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The Pinball Show Ep 146: Is AI Trying To Purchase American Pinball?

The Pinball Show·podcast_episode·1h 37m·analyzed·Jan 30, 2024
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

Stern shipping Jaws; Gomez clarifies DMD vault possibilities; American Pinball rumored for sale.

Summary

The Pinball Show discusses Stern production updates (Jaws shipping, James Bond and Stranger Things continuing), reflects on George Gomez's recent interview regarding potential DMD vault releases and technical constraints, covers Chicago Gaming's Pulp Fiction production beginning and Spooky's Looney Tunes/Texas Chainsaw Massacre shipments, and reports rumors that Ametron is shopping American Pinball for sale due to poor sales of Galactic Tank Force.

Key Claims

  • Chicago Gaming Company's Pulp Fiction machines are finally beginning production at their factory, just under one year from the March 2023 announcement

    high confidence · Craig Bobby reporting on production updates from CGC Facebook announcement

  • Spooky Pinball is shipping Looney Tunes and Texas Chainsaw Massacre machines within the next week or so pending final parts arrival

    high confidence · Craig Bobby citing Spooky's announcement

  • Ametron (owner of American Pinball) is rumored to be shopping American Pinball for sale due to struggling sales and lower-than-expected distributor numbers on Galactic Tank Force

    medium confidence · Craig Bobby reporting rumors about Ametron exploring sale; notes design and licensing issues blamed for underperformance

  • George Gomez stated that DMD games are difficult to port over, and if Stern were to vault a DMD title, Tron would be an example that could work as an LE version

    high confidence · Zach and Dennis discussing George Gomez interview details from Stern Pinball

  • George Gomez confirmed Stern has not started developing any DMD title for vaulting or revival yet

    high confidence · Zach citing Gomez interview statement

  • Stern patented the stainless steel ring design that goes around magnets on updated machines like Iron Man Vault, preventing other manufacturers from using it without permission

    high confidence · Dennis discussing patent information from Gomez interview

  • Spike 1 would be the easiest platform to vault due to proximity to Spike 2, while White Star games like Lord of the Rings would be 'hell' due to unavailable parts like original action figures

    high confidence · Dennis citing direct quote from George Gomez interview

  • Home leaderboards for Stern pinball would likely require attachment to an all-access subscription due to exponentially higher server costs compared to location leaderboards

    high confidence · Dennis citing George Gomez explanation of technical/cost requirements

Notable Quotes

  • “Ametron, the company that owns American Pinball, has decided to put their struggling pinball company up for sale”

    Craig Bobby @ ~15:35 — Major business development rumor; first public indication Ametron exploring exit from pinball market

  • “If you want to start somewhere, you probably start there...Spike one being vaulted because it's the closest to spike two and it would be the easiest”

    George Gomez (quoted by Dennis) @ ~38:20 — Direct insight into Stern's technical roadmap for potential future vault releases

  • “Lord of the Rings White Star, it would be hell to have to do that...a lot of these parts aren't even available even if we wanted them”

    George Gomez (quoted by Dennis) @ ~39:15 — Clarifies technical barriers to vaulting older platforms; specific example of licensing/parts constraints

  • “When you bring it into the home, the server cost alone for home leaderboards would just exponentially shoot way up”

    George Gomez (quoted by Dennis) @ ~42:50 — Explains business model decision behind home leaderboard delay; ties to subscription strategy

  • “They update things that aren't working well. They'll go back to the design team and say, hey, what are we getting a lot of complaints on if we were to rerun this game?”

    George Gomez (quoted by Dennis) @ ~33:15 — Reveals Stern's vault philosophy: iterative improvement based on warranty/repair data

  • “I don't want to then later when they say, hey, my invoice is closed. Why can't I pay? Be like, well, you didn't pay fast enough. I sold it to somebody. It just doesn't feel right to me.”

    Zach @ ~25:30 — Reveals distributor payment/holdback challenges with hot-selling LEs; business friction point

  • “We welcomed trade-ins. The problem that I have is don't commit to a game. Don't commit to a game that sells out instantly, that I turn away people from buying”

    Zach @ ~26:45 — Distributor frustration with customer behavior during LE shortages; secondary market dynamics

Entities

Stern PinballcompanyAmerican PinballcompanyChicago Gaming CompanycompanySpooky PinballcompanyAmetroncompanyGeorge GomezpersonKeith ElwinpersonElizabeth Gieskeperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Ametron rumored to be shopping American Pinball for sale due to poor sales and design choices

    medium · Craig Bobby: 'rumors are now swirling that Ametron, the company that owns American Pinball, has decided to put their struggling pinball company up for sale'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Home leaderboards remain highly requested feature by collectors despite technical challenges

    high · Dennis: 'everybody yelling for home leaderboards' with Gomez confirming requests come through dealer channels

