Welcome everybody to Canada's Pinball Podcast. Happy Friday. We are what? It is December 13th, and I'm here to tell you right now, with 100% confirmation and certainty, we are going to see a new Stern machine in less than a month, in about three weeks. If you go back in history, where does Stern always go early January? They love to rock up at CES. They've been there many, many years. JAWS was revealed there. It was revealed there. I believe Jaws, the teaser, was on a Tuesday, and then the game was at the show on a Thursday, and they've revealed games like Stranger Things at the show. I think even Venom was there. Or no, Venom was sometime in August. I think Venom was, so sorry about that. Scratch that one. But we are now at that period where the year is over. We've got Metallica. We're going to talk about that. We got some X-Men issues that never go away. We've got people speculating about Spike 3. I've got some news on that for everybody out there. I think everybody's got to sort of simmer down a little bit about what their expectations of Spike 3 are going to be. And we're about to close out the year. And I think whenever a pinball year closes out, there is a moment of reflection. We think about the games that came out. We think about what all these companies have achieved in the last year. Have we seen pinball go forward? Which pinball companies are making the right decisions? Which pinball companies seem to be taking some steps back? Which pinball companies don't seem like they're going to survive much longer? Let's go around the horn on this episode and just see where they're at in pinball right now. I'm not going to do a recap of the year show right now, but let's just go around and see where everybody is currently at in the state of pinball and what the news is out there in the pinball world. Let's talk first and foremost about timing around this next Stern game. So CES this year is Tuesday, January 7th through Friday, January 10th. That works out really nicely for Stern pinball. So then I would sort of step back a little bit and I would expect Stern Pinball to release a teaser on the Friday before that January 7th moment because I think they're going to want to have the game on the floor when CES opens up. If we look at the calendar, then I would expect Stern Pinball to tease reveal the title of its next game either on Thursday, January 2nd, or Friday, January 3rd. Will they do something at the end of December like a New Year's celebration and give us a little holiday treat? I don't know, but it is coming. Is it going to be Dungeons and Dragons or is it going to be King Kong? Now, here's the thing. I've learned a lot of new information about Spike 3. You've already seen some of Spike 3, everybody. If you open up your new Metallica and you're noticing, right, there's a new power system in the game. That is part of Spike 3. What if I told you that Spike 3 isn't going to be a new platform? I think everyone's thinking about it like that. I think everyone thinks that Stern Pinball is going to go from head to toe and make all of these significant changes to their platform so that when you see a Spike 3 Stern machine, you're going to be seeing something radically different. I think a lot of us thought there might be a bigger screen in the machine itself. I think when I interviewed George Gomez, he might have alluded to that. But maybe it's just a better quality screen. Maybe it doesn't need to be a larger screen. Maybe they're not going to make the speaker grill area smaller. And so I'm here to tell you right now that with utmost certainty, I think everybody should now sort of lower their expectations, lower their expectations of what their spike three feelings are. And that doesn't mean you should lower your expectations of what Stern Pinball is going to put into market. Because the other thing I heard is that on the next two releases from Stern Pinball, they are really going to push the envelope on creativity. And you're going to see a lot more creativity in their next two releases. And they can do more things creatively because of the power of Spike 3. and what Spike 3 will allow them to do from a design standpoint. And that's really all that matters. I think everyone needs to think about Spike 3 more as processing and less as a platform. And I think, you know, for those of you out there who think like, oh, Stern's going to start to look like a Jersey Jack machine, it's not going to happen. Now, if you think about the things you want in a Stern machine, we want more advanced lighting. I don't really think like a better display is anything that really matters at all. To me, it's not the display. I would love to see Stern be able to power more interesting stuff underneath the playfield. We know when they did Spike 2, they did a major overhaul to the board systems in the games, the node boards. We might see more innovation there. We know that Insider Connected is a big initiative for Stern Pinball, so I expect maybe more seamless integration with the Internet, maybe a better Internet experience. Holding your phone with the QR codes is very old and pedestrian, and maybe they're going to advance that. There's no camera in a Stern machine like there is in a Jersey Jack machine. I don't think there will be, but it'd be nice to have one. I'll tell you where I would love to