a player can put two credits in and then hit the tournament start button. And then they play, and then if they end up with a top score, then that goes towards that cash prize. Now, if you get like a GC but you didn't put the two credits in for the tournament button, you don't get anything. It doesn't count. It doesn't count at all. It doesn't count. So you have to put in – and of those two credits, half that money goes into the tournament pool. So that's how that cash amount gets built up over the month. It's not retroactive. You have to put in the two credits and hit that button. Funny you bring that up because I've seen people. So they'll play the monthly cash game.
    7:56
    This month it's Stranger Things, correct? Right. And they'll play. They'll coin it up. They'll play, and they're like, holy shit, I got the GC. But they weren't in the – How do I get the tournament? It doesn't work that way. You have to gamble from the get-go. Well, it's not gambling, actually. It's skill-based. Skill, skill.
    8:16
    Oh, I don't want to get canceled. Okay, good. But that's a super easy way for any operator operating any of those games to increase interest in it. People like to earn money. Correct. Did you mention where you can find that tournament button? It is in the menus. No, no, the actual hardware. Oh, the button. You can buy that from, I think you can buy it from anyone. We buy ours from Marco.
    8:45
    It's just a start button. And then the wiring is already in there. Yeah, a few bucks. They're under $20. One important thing to notice is that there's two different ones. So you need to know if you're doing it, is it for a Spike and a Sam? They're two different? Right. The connectors are slightly different. So make sure that you get the right size for your era of game. But I think now they're all, the ones we're getting now are all Spike, right? So it's a smaller connector? purchase them that way oh okay i didn't know you get to choose yeah so just go and make sure that but you can always hardwire them if you know you could yeah but the connectors are already there you can quick connect these so it is really just to put that in it takes me less than five minutes right they're inexpensive put them on all the games have some fun with it pop in pop out you're done uh and the big players love it it's a good earner because uh it's a good earner for the players the players finally get to make some money back yeah right yeah and they've made some like good money yeah yeah we had uh what roland won some who else a bunch of people maybe henry walt wood all those boys okay back to the earnings okay where are we um number four we'll do top five today top five number four is bond 60th another l1 60th and this is one game where Rachel did not think this would earn. This was one time that I've been wrong. And I think you didn't think it would earn because it's not really a story-driven theme. It's more of like the perfect competition with friends game and tournament game. Totally. And I assumed, I thought it would earn very well its first month and then fall off because I didn't think casual players would be as into it. Right. They're into it. And it's an expensive game. Like when it dropped, it was $20K. Oh, yeah, to buy. Right, to buy. And then now you can find them for around like $14.
    10:52
    Now that's a deal. Yeah, buy, buy, buy. It's a fantastic game. Absolutely. Another banger by our friend Keith Elwin. Yeah.
    11:00
    Can you imagine three games out of the top five? I'm going to spoil it because number five is Scooby-Doo. It's not an Elwynn game by a long stretch, not an Elwynn game. But it did work the whole month. Tell me about Scooby-Doo. Well, I think I've just jinxed us because I said something about it working, but I believe it worked the entire month. Every time we do that, you think we've jinxed ourselves, but we didn't. We get to the arcade and it's still actually on. Yeah, and so just for reference, there's a bigger gap between Godzilla and the second place game than the second place game and the fifth place game. So two through five are all very close together. Right. I figured Scooby-Doo was going to be a big earner because, first of all, it's a – Stoners.
    11:58
    Stoners. but it's a wide body which grabs people's attention it's beautiful from across the arcade now if you own a Scooby get that little auxiliary board that actually lights up the topper that's a huge plus especially if you have this thing on the streets if you're operating it is the thing just says come play me it's wide it's green it's super colorful and looks cool and casuals. We always see casuals on it. Everybody knows Scooby-Doo. Find me somebody that walks into the arcade that isn't familiar with that theme. I just, I wish it had Kiss and Don Knotts.
    12:43
    They were in Scooby-Doo. Okay. Yeah, but that would have been more expensive. Also, Don Knotts has been dead for a long time, so it would have been even more difficult.
    12:54
    Right, but they already have the... Oh, you were going to have them do special call-outs. No special call. It's just from the show. Oh, I thought I'd like to have him doing like a single bullet Barney Fife call out for Scooby-Doo.
    13:06
    Got my damn bullet, Ainge. Three's Company. He didn't say damn. It was Three's Company. He's been on so many. He's been on Fish Cult. Wanda was the name. What a great guy. What are you drinking? I am drinking Rye's Matcha Mushroom Latte with Mushroom Coconut Creamer and Blueberry Lavender Trader Joe's Almond Milk. Holy shit. Let me try that. There's some unmixed matcha at the bottom.