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Stern vault strategy includes iterative improvement based on warranty and repair complaints from original releases

    high · George Gomez approach: update machines, consult repair/warranty team on common complaints, and fix issues in vault versions

  • ?

    licensing_signal: American Pinball's design and licensing choices attributed to poor market reception; baffling theme selections going against buyer preferences

    medium · Craig Bobby: 'baffling design and license choices over the years that have favored original themes, which have gone against the popular taste of pinball buyers'

  • $

    market_signal: Secondary market pressure: LE hold inventory released back to market within 24-48 hours when customers unable to pay; trade-in window friction

    high · Zach describing Jaws LE inventory being re-released after payment delays and customer trade-in request denials

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.292

0:00
Warning, the following episode contains adult language and screaming goats. Listener discretion is advised.
0:11
The Pinball Network is online. Launching the Pinball Show. We got the goods this week on the Pinball Show as Dennis and I provide Sturm Pinball production updates. We discuss the recent George Gomez interview and what his statements mean for upcoming Stern games. We also chat about production updates and shipping information on Pulp Fiction, Looney Tunes, The Labyrinth, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, as well as the rumor of Ametron possibly shopping American pinball around town. Thermosgate, The Red Flags of Alice in Wonderland, and Pinball Market Trends, Skynet Edition. And for you pinball show supporters and membership subscribers, we have exclusive discussion on Elton John, What I Like, What I Don't, Ooh, baby, that's a hell of a discussion, as well as the new IO driver board offering for older cataloged games. It's episode 146 of the Pinball Show. Watch your step. Slippery show ahead.
1:09
Pinball is a game of skill. For some, it's a passion and a lifestyle. When I was younger, just a bad little kid, my mama noticed funny things I did, like shooting puppies with a BB gun. That poison guppies, when I was done, I'd find a pussycat bashing its head.
1:32
That's when my mama said... It's time for the Pinball Show. What did she say? It's pinball with personality. She said, my boy, I think someday you'll find a way to make your natural tendencies pay. You'll be a dancer. Hey, it's me. I'm Zach. Hey, that's Dennis Creasel. Hey. Hello, listener. Welcome to the Pinball Show. We're in episode 146 We've got a lot to talk about this week Dennis And the first thing that I want to cover Is your winter fall There's a play on words a bit there But this last week Man we talked about the weather And how nasty it was And you gotta be careful about that ice And I think it was like Something social media wise Kerry Hardy on his blink camera fell And broke his hip or something The guy's getting old Yeah, I saw he posted something. Yeah, he's done some sliding. That's right. Slippity slide. Some slipping. And then you posted, you know what? That just happened to me as well. And I saw that. I was just trying to let him know, you know, it's not you. It's not me. It's the weather. It was a comforting post, really. And you posted that it had happened to you. And I said, oh, dear baby Jesus, do we have a video of that? and you said, well, I do have a blink camera or whatever, a security camera, doorbell thing, and you were kind enough to post it as well. I don't mean to laugh. Yeah, it wasn't, because it doesn't aim at the driveway. It aims at the porch because that's where the doorbells go, you know, for packages and things. So you only really saw my head. You see me get down the stairs quite easily, and then once I was no longer on the stairs, you just see. You got down them quick. Oh. And you hear this. I heard a thwack. Before I laughed, I did make sure it wasn't your head. No, I did not hit my head. I landed on my ribs, on my thigh. The thwack was either those said ribs or could have been my briefcase. My laptop case. Okay. Because that was, I full on, I think the verb is starfished. so i mean all the way spread it's like the cartoon stepping on a banana peel like arms go up briefcase goes up and because we are on earth everything that goes up must come down oh man but it was a couple of things so funny i loved like a gopher how quick you popped back up I that that is I try and do that so that I can figure out immediately how much is broken.
Rebecca Hinsdale
person
Madeline Benzperson
Dennis Creaselperson
Zachperson
Craig Bobbyperson
Seth Davisperson
Kerry Hardyperson
Jaws (50th Anniversary)game
James Bondgame
Stranger Thingsgame
Pulp Fictiongame
Looney Tunesgame
Texas Chainsaw Massacregame
Galactic Tank Forcegame
$

market_signal: Jaws experiencing very strong sales across all trim levels with LE allotments selling out; Stern allocating significant inventory to distributors

high · Craig Bobby: 'sales are still very brisk for Jaws these days of all trim levels, with many distributors selling out of their LE allotments already'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Stern expanding visible female representation in public-facing roles; Elizabeth Gieske, Rebecca Hinsdale, Madeline Benz appearing on launch streams

    high · Craig Bobby detailed coverage of three female Stern employees featured prominently on Jaws launch streams