see pinball go is with better internet connectivity. I would love to really feel like I'm playing against the other friends of mine in the pinball industry. and if we're playing against each other on the same game, it would be cool to have an outwardly facing camera so I could see them and they could see me as we are playing each other and we could even talk to each other through the machine. It's kind of crazy that you've got this ginormous seven to $13,000 piece of technology that's hooked up to the internet and we can't use it to sort of communicate video and voice which is the easiest thing to do when you're connected using the internet to somebody. But look, this stuff is not what we really, really want. Like at the end of the day, what everybody really wants and what everybody is really craving is something that is magical. We want a theme we really want. We wanna look down at a game and really see something special. And we want something that justifies these high prices. Whether or not there's a price increase, we shall see. I was hearing it was going to be $600. We shall see. Look, if that doesn't happen and I'm wrong, all of you are going to be happy. And I hope I'm wrong and I hope you're happy. I don't want to see price increases. Will it be D&D or King Kong? Now that I know that Spike 3 isn't going to be like launched with a title, that you're going to see it sort of slowly rolled out across the 2025 releases. That's the other thing, people. You might just see bits and pieces of it, like a running introduction of it. And before you know it, it's just the guts of what's going to be in Stern Machines moving forward. And they might just slowly put in one organ at a time. And so now knowing that, I don't feel nearly as confident that it's going to be King Kong because they need the big gorilla to show us the big new platform. Because there's no such thing as a big new platform now. I do think it is going to be Dungeons and Dragons and King Kong as the next two titles. If the rumor is that they're working on something truly ambitious for Dungeons and Dragons and it wasn't ready yet, then maybe it is King Kong. Look, it's a 50-50 thing. There's no third mystery title The only third mystery title that it could be might be Fallout Now look is Dungeons and Dragons just a code name for Fallout I was thinking about that Because Fallout is a show about a video game in a post-apocalyptic future in which they all live underground. So you could maybe think that's a metaphor for Dungeons. Maybe, right? Just maybe. It's the same way we thought Pokemon, gotta catch them all, was maybe a metaphor for X-Men, that you got to catch all the X-Men if you're Professor Xavier. So that is all happening really soon. The good news is this, everybody. If I were all of you, let me just give you some advice. Don't buy anything right now. Don't buy anything. There's no point in buying a Metallica remastered premium. They're going to make those for years. There's no point in going in on an X-Men now. Those prices continue to go down. Jack has been missing from the thread and that's bumming people out, right? It's almost making it look like he doesn't want to be a part of the conversation on Pinside. I know he cares more than anybody about this game. He is tirelessly working behind the scenes to make this game as good as he can. And I almost understand why he's not on Pinside. It's just going to be relentless. And he can't win. And he can't make changes to the game fast enough to satiate a real-time forum that has all these anonymous people. many of which don't even own his game, complaining about his game. So there's that. Now, as I look at this Metallica remastered and the Sparky heads are flying off because they are glued on, and, you know, that visual of just a headless, decapitated Sparky on the playfield, on these expensive Stern machines, It's another thing that just makes me feel so deflated for the company because you never want to see that. You never want to see, with all the money, all the engineering, all the time to make this game, how John Borg thought that it was a good idea to use a hot glue gun to attach the sparky head. The other game, it was engineered so it was screwed into the body. What this shows everybody, again, it just shows that these games, like they're really not doing the quality control testing that they should. I was just in the Metallica thread and now everyone's talking about how to fix the drop targets. Like you got to fix the springs on them to make them operate right. The hammer in the game, if you love that hammer in Metallica and the original game, the whole point of that hammer, the whole magic of the hammer is the hammer is supposed to come down and smash the ball through the playfield. That is why the hammer is so cool. And it creates that magical illusion that it has smashed the ball through the playfield, but it's actually holding the ball inside the hammer. Now, that magic trick, that whole moment of wow doesn't happen in the new game because the new hammer, the new hammer sculpt is too thick. So the hammer doesn't go all the way down to the playfield. It doesn't even go close to the playfield. So it stops short. And so how did that even become a thing? How is that improving upon the old game? And I think that's a major, major mistake on the part of