    13:33
    It's real, real good. What are you drinking? I am also drinking Rye's, but this is the coffee version with a mushroom coffee creamer, Rye's, and a little blueberry almond milk. It's almost like we made these in the same kitchen. Yeah, that would be interesting if that happened. okay where are we on earnings did we do the top five we did the top five so so we're done with that done with the earnings report yep we are absolutely elwyn takes it elwyn what is it with elwyn he makes an amazing game how is he so good uh well i think we've talked about this before and certainly his experience as a player helps but also i think he's just i think he's just good at it you know some people are just good at things you see people who've never like you're good at painting thank you i did you know that that was a long i worked at it for a good i guess i've been working on it for about 30 years now and you're one of the best one of the best in the world thank you uh yeah so elwyn is the man uh and we have man another great designer stern jack who is I mean his first Cornerstone game right which is Foo Fighters Man Foo Fighters The Foo Fighters. What a great game. We're excited to see what else he comes up with. But, man, Stern is knocking it out of the park. They've got some great designers there. Yeah. All the other guys are great, too. We can't wait to get our hands on Venom, which we will next week. We will have Venom here. I don't know when this is going to drop. I'll put it on YouTube as fast as possible.
    15:27
    Just so people know, this is September the 16th. I might do it today. I don't know. I'll try. Just get a little crazy with it.
    15:36
    Tuesday or Wednesday we'll have Venom. Hopefully Tuesday in time for the tournament. We'd like to throw it at the tournament. I like to throw games in the tournament that people haven't practiced on and on this. To fuck with them. Oh, yeah.
    15:50
    But, I mean, everyone equally. It's just fun. And, like, no one has a big advantage. And then, yeah, I enjoy putting new games in on tournament day. And I love it when you do that. So does everybody else.
    16:03
    So the, what is it? We're getting the Pro. Venom Pro. We don't know about the premium or not. We kind of want to play it, worried about the reliability. Full disclosure, worried about the reliability of some of the stuff. so let's get into our mailbag section wow you don't even you don't even put it out i know i have i have mailbag i had it in the uh in the pipe there okay in the pipe okay blow the pipe wide open right let's blow it wide open uh the first first question okay is this a whole new segment surprise not only is it a new segment it's a new podcast the whole The podcast is new. The whole podcast is new. And we really, we have no idea what the fuck we're doing, but this is going to be a lot of fun.
    16:53
    So, new segment. Especially whenever you put me on the spot to answer mail. This is how I want it. Oh, okay. I want it candid. I don't want, I didn't want, I was thinking, you even asked. You said, if you have questions for me, let me know so I can be ready. But I want it raw. And then you said okay. Yeah, I said okay. So I pulled up the earnings report. And now surprise. Happy birthday. Question number one. And this is from iKoneki on Instagram.
    17:27
    I don't know if we know this person or not. Anyhow. What are the odds you're saying that right? How would you say that?
    17:35
    Oh, yeah. A win for me, huh? Okay. So do you read rules before you buy a game? No. Or do you try to learn as you go?
    17:48
    How would I know? We buy it. We have every Stern game that comes out, our distributor, Game Room Goodies, they already know to order us one. So we're down for buying the next game in perpetuity. But you buy some older games. Oh, oh, oh. Right? Yeah. You don't just buy new Sterns. No, that's true. I didn't even think about older games. Yeah. I don't read the rules about anything, but I would usually buy a game that I wanted. It's a game that I already know that I like, so I would kind of know the rules. Right. At least the base level. Yeah. Yeah, I would have played it before and thought, this is a fun game. Mm-hmm.
    18:37
    And this is from Missouri Pinball. Oh, we know those guys. We chat with them all the time on... Maybe we'll see them again at Expo. Oh, God. We met him in Expo. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for the question. Hope you guys come to Chicago. We are going to be in Chicago. We're going to be at Expo. It's going to be a lot of fun. Can't wait to see what kind of new stuff. There might be some surprises there.
    19:03
    It wouldn't be an Expo without a surprise. It may be game related. It could just be a giant. Missouri Pinball. Question about Venom. Oh, it's not really a question about Venom. It's a question about the future of pinball. Venom is a step towards the future of pinball. I think they're talking about saving your progress. Really cool.
    19:26
    What are other steps for casuals or youth to get them into pinball? You see them in the arcade all the time. They come in and they're overwhelmed. Holy shit. We see them. They go into one room. Ooh, pinball. Oh, God, there's a lot. Right, well, the first room, for those of you who haven't been to Electric Bat Arcade, the first room is, the wall is completely lined with Japanese rhythm games. Our friend Chewy operates these games, and thankfully he took that on, because I wouldn't even know where to start with these things. They're all online, and apparently, from what I understand, it's actually very hard to get all that done.