  • $

    market_signal: Stern generating large LE invoices to distributors with aggressive payment expectations; creating cash flow pressure

    high · Zach: 'we collected money from everybody...stern sent us our big ass giant bill man...I don't want to take another mortgage out of my house'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Home leaderboards delayed due to exponential server cost increase for home vs. location infrastructure; will likely be tied to all-access subscription

    high · George Gomez explanation of server scaling costs making home leaderboards prohibitively expensive as standalone feature

  • ?

    product_strategy: Pulp Fiction took approximately one year to move from announcement (March 2023) to production start

    high · Craig Bobby: 'just sneaking in under the one-year mark from their original game announcement way back in March of 2023'

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern pursuing vault releases primarily from Spike 1 era due to technical ease; avoiding White Star/older platforms due to parts unavailability

    high · George Gomez quote: 'if you want to start somewhere, you probably start there...Spike one being vaulted because it's the closest to spike two'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Stern magnet ring patent limiting use by other manufacturers; potential licensing opportunity identified by hosts

    high · Dennis: 'they actually patented that stainless ring that goes around the magnets' preventing other manufacturers from copying Iron Man Vault design

    • 4:20
    Because if I can't stand back up, that means it's severe. That's your self-assessment. That's my initial self-assessment. But of course, it takes a little while, you know, post adrenaline and everything else to just know exactly how badly damaged I am. And I was already, I still need to scrape those windows on that car or else I was going to be late. So I didn't have enough time to go back in to see if I was bleeding internally or, which I mean, I probably was, but not under the skin. I didn't see any bruising. How are you feeling today, like a week later? I am, well, it's not been a full week yet. Every day has actually been less pain. But it's still substantial enough that I don't want to be on my left side. So I can. Once I'm in position, I'm not in pain right now. Okay. But certain movements cause pain. So overall, right now recording, I don't feel anything. If you take a deep breath, does it hurt? Yes. If I breathe in too deeply, the left side will start hurting. That's gone down a great deal. The first two days were really bad. It was hard to sleep the first two days. And I would ice my back. Most of it is the ribs on the back, which is where I landed. At this point, it almost feels like a pulled muscle. But most of the pain is more like just, no, this is like injured, torn muscle pain. I bet you pulled your cartilage, man. But maybe. It takes a while. Nothing super sharp like I would think with a break, like when I fractured my fibula. There was that really sharp, sharp pain. I don't have anything like that. But, yeah. Yeah. It's getting better. In your grad school years, I know that you – a lot of bar fights and stuff and fight clubs, even though we're not supposed to speak about them. You were a different person back then. Well, I would in undergrad casually box.
    6:16
    Just casual. I love just cash. Just with roommates and stuff, and we would – it would be like no face because I had to stay pretty. It's my moneymaker. But the next day, oh, gosh, I'd be so sore no matter what. You wouldn't be bruised. You'd just be so sore. I think I did that in high school. We used to get drunk. We had a cheap pair of boxing gloves, and we used to get drunk in high school and all that energy. We had to just waylay the shit out of one another. Well, you Indiandans were very violent. Absolutely. Fried chicken and fighting, man. We're good to go. now i've got to ask what was your snack of choice said day that you fell oh my god okay so sometimes when i know i'm not going to be able to go and pick up lunch or because i'm busy or whatever i will i'll plan ahead it's my favorite part and yes i'm sure it would be and so i have those like individual size little potato chip bags i'll buy the variety variety yeah i had three little bags of chips in my bag along with a can of pop okay get into my office plug in the computer put the pop down go through put in a bag of chips into the desk drawer put in a second bag i pick up the third bag and a cheeto falls out i'm like a cheeto is on my lap now i'm like why is there a cheeto on my lap i didn't open these chips i turn around and look and the bottom of the bag had split open. Yeah. And I was like, okay. And there were some Cheetos in there. And I'm like, okay, fine. I'll just eat these Cheetos. They're the baked Cheetos. It's like 110 calorie bags. I'm like, whatever. I'll just eat those. So I ate those. Then later in the day, I need to get my notepad out of my briefcase. And I saw the other half of the bag was in the bottom. Orange everywhere. Orange dust. I had to go in the break room and dump my whole bag into the trash. I got home. I got out the vacuum cleaner, you know, a Dyson. Yeah. You know, it's got to use the fancy science space tech. Oh, that's right. And vacuum out the crevices of that. I just picture that bag of Cheetos, almost like Kevin Costner in The Bodyguard.
    8:35
    Just jumping out, Chester. You think it's, I caught my ice ball. Yes, I think it broke your fall. And it's like, and I. Just orange dust. I want Chester Cheeto to go, I will always love you, dude.
    8:54