John Borg. How can you say you improve these mechs if you remove some of the magic from the mechs? And so the lesson for all of this, people, is if you buy right away, I mean, look, the Metallica LE buyers were smart. Your games are worth a lot of money. At the height, they were going for $18,000, $19,000. They won't stay that high. Everybody knows that. They will not stay that high. As more and more Metallica premiums get out there, it's the same exact game. People are going to add the expression lighting. They're going to add better trans lights. They're going to make their premiums look nice. And in the end, everyone's got the same game. Just something about the newness and that's got everybody excited. But it's going to hold value. Absolutely. Metallica LE will hold value. I don't think you'll ever see one for below $13 the way things are going. But I don't think you're going to have to pay $18 now that they're going to be opened up. And look, there's always going to be people who buy the game based on the hype and the FOMO. And Metallica is not their favorite band. and they will look to move on. So that's Stern Pinball. Lots happening. I've spent too much time talking about Stern. All right, let's go over to Jersey Jack Pinball. Not a lot of news with JJP. Avatar continues to be a game where every time I talk to people about playing it, everyone's like, eh, it's kind of just like a shoulder shrug experience. I think the game is a total miss. You know how I feel about it. The UV light doesn't really work. It absolutely does not work on location. Everyone who ordered a $15,000 CE, you've all lost $5,000. You do know it, right? I always say like, you don't know it yet. You should know it. You're not going to get anywhere near $15,000. And I don't think it's a game that's going to be bolted to your game room floor. And here's why. The game's not going to make you feel great. I mean this. The game is just soulless. It just has no emotion, no energy. There's no passion when you play that game. It's not going to excite you. And if you love pinball, there are much better Jersey Jack pinball machines that are much more exciting. I think there's much better JJP machines that shoot better, that have better modes, that get you going. So you have to be the most diehard Avatar fan on the planet. And again, the movies themselves have turned into sort of soulless journeys. Like we don't care about them. Those films really don't make you dream. You're not repeating lines from those movies. It was a bad theme selection. The game has been integrated poorly, in my honest opinion. I saw the new code. The clips still do not sync up with the movie. And the UV moments in the game just don't work well. So all eyes will be on Jersey Jack's next game. The two rumors are we're going to see Eric Meunier's Harry Potter sometime in February, March, which would be really big for this company. And it's going to be a wide body. and we're also going to see Steve Ritchie's The Matrix, which will also be a wide body. It will have guns on the slings like Star Trek The Next Generation. And so I think Jersey Jack is going to get back on track. Right now, the last few games, they've been barren. The games have been empty since Toy Story. You could argue the games have been empty since Guns N' Roses. I mean that. Like, lift a Guns N' Roses play field. There's not a lot underneath it. Guns and Roses does a good job of deceiving you that there's a lot in it mechanically, but there's really not a lot of toys. There's like no toys either in Guns and Roses. And yes, it shouldn't have a lot of toys. I think Guns and Roses executes perfectly for what it is, but it's still the moment they were like taking a lot out. And then you get the Toy Story empty, Godfather empty, Elton John empty. And so I think we're going to get back to a lot more stuff being in these games. I think they've heard the feedback. But the one thing missing from Jersey Jack games, now that they've got the flipper feel good, they've got great artwork, they've got the most beautiful lighting, the most beautiful display, the most beautiful cabinet decals. The one thing all of their games are missing and everybody over there should sit down and hear me out. And I mean this, I think this is a Keith P. Johnson, Joe Katz issue. These games are missing soul. They are missing soul. I know it's hard to explain, but there's something about the way they code their games and the experience just being too numb for the player. And I think they need to figure out, and I mean this, from the moment you hit the start button, how to put more soul and energy and moments of wow into these games and how to make it so the journey to get to those moments that showcase the soul and the heart of a game. They need to figure out a way to do it that's not overly complicated, that doesn't throw too many multi-balls at you so you're just randomly flailing to try to activate some of those moments of wow. They need to really figure that out Because even on my Guns N Roses I have to be honest I not a terrible pinball player When I had Batman I saw the entire game and I saw it like at least a few times a month On three ball, Guns N' Roses with all the outlane drains and all the patches and all the things you have to do and all the qualifying of all the albums and all the spinning