    20:08
    And then you go into the, and there are some pinballs in that room, pinball machines. Yeah, like nine or ten. Yep, and then you go into the next room, nothing but pinball machines and a giant alien shooter. I mean, just with like a, what, 70-inch screen. It's huge. It's unbelievable. And then you get into the big pinball room, which is lined with tons of pinball machines and two video games.
    20:32
    So, but you see these newbies come in, these casuals. They come in. They go to themes that they recognize. Yeah. We see that every time. Dolly Parton gets an amazing amount of play for an old game because people love Dolly. Then they go to a different theme that they recognize.
    20:52
    And then they go to a different theme that they recognize. True. We see a lot of casuals on stuff like Rick and Morty, which is not a favorite amongst real players, more experienced players, but the casuals love it. And so do you think that's – is theme a way for casuals to get into pinball? Is that going to be it or is it going to be the gimmicks like saving progress? No, because no one's even going to step up to a machine. No one's going to step up to a whirlwind if they've never played pinball before and be excited about saving progress. Oh, I'm into the cellar like four times now. so it has to be theme is the gateway but then saving progress is going to keep them coming back that's dopamine 101 this is how this is going to work oh I almost made it to the next level oh I finally made it to the next level oh but there's just a little bit more and then I can get even further for sure I hope that there's some retroactive of progress-saving games with Stern, just because I'm so excited to see how it affects just gameplay in general. I'm interested in the experiment. What game would that even work with where you're saving progress? You mean like, say, on Jurassic Park, if you've gotten so far to the visitor center, you would save that and then try again on your next try? Yeah, I mean, I don't know exactly how it would work, and I haven't thought that through even before. I mean, you just sprung this on me, so. Well, that's what I need. I want that raw, candied. I'm going to need more matcha. Well, hey, cheers. Cheers to that. Arriba. This is fun. This is great. I love doing this in your library. And since we're married, it's also yours.
    22:57
    Half yours. Lucky me. Okay. Yeah, but the way is theme, and then this progress thing is going to make pinball more familiar to video game players. Call of Duty for pinball.
    23:17
    Pokemon. Oh, this would be the best. This is my dream, and I don't even care about or know about Pokemon, but I know that you collect a bunch of little guys and they do things. I, my first venture into Pokemon was on the Game Boy Advanced. My friend Kelly and I got super into it. And this, you'd have been in your mid-30s when that came out. Yeah, I was, I was on the road touring with a rock band. Oh, then you'd have been in your 20s. Yeah, I think, I don't know. It was like one of the first Pokemons on Game Boy Advance. And I don't know whether it was yellow or silver or black. I totally forgot. But it's like a role-playing adventure. And it was really cool. Kelly got me into it.
    24:03
    Hi, Kelly Lee. Thank you, Kelly. So he got me into it. And then from there, I kind of dropped the whole thing. I'm not super into it. I played it. I enjoyed it. It was a lot of fun. It is one of the biggest games in the entire world. And then I kind of got back into it again with the, is it Pokemon Go? The iPhone thing? Yeah. That was fun. And I played it for a little bit. I'm not really a phone game person. Right. That was cool. And, you know, we still see people everywhere playing that. Yeah, people do, like, little screen grabs of various Pokemons at the arcade virtually. Right. so this is if here's the thing and and the rumor is some manufacturers working on it maybe it's stern i don't know i've heard this rumor and we hope it happens because this will be a game changer because we have a lot of people who would be into this the younger crowd that are playing these uh japanese rhythm games this is going to be the gateway to get them into pinball Theme. We're jumping off. We're jump-starting off your theme, springboarding off your theme comments. And with Insider Connected, this is a must for saving progress because you have to collect hundreds and hundreds of these crazy little creatures. Yeah. Charizard.
    25:38
    Charizard? Is that what it's called? Mm-hmm. And what's the little yellow one, the pookie man? pokemon no what's the oh pikachu pikachu yellow rabbit thing yellow i'm excited about this kale and i are gonna just kale and rachel do pokemon there's a okay we have another question just came in this is from captain keegan oh we know captain keegan we love captain keegan love him uh what is jersey jack up to we we have no idea we don't we don't know for certain we've heard all the same rumors everybody else does it looks like their next release will be the steve ritchie title uh rocket man or elton john or something like that are you excited about this no you don't like elton john he's fine i okay so i'm a huge elton john fan what did you call him the dirty cowboy the brown dirt cowboy Yeah.
    26:44
    I am an Elton John fan. And you didn't make that up. That's a thing other people are familiar with. Yeah. It's on the pinball machine.