    Yeah, as the powder just, yep, just like a gunshot. So maybe that black you heard were those Cheeto bags. Yes, they have air, compressed air. They do. They're pretty poofy. Oh, my gosh. So next time you see someone fall on orange dust, blow out. It's good stuff. I've not fallen yet this year, knock on wood. I wonder if Craig Bobby has taken Canadian Spill up there. Whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop. We'll have to find out, but it sounds like his voice is still working. Wait and slip. And I will always love you.
    9:37
    Hello, I'm back and bad to the bone. Welcome once again to the Pinball Show's Top Stories. I'm Craig Bobby. We're going to cover a lot of ground on this episode, so let's jump right in with some good news production updates. First, we have the likes of Chicago Gaming Company announcing on their Facebook page that their Pulp Fiction pinball machines are finally starting to be made at their factory, just sneaking in under the one-year mark from their original game announcement way back in March of 2023. Say what? Now it looks like many of these machines are trim levels that are destined for location play, which is a good thing if you've never tried Pulp Fiction yet, there should be one coming to a Pinball location near you. Not to be outdone, Spooky Pinball announced this week that they too would begin shipping machines to their customers of their latest Looney Tunes and Texas Chainsaw Massacre machines in the next week or so once a few additional parts arrive at their factory. And the signs of stress were all there, but rumors are now swirling that Ametron, the company that owns American Pinball, has decided to put their struggling pinball company up for sale. And would that rumored news be a surprise to anyone that baffling design and license choices over the years that have favored original themes, which have gone against the popular taste of pinball buyers, have come back to haunt American pinball, with many distributors reporting lower than expected sales numbers yet again from their galactic tank force machine. GGF!
    11:46
    settle in into the Pinside Top 100, and also relative to Keith Elwin's other older titles. Well, you know what I say, we shall have to wait and see. But speaking of Jaws, let's quickly talk about something I noticed during Stern's live stream of both the Premium LE and ProTrim version of Jaws. Who is this breath of fresh pinball air in this young, personable female team member Stern had on their stream in an otherwise usually very male-dominated lead design team. Well, I'll tell you who. It's one of Stern's newest employees, game software developer Elizabeth Gieske, who stole the show by blowing up the machine on ball two of her first game on stream while also calling out most of her shots and explaining the code for the majority of her gameplay, showing us that she's not only an adept coder but also a very skilled player and, extremely entertaining to watch. After seeing her play and converse about the inner workings of the game, I can see Elizabeth being a personality favorite and mainstay in the Stern coding department for years to come. Then fast forward when Stern streams the pro version of Jaws a couple of days later, and who do we see? Two more female team members at Stern in Rebecca Hinsdale, one of the talented streamers from Hot Nudge, who is now Stern's customer service and sales manager of parts and accessories and merchandise, and Madeline Benz from Stern's customer service department, both stepping up and showing us not only their pinball talents, but I think, like Elizabeth, also representing an extremely important demographic in pinball we don't hear or see from often enough. Yes, women. Now, we've all known that Stern employed many women in their organization, from the factory floor right up through the manager and executive level. However, it's not often enough that these women have a chance to shine and take the proverbial pinball bow in the PR spotlight for their own blood, sweat, and tears that they've also invested in the pinball juggernaut of Stern Pinball. Again, Stern employs many men and women of all ages and ethnicities in their organization. And for the last number of years, that diversity in Stern's workforce and frankly, in the world we all live in, is being shown on many of Stern's marketing materials. But now it seems we are finally getting to see and recognize these talented ladies' faces and personalities shine through on these Stern live release streams, just like their male counterparts. So bravo to Stern for continuing to let their progressive flag fly during these launch streams in showing us they not only design and create the best games in the industry for the best customers in the industry, but they do so using both extremely talented men and women. But back to Jaws now. Based on distributor feedback, sales are still very brisk for Jaws these days of all trim levels, with many distributors selling out of their LE allotments already. Clearly, when the greatest player to ever play the game on pinball, who then pivots to the greatest designer to ever design the game of pinball, makes a new game, all pinball buyers do what pinball buyers do best. They buy, putting their faith once again in the team of Keith Elwin and Rick Nagel that they will now code their way from a good solid game to greatness. So despite some of the early naysayers, after doing the analysis and reading the market trends, I think Elwynn and Stern have done it again. Delivered a soon-to-be sales and profit-driving machine right on schedule as Stern settles into their new monstrous facility in their continued expansion and continued dominating position in the pinball marketplace. A position that frankly shows no sign of letting up, with new titles like Jaws and two more yet announced Cornerstone titles coming later this year as they continue to fill demand for older titles, helping to fill their new factory floor capacity. And let's not forget, Seth Davis and Gomez have suggested going even further back to the future in their DMD.matrix display catalog. Not to mention, Stern still really hasn't leveraged their insider-connected platform fully with continued support, contests, badges, tournaments, and other code goodies still yet to come. Ooh, the king of pinball companies is alive and firing on all cylinders going into 2024. for. Well, that's all for this week for the pinball show. I'm Craig Bobby. Catch you on the flip side.