of the slash record, there's just almost no way you can see much in that game if you're only on three balls unless you're throwing your machine around the room and you're really, really good at pinball. And I'm going to tell you this. I put my Guns N' Roses on five ball and I lower the outlane posts and I'm having so much more fun playing the game on every level. I'm seeing so much more of the game. And even on that, it's still really difficult to get far into the game. All right. So that's Jersey Jack pinball. Let's go over to Spooky Pinball. Spooky's having a great week. They had a great stream. I believe it was last night. I looked at some of it. The insanity mode is the one they've been hyping where everything goes crazy. It's really cool. All the mechs are laughing at you. The doors are flapping up and down. Making fun of Kaneda. Watching them play that mode, really fun. Again, as I watch the stream of Evil Dead, if you love Evil Dead, you're going to love this game. If you don't love Evil Dead, I can't see you buying one. I mean, it's all in on the theme and they do it so well. There is just nothing about Evil Dead I really want. And if Spooky Pinball has around the corner Goonies Pinball with a humongous pirate ship and it has the original Goonies movie and all that fun and campiness and nostalgia, yes, that's the kind of game that I would be much more likely to call them up and say, put Kaneda at the top of the list. Right now, I think everyone's just excited to get their Evil Deads. The showing of the game has been great. The vibe in the thread has been terrific. And the communication between the company and its customers has been stellar. Now, thinking about terrible communication between company and customers, let's go to Chicago Gaming Company. I understand the LEs are finally making their way overseas. I still think that it's just a day late and a dollar short. The game is what it is. Yes, maybe I was blowing out of proportion the issues with the topper and the speaker grill. Maybe I'm holding a grudge against this company and I don't care. I will never buy a game from Chicago Gaming Company solely based on how they treat their customers. That's it. That's where I draw the line. With so many pinball companies, I would like there to be much better treatment between company and customers. And I think you respect your customers when you don't reveal a game that you can't get to them for two years. You respect your customers when you have monthly updates. I mean, just think about it for a minute. Canada gives you, and I'm not even a pinball company. I give you updates about what's happening in the world of pinball three times a week, maybe four sometimes. Now imagine if I had a pinball company with millions of dollars on the line and I've got your money and you're waiting for the product that I'm supposed to deliver to you. And I go radio silent, not for days, not for weeks, not for months, for years. I absolutely do nothing to talk to you. I mean, what is Josh Sharpe doing? Like what are the folks over at Play Mechanics doing? Where's Mark Ritchie? Nothing to say. And if they think they're going to march in with their follow-up game, which is Halo, and anyone's going to care or go in on it? I don't think so. I think a lot of us are starting to feel like all these games are overpriced, and now the intangibles matter a lot. The variables like communication, like transparency. You want to buy from a company you feel good about supporting. Do you feel good about supporting Chicago Gaming Company. They make so much money through Churchill cabinets. They seemingly act like they don't even care nor need this money. And when you buy a game from Spooky Pinball, doesn't it make you feel like you're putting Christmas gifts under the tree for these great gentlemen over there? All the hardworking people at Spooky that they show us that we meet, that when you buy from them, you're making their dreams come true and they're trying to make your dream come true with a great pinball machine, that's a really good relationship to have. It's a really good vibe to have. And it's a really good reason why these pinball companies should take notice. In a world of all this parody and all these expensive games and so many pinball companies, it's going to be the company that makes you feel good about supporting them that survives what's about to happen in pinball, which is the oversupply of everything, the collapse of pricing, which is coming, and everyone's out of room. So the only things that are going to win are truly magical machines or companies that make you feel truly good about supporting them. And right now, I honestly don't think CGC is understanding any of that. All right. Wow, Kaneda. Happy Friday, Kaneda. Are you in a holiday mood or what? All right, let's go on to the next company, Dutch Pinball. So as of today, the deal between Dutch and Stern Pinball on Back to the Future is not dead. Before we get there, I have heard that Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is still on track to be made in January. So we should see that line going in just a few weeks. So hopefully that happens. That's what I've been told. We shall see. As you know, I'm friends with Melvin. I'm friends with Barry. I would love for them to get this game on the line when they said it's going to