    26:52
    He's also the rhinestone cowboy? No, that has nothing to do with it. He kind of is, though, isn't he? Yeah. I mean, if he's a dirt brown cowboy, he's the rhinestone. He does rhinestones, yeah. Is that more than dirt brown? I'm a huge Elton John fan. I've seen him live. I've collected the vinyl. and even I'm not super excited about the pinball machine. But who knows? I wasn't excited about Godfather, but we ended up buying one. That's true. It was, yeah, maybe it'll be amazing. Maybe it'll have four superchargers. Now it'll have that Jersey Jack. I think. Billionaire to millionaire. There we go. I think the one thing I'm excited about seeing is it seems like, and these have been rumors. What we've heard from people who have worked with Steve in the past, he kind of felt like he was hamstrung. Is that the right word? Hamstrung by the bomb.
    27:52
    And he's wanted to do crazy, outrageous things, but, you know, the accountants would be like, hey, let's reel it in. He might not have that here. They might go do whatever you want. That's why I think there's going to be four different things that shoot the ball around the play field. I'm excited about it. You've got your Getaway, your Roller Games, your Star Wars, all those. NASCAR, was that? Was that him? Anyway, things that shoot stuff around play fields. That's what he likes to do. Wasn't that Pat? Didn't Pat do NASCAR? I don't know. I don't have one, and I don't pay attention to it. And Mustang was Ghostbusters' dude, I think. um what about this is why you ask us questions about things that yeah break anyway um so yeah uh you you're not you're gonna play this before you get it um if you do get it you don't think you're gonna get it at all right well it depends on when it comes out also because our Our budget is pretty tied up with the releases that we know of coming out. If it happened to come out during a dry spell and turned out to be an amazing game, we'll buy it. Right. And then we've also noticed don't buy a Jersey Jack Newen box because you can get it for like $5,000 cheaper if you just wait a few months. Seems to be what's going on with Godfather. Wow. Yeah. Get some real discounts. I mean, I think that's just the timing of the economy. Right, sure. I'm happy we bought Godfather when we did because it got, to this day, as far as I know, it's still the only one on location in Arizona? It was 20th in earnings. Wow, it really fell off. How long was it number one? It was number one for a second. One month, I think. One month. Actually, I'm not even sure that it was ever number one because Foo Fighters came out the same week. Almost the same. But it was basically number one Why do you think it dropped so much I think that a game you really have to be in the mood to play It's not just a, I'm going to walk up and bing-bang these shots. it you know it's it's deeper it's it's less casual even for players i think maybe people just don't like it as much as we do do you think the straight dollar play is affecting earnings at all it is on straight dollar play but so is just so the audience knows what we're talking about. There's no quantity discount. Yeah, you don't get three plays for $2. You want to play three times, you pay $3. That was an expensive game and we got to pay it off somehow. Right. I don't think that's the issue because Scooby is also on straight dollar. Oh, okay. And that's earning well. It's earning well. Okay, that's not the issue.
    31:12
    Okay. No, this is a good one. This might be its own episode. How many of these do you have? I just have a couple. I saw you in there just scrolling while I was talking. What is he doing? Is he so bored with what I'm saying that he's going to flip through Instagram? I'm totally prepared.
    31:32
    As someone new to the hobby, what are the most common spare parts I need to have around? That's from Yoshiville1980 on Instagram. Hello, Yoshi-ville. Yoshi. I like the little games with Yoshi. Yeah. We have a Yoshi in our Jurassic Park. Yeah. The van, not the van, the Jeep popped off. Yeah, blew to pieces. Blew to pieces. We replaced it with Hot Wheels Yoshi. Right, right. Mario Kart. And there we are. Most common. So, as someone new to the hobby, what are the most common spare parts I need to have around? Not tools, spare parts. Parts. Okay. Rubber. Number one thing you need to have is rubbers, and I would buy just a multi-rubber, depending on how many games you have. If you only have one game. If this is somebody new to a hobby, I'm guessing they have one to two games. Yeah, but if by the time they hear this, they may have five. You know how this works. Okay. Well, let's do this if someone owns one to five games and they just got into it last week. Let's go. Shoot.