    16:20
    Thank you, Craig. That was a nice run down there. Look at him. Craig Bobby. It's like he's trying to make up for lost time. I know. Dusting off the old cobwebs there, CB. Let's jump into Stern Pinball. These listeners want to know are there any updated production timelines here no yes the past two weeks just as we expected from our previous episode james bond premium and stranger things premium had been shipping over the last couple weeks as well as as of this recording a couple days ago they did put on the line jaws pro that designed game new cornerstone by keith elwynn the game that doesn't eat the ball oh well the the pro doesn't nor does the premium le and speaking of which all right i have to i'm sorry to airball on that pro you might eat all but i feel bad about this but but it has to be done zach oh no so on the last tps episode you made this whole huge deal about the strength of jaws and the sales the sales that were going on and then what do i see this last week i got two LEs. Bye, bye, bye. It's like, oh, so you do have leftover LEs. How convenient. They're sold out now.
    17:37
    Inconsistent. Oh, sure, for now, but who knows on Tuesday or Wednesday. They're sold out. But one, you know who you are, listener. I'm a nice guy. I give you about 24 hours. But if you don't pay, it's back up on the market. yes we went through and stern sent us our big ass giant bill man there's nothing more shocking and cry worthy than when you receive that big le bill from stern pinball you're like oh no i'm not going to financially recover from this and uh so we collected money from everybody and some people well what why do you need it now they're not should be done mid-february it's like well because we're being billed that's why uh and i don't want to take another mortgage out of my house so some of them will give you the run around some of these some of these people ne'er dwells and i try to be nice well you know i got my paycheck coming or a bonus it's always a bonus do you do you ever feel like a loan shark and you're just going around break fingers like Shit. And so I'm like, okay, I'll give you until next week. And then that day came. Well, I'm thinking about trading in this Avenger. I'm like, oh, fuck. Like, people want to buy this game, man. Not going to do assessment on your Avenger. So I give them an assessment on the Avengers. Let me talk with the wife. Is that Pinball Party's fault? Because Jason on Pinball Party was encouraging, hey, you know, flipping out. That's trade-ins. And so now everyone's trying to trade in. We welcome trade-ins. The problem that I have is don't commit to a game. Don't commit to a game that sells out instantly, that I turn away people from buying. And then a week or two later when it's time to pay, say, can I do a trade-in? No. The trade-in window is over.
    19:30
    Gets to the back of the line. Oh, that poor window. So, yeah, then they come back. Well, I think I could sell it outright a little bit easier. Okay, that's fine. Well, I don't think I'll be able to pay right now, though. Can you take it in a month? No. See you. God, goodbye. Interesting. Okay. Yeah, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. When it comes to fun stuff, I guess I always just assumed people operated with enough liquid capital. 90% do. Okay. 90% do. All right, so it's not that. It's not that. Yeah, it's a good call because what I think some dealers do, this is a lot of sausage making, but some of you like that, even if it's the vegan variety. Do they make the tofu sausage, I guess? I'm sure it tastes like asparagus. Some dealers, I think what they do is they will just sell, sell, sell, and they won't cut it off until they've received full payments by everybody. The problem with that, I find, is if I commit to somebody and say, hey, you've got one, you've got a spot, I don't want to then later when they say, hey, my invoice is closed. Why can't I pay? Be like, well, you didn't pay fast enough. I sold it to somebody. It just doesn't feel right to me. So I would rather give everybody Amble time to be up now If you ask me three weeks is pretty much ample time But you know It is what it is Have you ever considered that maybe you're too nice On the business side People might not believe that but I do I give a lot of rope The phrase we say here in the deep midwest Is grace I'm very graceful You give a lot of grace But it's taken advantage of sometimes So we had a couple people unable to pay, put some backup on it. And then, honestly, though, same thing. These people that flood in, they want it, and then you're like, here I am two days later, and one person hasn't paid yet. So you're like, well, I'm trying to coordinate shipping. I'm like, damn it.
    21:24