be on the line, and I won't go after them until I see otherwise. Now, back to the future. The deal is not dead. Stern Pinball still wants this machine. They want to help Barry make this machine. They want to create a win-win with this title. Here's the latest, everybody. I'm here to tell you right now. If Stern Pinball and Barry can reach a deal, Keith Elwin will make this game. You will get a Keith Elwin back to the future. And you will get all of Stern's best coding team on it. They will make the art package look much better than Barry's art package looks right now with just the logo on the side. You know, the way he just slapped the big Lebowski logo on the side. But no deal is done. And I know Barry wants as much money as possible. But also, Barry, come on. You can only make like 10 or 15 games a week, Barry. 10 or 15 a week. These guys can make 500 to 800 a week. and he can get some money on every single one. And I think if you know Barry, I mean this, if you know Barry and now you know that Back to the Future could be a Keith Elwin game and Barry and Dutch Pinball could be the executive producers on the game. Their names would be on every single unit. Everybody would love them forever. Barry, I mean it. If you want people to love you, they will love you because you saw the greatest way to give the community the best version of Back to the Future possible. Now, look, I know there's people out there that think Dutch Pinball, you know, looking at Lebowski, can make a better version of Back to the Future than Stern. I understand why you would think that. But here's my thing. I would tend to agree with you if, and I mean this, if, Barry has made more than one machine in 12 years, right? And then we've got Keith Elwin as the alternative, the best pinball designer maybe of all time, especially of modern times. And we know that Back to the Future is a dream theme. We know that George Gomez regrets not just securing that license because he listened to a Gen Z focus group who probably wanted to make Hannah Montana. and so here we have the greatest designer of all time wants to make what would be the greatest pinball theme in the last 20 years and Barry would make a bunch of money for not even having to do much other than getting paid for securing such a good contract to me that's a win-win to me that's a win to me where things fall apart is Barry wants to make it on his own and I get why you want to do it Barry but then what happens right the game not far enough into development as it is right now And then the real issue is this And Barry you know this What happens when you get, what happens when, what happens when 8,000 people want the game? We know what the only way out is. The only way to lower that much demand is to raise the price. And if he only wants to make a few thousand, because he can only make a few thousand in like five years. You know, you're looking at a 15,000 plus game. And is that really a win-win to get Back to the Future into the hands of the pinball loving community? So we'll see what happens there. I think he's going to have to make up his mind sooner or later. Next year is the anniversary year of Back to the Future, the 40th anniversary of the movie. So whoever's doing something hopefully is doing something now. All right, who are we missing? Turner Pinball. I don't know if games are going out yet. I think they might be. Turner, nothing to say other than, you know, Chris sold his 100 games and we look forward to seeing what he does next. Barrels of Fun. Let's talk about them because I played Labyrinth. Okay game. Theme did nothing for me. You know, it's kind of like one of those games where you play it and if you don't love the theme, you're sort of not really sure what you're doing there in front of the machine. I mean it. it's just not a machine that's going to pull you in if you don't love the theme. Yeah, and I think that's it. I mean, that's my feelings on it. I like the guys over there. I like that they did this as their first game. They now need a theme that people want more. They now need a theme that gets people much more excited. And this is just not the theme for me. And this is another company where there are new games coming out sometime soon. I mean, we're looking at early spring. So I think you're going to see this game right around TPF or right after TPF. And I thought it was Goonies. I thought it was Goonies and I don't think it's Goonies now anymore. Maybe it is Gremlins. I don't know what it is. I hope it is something that really is nostalgic and gets people excited. All right, who else are we missing in the world of pinball? American pinball, Cuphead. Are we going to see it? Nobody knows. Nobody knows. There's no momentum around this Cuphead launch. I don't know. At this point, it's just never going to be able to live up to any of the expectations, which are almost non-existent to begin with. Again, there's just too many people executing too well right now. And it is a shame. They've had like four years now under new leadership. They should be much more successful by now. And that's all I'm going to say. You know how I feel. You only get so many swings at the plate before you need a hit. And they need a hit. And so if this game's a hit, they need to get it out. And it's just that simple. All right, Multimorphic. Are people getting