    32:37
    Miscellaneous rubber. So a bag of rubber, all the different sizes. You can get that. From Marco. From our buddies at Marco. And you can get a bag of black or white. Mm-hmm. And we would go with... White. White? Okay. Mm-hmm. I would, you know, unless... We have both, but if one doesn't matter... Now, they feel different. Is that the reason you like white better? I think white's cleaner. People argue about whether or not it is. Right. I'm one of those people. I like to argue about that amongst other things. Not going to get into that today. Rebuild kit. And you don't necessarily need the entire kit, although that does make it easy. If all of your games are sterns, buy a stern flipper rebuild kit. But really, the parts that you're going to need to replace, and this is something for you to answer because you do most of our flipper rebuilds, but you need a coil stops. I can get into this. Coil stops for, well, if you have a stern, there's only one size. if it's bally williams keep in mind there are two different sizes for bally williams you have uh later and earlier i can't often do some research and put some stuff in the show notes we're gonna have show notes now i gotta say i've got really i've got a lot of work to do yeah you've got some homework you it's your birthday you don't have to do anything not doing any of it you're gonna use your new beat machine we'll get into that later um so there are two different sizes for bally williams doesn't really matter as long as they're both the same right and you adjust your flippers accordingly sure like let's not get too deep into this you need you need rebuild kits for your flippers um you need your your link your flipper link that's a plunger and link the because the links are the weakest link in that the little bearings inside the link break right so you i would get a bag of those. Yeah. The little bearings. I'll put that in the show notes, the part number. Yeah, you're going to have to actually put the part number because people aren't going to have any idea what you're talking about. It's going to be hard to find.
    34:45
    Sleeves. Get a bag of coil sleeves. And those are the same for common, for modern games, they're all the same size. For sure, for sure.
    34:58
    What else? I would... Solder. Get a whole thing of solder. Well, that's not a part. We'll get into the tools on another episode. What tools to grab? The stuff that breaks at the arcade, and again, we have very high use. We're the salt flats of the pinball industry.
    35:18
    And we see basically flipper parts and rubbers breaking. Anything else would be very unusual. Yep. So that's really what I would say. That's mostly it. If it's an older game, light lamps, depending on if you have LEDs or incandescents. But I think pretty much everybody's swapping over to LEDs these days, and you don't really need to replace those either once you do it. It's pretty rare. So do you have anything to add to that? No. That's light bulbs, rubbers, plunger in length, and coil stops and coil sleeves. Sometimes just a coil sleeve, a brand new coil sleeve will make things smoother. If you get all this, this will keep you from buying full rebuild kits over and over again. But if you only have like one machine, get the full rebuild kit. If you only have two machines, get the full rebuild kit. Yeah, because it's good to have those parts around anyway, the lesser wearing parts, because then after you can buy some plunger and links. One thing that you do not need to buy that whenever you and I used to work at Marco, people tried to buy a lot whenever their flippers were getting weak were the coils. Oh, I'm glad you brought this up.
    36:44
    Oh, he's got to load up for this. He's going to take some caffeine. I had to take a little sip of the coffee. It's mushroom coffee. It's not real coffee. There's real coffee in it. Is there? Mm-hmm. Like, it kind of tickled my throat. I'm going to have to hit yours real quick. That's mine. It's my birthday. Oh, there you go. Sorry about that.
    37:06
    When people first get in coils, we're talking about coils now. When people first get in the pinball, they get a machine, and this happens 98% of the time.
    37:18
    Their flipper isn't working properly. It isn't as strong as it used to be. They always go, I need a new coil. A coil is nothing more than a bunch of copper wire wrapped around a bobbin, a plastic bobbin that's in the center. And that's all it is. It's really just a dumb device. It rarely ever goes bad. It's an electromagnet. The only way it's going to go bad is if it overheats. If it shorts. Right. Or breaks, if a wire breaks. And the way it shorts is the copper wire, even though when you see the copper wire coming off of that spool or bobbin, you wouldn't think it's insulated. But, of course, it's insulated because it would short out. What happens if something hits it and cuts that insulation and you have wire touching wire, that's where a short comes from or if it overheats. And you will tell if it overheats because sometimes they will – It will smoke. They'll expand. You'll smell it. The wrapper will get real crispy.
    38:25
    That's a destroyed coil. Throw that out. Get another one. They're like $15 or $30 depending on which kind you're getting. Most of the time, those do not fail. We have coils that are 40 years old and still operating just fine. Most of the time, that is not the issue.
    38:45
    The issue, the reason flippers get weak is always the mechanical parts of it. It's not the magnet. And the mechanical parts, mostly you're dealing with the stuff we just went over, the shaft with the plunger. It gets like hammered, mushroomed. The plunger, the coil stop, and the coil sleeve. Those are the things. And another thing, and this is just trial and error when you're rebuilding. Sometimes people will not put enough space when they're attaching the... The actual flipper shaft? the cam to the flipper shaft uh so it binds and they're like oh what's going on there's an art to this just keep trying you'll nail it um you can get a a little um what is that little spacing device people use like a credit card yeah like put a hole punch in a credit card but yeah right that's about the thickness yeah that's uh how much gap you want to leave there how much play um yeah so so that's it that okay it's uh dude the coil is usually the last thing you need to change you know unless that thing overheated um okay so so back to the mailbag how do you have i know i already have first episode and people were so excited about it and you're not you're not making this up i can see these are actually right here i have everything you didn't know i'd be this organized did you no i'm really excited about this this is gonna be a fun adventure I can tell that you want to do this because you actually have made plans.