    Mid-February is when they're coming, Dennis, Joel's, Ellie. This week, they're going to continue making Joel's Pros. You see, they're out in locations. I saw Helicon Brewery got 14 Pros. Wow. I don't get it. Yeah, I don't. I haven't, I'm not saying we haven't received one on location here yet. I don't recall seeing a post that it was here yet. So I was assuming we do not yet have one. Well, a free awesome plug. I can tell you the arcade in Wichita, Kansas is going to have one this week. How about that? I used to get down to Wichita fairly regularly with my prior job, but not so much anymore. For anybody in the area, I can't emphasize enough. Go to the arcade, Wichita. That place looks phenomenal. I am going to, Nicole and I talked about making a trip out that way so we can visit. The place is damn cool. It looks like they're doing it right there. I'll have to check to see where they're located. Downtown Wichita is actually pretty nice for walking around. If you stay at a hotel at Old Town or something, there's a lot of places, restaurants, bars you can walk to. It's all, they've got a little scene down there. They've got the cameras above the thing and then the big screen TV above each. Oh, my God, it looks awesome. So pretty soon you'll be able to play there, Dennis. Well, it's about two and a half hours to get there. That's okay.
    22:38
    Yeah, for you. Anybody in Dennis' area, buy from us. We'll advertise here for you. Mid-February, Joel's L.E.'s. This week, continue Joel's Pros. Late February, early March, Joel's Premium. And then no other updates from our last podcast. Pretty stable. Good. Yes, that's right. We like predictability. Speaking of consistent, super awesome pinball show. once a year they did once a year episodes they had a two-parter this year yeah they kind of went the head the head route they did they did which uh very welcome because they talked to a lot of the industry heads of these manufacturers like george gomez from stern pinball a lot of interesting information that i'd like to talk about here dennis including george gomez saying where they were talking about that whole statement that they gave to dealers seth davis on we might bring back DMDs, you know, that kind of stuff. That got the hearts a-fluttering for a lot of collectors. George Gomez emphasized some points to that and elaborated and said DMDs are hard to port over. So if they did something like a Tron, that could easily be an LE version. This is the example he was using because we discussed prior to that they're not going to redo LEs in the spike to LCD era. They're not going to, they're not going to throw you a 30th anniversary promise. Yes. But that didn't, they didn't say that they weren't going to go back. Like if they were to do Tron report everything over from D and D, that takes a lot to do. So yeah they they could very well easily All right I leave that I am a little confused I I get that in terms of as an exception Okay fine loophole whatever fair enough What I curious about though is from the way it sounded that Seth had been describing things was and again I know it wasn like locked in or confirmed I had definitely, though, gotten the impression that we were thinking along the lines of – because there was such a stress on the difficulty, which again was sort of noted here by Gomez, that they would keep it a DMD. It would still be a SAM system game, and they would just basically vault them, that they're not putting off vaulting them. So now it sounds like the door is open to the idea of actually modernizing them. I think both. They came back and they've said, I've heard in all these different interviews, whether it's or whatever it is, I've heard them say that basically anything's open. They just want the buying public consumer base to know that of the LCD screens, LCD games, they're not going to redo LEs in that respect. You're not going to have them. But DMDs may come back as vaults. They may come back as something even more special. They may even modernize them, which, in my opinion, kind of turns it into a different game. All of that is fair game. So anything in the DMD era can be brought back any and whatever way they want to. And I found it interesting that George Gomez is noting Tron as a prime example and saying that if that were to be the case, they would be bringing something like that over, maybe as an LE version. Also keep in mind, he did say in this interview that nothing, they have not started developing any title yet as from the DMD. I found that interesting. So he said, if we bring back a DMD, it is what it is, but we're not in development on anything right now regarding DMD, bringing it back as a vault or anything. So that tells me that if they were, we're still a couple years away, right? Yeah, I would think so. I imagine they've got quite a chart out on their plate in terms of planned. Remember, of course you do as a distributor, but they had wanted to do three cornerstones a year forever. That's always been the strategy. And then they had to do two years in a row where they didn't because of the production.
    26:42
    There were issues with supply chain. So given all of that, I think they've got a lot of licensed stuff, new stuff that they need to get turned out probably for license agreements. They just got to get through that stuff. And then revisiting things and vaulting would make more sense in the future. And George was talking about vaulting, and they haven't vaulted anything in a long time. I found it interesting that he said regarding these vaults, whenever they do like an ACDC vault or Iron Man vault or Spider-Man vault, he said the vault contemporaries that they bring out are in every way better than the original runs. He was very strong on that, saying they update things that aren't working well. They'll go back to the design team and say, hey, or he said actually like the repair warranty tech department and say, hey, what are we getting a lot of complaints on if we were to rerun this game? Well, you know, this does this, this does that. So they try to fix all of that. I like that. I've said in the past when it comes to magnets on play field because I'm a little magnet whore. I love magnets and pinball machines. I'm here to tell you manufacturers and designers out there, every game you design and manufacture without a magnet, that's a fail. That's just a fail. Sorry. But he was talking about the magnets. I always wondered why people don't do the stern magnets, where the updated ones, like on Iron Man Vault, where there's like a big platform or a big area. It's a circle around the magnet.