these princess brides with the swords attached to the cabinets? I still don't think people have them. I still don't think people have them. They're trickling games out. Jerry's going to keep doing this. You know, I mean, it's like I don't really have any, you know, I don't have any like strong feelings about it either way. When I play this game at shows, I have a good time. But the reason I have a good time, I'm just going to say this. The reason I have a good time playing multi-morphic games is because I know I'm not going to buy it. It's like my holiday party last night. I went to our company holiday party and I had a good time drinking the two cocktails that were on the menu. I didn't really like them, but I enjoyed them because I knew I didn't have to pay for them. And that's how I feel about multi-morphic. It's like, I always have a good time playing them at shows, but not in a million years if they're like, okay, cool, Chris, do you like it enough to spend $10,000 to $13,000 on one? Absolutely not. And then every time I see people trying to sell their multimorphic with all their kits and they're like $20,000 plus in on all those kits, they can't even get like $13,000 back for it all. No, thank you. No, thank you. No, thank you. And I still can't get over on the platform those two flipper buttons that are just not what you do. Like no other game with multiple flippers requires you to play that way. And it's just awkward. And the reason they do it is they know because like the coils heat up. It's just weird. It's all weird. The whole thing is weird. The whole thing is weird. It's like Jerry legitimately could have made millions of dollars more if he just made a normal pinball machine. And he knows that. And he refuses to test that out. And that's just weird. You know, you're in pinball. You have to be in business for profit. I get he has a dream. But at some point, don't you just wake up and you're tired of seeing like Scott Danesi just make a basic awesome pin and outsell you. You see all these other companies just make basic pins and outsell you. You're not listening to the target audience. Like you think you know what they want more than they're telling you what they want. And to me, that's multimorphic in a nutshell. It's also like a solution in search of a problem. Even though people are out of space, nobody wants swappable playfields. It's just not what we want. Because as most of you know, half of what we love about pinball machines is that they are a work of art. And when you walk by your games, even when they're off, they look spectacular. The colors, the play field, the artwork, the detail. And when you walk by a multimorphic machine when it's off and it's just a black screen, yeah, not appealing. Doesn't look good. It took Jerry almost 10 years to even put artwork on the front of the machines that are pitch black, right? 10 years. You can't walk by a machine and be like, that doesn't look good. Who am I missing in the world of pinball? Did I cover everybody, Brenda? Who am I missing? Who am I missing? I think I got everybody. You know what I just realized? Like I'm missing all these European companies. I'm missing Pedretti Gaming. I'm missing Pinball Brothers. I'm missing Home Pin over in Australia. Let me just summarize all these together. Like I'm going to group them all together. Like if you think about it, Pinball Brothers, do they have anything that's exciting us right now? No, they do not. Pedretti Gaming. No, they do not. These companies, if you ask me, I don't know what the future holds. I really don't. Like they just seem to be in it, but nothing they're making is of the same caliber of what's happening elsewhere. And if there are going to be tariffs on imports of products with this new presidency, I think these companies are going to be in big trouble. Look, nothing exciting about this Funhaus remake that I want to talk about. Nothing exciting about ABBA that I want to talk about. I guess the one thing I will mention is this. I heard the Pinball Brothers, and this would excite me, and this would make me order it. I heard they have Predator. I mean, that's what I'm hearing, that they have Arnold Schwarzenegger's Predator as a title coming out. Now look, I'm going to tell you this right now. I love that movie. I've seen that movie like a thousand times. If Pinball Brothers makes Predator, that machine will make its way into my house. And I'm looking at Brenda right now. I will put it somewhere. It'll go in the garage. But I am absolutely 100% buying that on theme alone. On theme alone. I don't even care what they do with it. I don't care if they nerf it. I will just buy one and enjoy it and then move it on if it's got no magic. but I would absolutely buy sight unseen a Predator pinball machine. Please, somebody look at stuff like Arnold's movies. Look at stuff like Jean-Claude Van Damme's Bloodsport. I mean, I'm telling you right now, more people would buy Bloodsport than Labyrinth. I'm serious. If they made Bloodsport, more people would have bought that than Labyrinth. These are men, grown men putting these games into their game rooms, okay? The majority of us grew up on more of Von Dom than watching David Bowie with his bulge and these little like Muppets popping around this labyrinth. I'm serious. Everybody, have a great day. We'll talk to you soon.