    40:24
    I've been trying to get the house painted for years. Yeah, you both. I fell back in. Yes, if you're in Arizona and you paint houses, let us know because we need somebody. Yeah. Don't we? That's a great way of getting it done. What else do we need done? I don't know. We don't know. We're going to have to check the next episode.
    40:43
    This is from Jard. Oh. Our friend Jard. He's great. He's funny. He's wonderful. I love him. Man, he's become an incredible player. He's been playing for just a few months, right? Yeah, and he tied for second place in the series. Congratulations, Jard. He got like, what, 60, 70 points? Swappers. Hopefully he'll get into state finals. We love seeing these new folks get in the pinball, and then they're like kicking everybody's ass. Including ours, which I wonder about. Like, why are me and you? I mean, I know that that's not our priority, but why are we not better? When I see these people. Because we don't play enough. Yeah. We should play more. We don't play enough. We want to do other things. Like keep the machines working. That's what we're doing. I love working on them. I love having the machines tuned because I love it when real players, people who know how a pinball machine is supposed to play, I love when they come play our machines and like, damn, these play nice. It does feel really good. I like to get snappy flippers.
    41:51
    And we do some things to keep it fun, but also challenging. Because we have to tune our machines for the players because we don't want to have a, you know, what, eight to ten hour long Tuesday tournament. And every Tuesday, 630, come play with us. We have awesome pinball league nights. So 100 people. 100 people showing up. All right. You ready for the last question? Yes. This is going to be a long one.
    42:19
    How do you start an arcade or barcade? Boy, we might have to continue this one on the next episode. Or a jarcade. A jarcade.
    42:31
    So, listen, I wouldn't touch on the barcade part of it because running a bar is a whole separate deal. That me and you know very little about. We know very little about it. I've spent a lot of time in bars, especially when I used to tour.
    42:46
    But so let's just nail the the arcade part. How do you start an arcade? First step, I would say join with a bar. Find a bar partner. You don't you don't really want to.
    43:03
    I think that's important, don't you? Like having some sort of 100 percent. I think 100 percent. It gives something for everybody. I mean, even if it's not like liquor. Well, no, it probably does. Ideally, it would be a weed cage, but we're not there yet. I would much rather deal with stoners than drunk people. Stoners never throw your stuff across the room. Or mushroom people. That would be fine. Oh, yeah. So team up with a – find a bar that doesn't have coin-op machines. Right. Right? Right. And then – Approach them. Put the coin-op machines there. Now, this was different for you because a bar approached you. Yeah, but it's the same principle, right? Same principle, right. We're joining forces. One of us knows about one thing and one of us knows about another thing.
    43:57
    Now, so I think we'll get deeper into this on the next episode, but just like – we'll go over some basics right now. But then after that, we'll get into – The nuts and bolts of it. Yeah, tokens, quarters. How much do I talk about right now? Card system. Just go with it and we can edit it. How do you feel? Is the drink hitting you? The matcha? No, you've been taking it. It's mine. I need some more.
    44:26
    Okay, go with it. So you're going to walk in. You're going to approach a bar owner. What do you do? Part of that is because of the alcohol or whatever it is they offer. part of it is because they have a built-in customer base or a built-in customer potential.
    44:45
    If you're just starting an arcade on your own that's just a basic arcade, then you are doing 100% of the marketing and staffing. I mean, you're doubling your work for yourself. So this makes it kind of an easy cushion Also if you get lucky you may not have to pay electricity right Because if you in a bar they probably already paying that bill They may ask, you know, part of their cut of the machines might go towards those sorts of things. So it's just like a lot easier. I would say once you do that make sure your machines work for us that's been a huge deal there's a lot of arcades I don't even just mean local ones but everywhere you go when you play games on location it is rare to find an arcade that even has 80% of the machines really working well we shoot for 100 which is still hard With 60 machines. Yeah, I mean. But you're so right, because when we used to play games on location in South Carolina, things have changed. But they were almost always garbage. I mean, to the point where when you walk up to them and put weight on them, they wobble. And you're talking about when you were a kid. No. You're talking about when me and you. When we were there. Oh, five years ago. Remember there was that Shrek that our. Oh, yeah. We're talking about games at bars. Games at bars. Yes. And that's where somebody would start. Yeah. You know, like when you started with a handful of games in Yucca Taproom. Like a dozen. Right. Pinball machines. But you paid attention to your machines, and most importantly, you're a player.