    28:10
    You know that on your Iron Man Vault, where instead of the little magnet that they used to use, it's a big one. I'm like, why doesn't other manufacturers use that? Well, I found out in this interview, they said they actually patented that stainless ring that goes around the magnets. Oh, the thing that keeps the magnets safe. Yeah. I was like, oh. Well, shit, that's why nobody else. Yeah, that's my favorite part on Iron Man Vault is the safe magnet. Could people not, could other manufacturers not just buy that and use it? Oh, I'm sure they could. You know, there's a way to honor the patent. like you could go to Stern and say, hey, can we buy the rings from you or can we buy permission to do – yeah, there are all sorts of ways that they could be open to doing a negotiation like that. Sure. Because I always wondered that because it works so well. Not to speak for Stern. I just mean it's not unusual for an entity to patent and then let other people use their patent. That's often a good another way to make revenue. Okay. The hosts were asking, you know, if you did do a vault, if you did bring something back from yesteryear's Stern, is it really that hard to do a white star? Would it be a spike? Tell us more about the process of how that would look. And George Gomez said, quote, if you want to start somewhere, he went on to say, you probably start there. And he was talking about spike one being vaulted because it's the closest to spike two and it would be the easiest. He said the further back you go becomes seemingly much more difficult to retheme or to vault again. He even went on to say like Lord of the Rings White Star, it would be hell to have to do that. It would be hell. He's like a lot of these parts aren't even available even if we wanted them. For example, there is no way to get the Lord of the Rings action figures again. that there's just no way to get them. So there's a lot of parts that you simply just couldn't get. Now, I don't think that that's a reason not to vault something, because you could, I mean, come on, you could figure out a way to re-engineer something. But, yeah, a lot of these things, he said White Star Games would be hell. Would be hell. If it happens, you sure as hell would not see that anytime soon. It would be Spike 1. It's funny that he says Spike 1, because we know the hit from the Spike 1 era. was none other than Ghostbusters. Yes. You can say Kiss, that's true. I mean, it'd be the number two. It'd be the number two. I think Kiss is popular because of its rarity. Ghostbusters sold a shitload, and it still holds value today. So I think that was a, hey, if we were to do something like that, you'd see Ghostbusters. That's my guess there. But yeah, Lord of the Rings, no action figures. Yeah, I mean, it's... You don't need action figures. Well, I mean, if you're vaulting, you do like the Spider-Man vault, for example, and just dramatically change the look and get rid of the action figures or get different ones. Or you change the action figures. Yeah, that's what Spider-Man vault is. Do some. Oh, come on. It's starting. Do some flat plastics. There you go. He also talked about everybody yelling for home leaderboards. We want home leaderboards. These things are great. Are they really yelling for them, though? People want them. Yeah. They really do. I get asked as a dealer, hey, is there any up? Can you ask her if there's any updates to home leaderboards? And he said, here's the thing. When it comes to home leaderboards, like location leaderboards, they're fine. They're very successful. They're pretty cool. But when you bring it into the home, the server cost alone for home leaderboards would just exponentially shoot way up because of your larger hosting needs at that point. So he said, not that you won't see. You will likely see home leaderboards in the future. There's a lot to them. but that would be something you would see attached to like an all access subscription that they're currently running right now. A lot of people doing the all access, but they're like, I don't really, you know, I don't know what I get extra or early access to that kind of stuff. But he said that, you know, that would be part of something like that to help pay for those costs of something like a home leaderboard. I think it's a, I think it's a good idea and good value building up that all access subscription and doing it through something like that rather than another per diem or a la carte kind of thing through Stern. Well, one of the benefits of the all access right now for, uh, for subscribers to certain pinballs, all access is you can get the chance at purchasing one of the alleys that they come out with direct through their website.
    32:49
    Um, he claimed George Gomez claimed that cause we never knew how many they were selling through that. Like, Oh, they're selling direct now. Well, it's for all access people. I knew it wasn't much but he said around 50 or so I think that's something that's interesting to me as a dealer and interesting maybe to hobbyists that he probably didn't even know was interesting so he just kind of slipped that out there like what do we sell like 50 direct for the all access I found that interesting 50 of them so what do we got 5% of a thousand run 5% now here's what's even more interesting another talking point do you think that 5% that doesn't sound like many right 50 a lot no I mean it depends on the size of the LE run so yeah if it's a thousand then no I mean I would have thought it would have been 10% but so I don't think it's a ton but then again when I'm looking I'm like do you think that 5% is how many dealers do you think that have their network that receive 5% of their LEs. Hmm. Yeah, I have no idea. That's interesting. I don't know. I mean, technically, it couldn't be many. Right, right. Because they get 5%, if any at all.