    46:33
    And that's one thing I always talk about, because if you want to get into this, hopefully you're into pinball. If you're listening to us, you're already into pinball. But if you want to get into operating, and we know old school operators like this, they don't even play pinball. And this is no bullshit. We know some guys who used to do it back in the day. They buy a brand new machine, put it on location, and as soon as it stopped working, they'd pull it and put it in storage and bring out another one. But I think that was mostly happening in the heyday of pinball. When you could do that financially. 80s and 90s, right. And usually they would leave it out for a while. Broken. Right. When the earnings dipped. As long as it would accept money, they would keep it running, even though like one flipper wouldn't really work. None of the lights, most of the targets, yeah. So I think it is very important that an enthusiast operates pinball machines. And I think that also because they know how they should be played, they shouldn't underestimate the amount of work that goes into keeping them running. If you're playing your pinball machines at home, think about how many games a day you play on those machines. And then think about how many people will be playing them every day. Kind of just do the math on how often stuff is going to break. So for us, every single day. And you and I, we're not there today. we're recording this podcast because it's my birthday because we're not at work somehow we've turned it into like more pinball but we are it is fun work is fun too we love being there um but we are at electric bat six days a week yeah and that's only because our um our new best friend john chopple our tech he's there one day a week so we know that there's one day a week that we don't have to be there and we're teching the other six days. Shout out to John Schappel. Good job. Oh, thank you. Love having him on the team. Great guy.
    48:42
    To jump off of that, the reason it's important that you're also a player, because we know good techs who don't play pinball, and so they think a machine works, but because they don't know the rules or they don't know about certain modes, stuff is not 100%. So it is so important that if you are operating, you're also a player and you know how this machine needs to work. And on top of that, have a way for your players to easily contact you to let you know when stuff isn't working and be thankful for it. Be thankful when someone tells you that something is broken because that's an opportunity for you to fix it.
    49:26
    Even whenever they're wrong, it turns out there's a lot of people that get a little tipsy that think a machine might be unlevel.
    49:34
    All right. It happens. But, you know, we can check, and we are so grateful whenever somebody lets us know because Cale and I are not going to play 60 pinball machines every single day and try and figure out, like, which little tiny thing might, you know, there's plenty of players way better than us that let us know. Thank you for letting us know. So when, let's say there's somebody new and they're really into pinball, they own two machines, they want to start making money with them, they approach a bar owner.
    50:11
    What is the split like? What split are you aiming for? And by split, I mean the coin drop, the money split. Man, if you are going into a bar, man, it varies. It varies anywhere from 50-50 to the operator getting – I know of some operators that get 100 percent because they're bringing in people to a bar that might not – so somewhere you as an operator are going to get somewhere between 50 and 100 percent. Would you do 50? I mean that seems kind of extreme with the price of parts so it depends on what the location is offering me if I was putting games in electric bat I would do 50 because there's some marketing there's a lot of stuff that we do and we're also helping to fix the games if I was just going into Kale's Pizza Palace and putting some games in I would not do 50-50.
    51:18
    I would need at least 75 because they're not offering me anything other than the space. And also I know what I personally bring to the table as far as like the market, like the people that are going to be coming in. Certainly. If I was brand new, I'm unsure. I mean, it really varies a lot. Right. And that's what I was talking about. If you're going into a place that's not a pinball place, that's not a destination, if you're bringing your machines into a bar down the street. You're bringing 100 grand worth of machines. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. You have a lot to pay off. That split doesn't quite, a 50-50 split doesn't quite make sense. But what if it's Disneyland?
    52:03
    Especially no, because those games are going to get rode hard. I would take 50% at Disneyland because I'm going to get 1,000 people a day playing my game. I'm going to pay that off real quick. But don't they have them on, like, free play? No. Our friend was just there. Maybe Disneyland doesn't. It didn't even work. Okay, well, that's not. Because they have the people building the go-karts. Okay, but I'm saying if I'm operating in a high-foot track place, foot traffic place like Disneyland, It doesn't have to be just a place where the venue itself is going to drive a lot of traffic to my games. The venue has more to offer me, and if my games are going to get 2,000 plays a month instead of 50 plays a month, for me it's worth that extra wear and tear because I've paid my games off in two months or four months. So I would. I'd be willing to take a lesser cut because the venue is offering me more. Well, I'm excited because I haven't been to Disneyland or Disney World in a long time. So I'm looking forward to this. We should work on it.
    53:14
    We've had our games on at resorts, haven't we? We have. That's been fun. Yeah, they were on free play and we took a heavy – they paid us well because they were going to be on free play. Yeah. That was a good, reliable machine. I missed that one. Mm-hmm. Is that kind of the basics of... Yeah, I think so, but we're going to get into that more in another episode where we drill down. Yeah, tokens versus quarters versus swipe cards, all that stuff. Details on the pros and cons of the swipe card, dealing with refilling token machines. Man, that is a full-time job. If you're lucky. Yep. And all the other good stuff, mopping, sweeping. I'd like to know if people have specific questions about operating, because I think that there are people that want to know maybe specifics, like how often are you cleaning play fields? How often are you rebuilding flippers? All that. Yeah. If you have specific questions about operating a location. Reach out to us, electricbatarcade at gmail, isn't that? electricbatarcade at gmail.com And those go directly to you. They go to me. You have to let me know when they come in. I'll be excited. Yeah, I'm going to quiz you next time. If you want to send me questions to ask him on the spot, please do electricbatarcade at gmail.com Right on. I guess the only thing before we have to go, did you want to tell people about your module you're working on? Oh, I actually want to tell them about the Discord. Oh, the Discord, yeah. And this goes along with what you were saying about community. And having a good outlet for where people can tell you what's going on in the arcade when you're not there. As far as like repairs, little lights being out, all kind of stuff. And also just friendly places to chat. Yeah. Whatever. What's going on in our Discord?
    55:19
    We are talking about Whopper Points and our home gaming channel. We're talking about some various home gaming stuff as well as books because I'm in there.
    55:32
    So I'm on there right now. We have a general channel, which people just talk about really anything, and it's mostly about bananas and at what point do you eat the banana. I like a very green banana. It's actually not about that anymore. That was a theme. That was a meme. But Roland's still running with it. And then we have a Game Issues channel, which looks like the little dude fell off, dialed in. We have a few balls stuck on Game of Thrones. Hopefully Mark will ride on in there and take care of that stuff. He let me know that he would. Okay. And then we have Pinball Strategy channel, which is very cool.
    56:14
    Ties in there telling people what's going on. and then there is a high scores channel, which is kind of cool because it's kind of like the Pindigo. Yeah, just be like, hey, come after me, bro. Yeah, I got the high score. I just did something. I just did some stuff. We've got a tournament director's channel, which I think I'm going to start adding some more stuff into that about just why certain calls get made. Right.
    56:42
    We've got a lot of players with varying levels of tournament experience. Sure. sometimes they want to know why did you do that you know you know what we should add to this um just the rules like a yeah a link to the pdf yeah that'd be cool so yeah pin the pdf okay so where can they find a link to the discord it'll be on our in our stories uh we will add a link for you to join the discord in our instagram stories we'll add it to we'll do a post on facebook whenever we drop this and in the i think i'm gonna put this on youtube first so we'll put uh show notes yeah show notes in in the youtube description and you can come in here and it's great fun just to follow along and uh and and chat about uh pinball stuff i am also going to add a bat cast channel so people can ask us questions and we can talk about that on future episodes. Alright, anything else going on? I'm making a module. So this is going to be a basically RPG for pinball. It'll be a small little thing. We get to use dice, play pinball.
    57:59
    I'm kind of finishing it up right now. Getting ready to play test it. So it'll be out before the end of the year. You've been putting a lot of work into this. You've been working on and off for a few months. But you learned InDesign to set this thing up. It's very professionally laid out. Yeah. It's exciting. And if any of you have used InDesign, you know that's not just like – it's not fun. I used to use RageMaker. Yeah, yeah. Do you remember Adobe RageMaker? I remember. Or PageMaker for those who don't get the jokes. Right. It's a joke. It was a pain in the ass. You know what I'm saying? We get it. Yeah. It was a total pain in the ass. Okay. So anything else before we go? happy birthday electric bat five years old happy birthday to rachel happy birthday to electric bats five and rachel's 44 and man and i think we have a how long how long do we have in us at least another 30 or 40 years i think that's how long the lease is for so we better get used to it okay uh thank you for joining us i hope you guys enjoyed this um and like i said we we have no idea what we're doing we just want to does it show yeah we just like they can tell we just like doing this um let us know what you want to hear uh electric bat arcade at gmail also join us on the discord and uh we're gonna we're gonna have a lot more fun stuff going on we will have venom in the arcade by the time people listen to this basically yeah we'll have venom in the arcade we're super excited to take that on and uh yeah let it let us know what you think what what more do you want um how's the video how's the audio we want to hear everything we want to we want to make this thing as as good as possible and something for you guys to enjoy and uh and uh think think about when you're uh enjoying your day okay electric bats are out thanks everybody