    34:12
    George Gomez goes on to talk about the all-access subscriptions. He says it's not about the cash. It's not like a cash grab or anything. It's rather that they're doing these, that they're selling direct. It's not a cash grab. This is just more a benefit to the all-access. And I thought that was a nice way of putting it. I think they should just get rid of all-access. No. Yeah, it's silly. It is a silly place. Let's get rid of it. And then you put out on the RSS for normal folk.
    34:42
    I want to know about Keith Allen's next game. Yeah, yes. Welcome to it. This is the real pinball. Welcome to pinball. It's all about the next game. Everybody is turning their – This is normal, though. This is how it always is. I know. Keith Elwin visited the Loser Kids, our friends over there at Loser Kid Pinball Podcast. Go listen to that interview. It was very entertaining. I always love that stuff. Keith Elwin did say that his next game, he gave him a little nug. He said, it's got four flippers.
    35:15
    In my opinion, that's his favorite flipper configuration because that's what he started with. We've got what? We have Godzilla with three. We've got Jurassic Park with three. We've got Iron Maiden with four. And then Avengers with three. And Jaws has four on the premium LE. Three otherwise. I just think that's the first design. So when he wants to go home, he goes home to four flippers. Okay. But obviously he's flexible. We had four flippers in the latest Looney Tunes Texas Chainsaw Massacre game from Spooky Pinball. Bug was interviewed on that super awesome pinball show as well. Here's something that he made a quote. God, he's such a lovable, young, fun, energetic fella. But he made a statement that I was like, that is a strong statement there, Bug. I don't even think he realized he made it. He was so excited. But I'm going to read it here. Corwin, a.k.a. Bug Emery, in a super awesome Pinball Show interview said, quote, after the next five years are over, people are going to look back and say, wow, Spooky Pinball literally just did the greatest run of themes in the history of this hobby, end quote.
    36:39
    That is one hell of a statement, Dennis. Yes. After the next five years. Next five years. So that puts us at 2029?
    36:54
    Yep. Okay, early 2029. People are going to look back and say, greatest run of themes in the history of this hobby. Oh, shit. I mean, you know, post-Robert Mueller and Deep Root, I think we're kind of used to people being able to make any sort of bold statement that they want. Good point. I do think that Spooky has a very nice track record of very strong themes. That's one of their – they're really good at themes. So if they were – so without knowing for sure, it's obviously really tough to say. I would say it wouldn't surprise me actually if maybe that ends up being true. But I have to be really cautious because it seems very dismissive of the fact that Stern has very, very strong theme runs.
    37:47
    Stern's the leader at this point. I mean, it's been ever since really when Daddy East started to do the theme thing, like around 89 or so, and started to be like, you know, this is a way we can try and get market share. that they really leaned heavily, and we saw a lot of that coming from them and Sega when they changed over as a Sega company. And Williams was later to the party on that.
    38:12
    It's just, you know, I guess it depends on, like, what makes a theme great, sort of a question. Because you look at, like, Spooky has really gotten a lot of iconic things, like Halloween, Scooby-Doo, Looney Tunes. I mean, those are, in my opinion, very strong, nostalgic, well-known themes to a lot of people. Absolutely. But all that being said, like Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Jaws. I mean, these are not nothing themes. So in that regard, I already feel that spooky is, depending on what you want, either number one or number two on theme. But I think objectively assessed, they're number two and will probably continue to be number two, which, given their size, is a very impressive place to be.
    39:07
    I think that the argument could be made if we go back and look at a stretch of a five-year run. If they really come out with some huge titles, I could see the argument. No, I mean, I can too. Because Stern spans across 20 plus years. But, I mean, what's been – even though we just do five years from now and five years from now for both companies, so to speak, what are – thinking about what are some of the spooky – I've heard Evil Dead has been rumored for a long time. Okay, so the ones that we have on our list of rumored games, Evil Dead, Monty Python's Holy Grail, Friday the 13th, Saw, Goosebumps, and some of those we've added ourselves. Right. So that wouldn't be – that wouldn't be. No, well, I mean, Evil Dead, super iconic, Monty Python, especially Holy Grail, super iconic, and Friday the 13th, super iconic. Okay. And you know what? For some people, for horror aficionados, the Saw, especially if it's around the first Saw. Okay. I mean, they've all, I mean, they're all really, really strong, either nostalgia, cult classic, or just like Saw and its sort of trailblazing. in the sense of it, that more body horror style. Well, the first Saw wasn't so much body horror. Saw was good. But it's not what you would call the greatest thing in the history of Hollywood. But when you're sitting there, you're thinking, okay, but if Stern's going to be putting out things like is John Wick any worse than Saw? I mean, it's made more money. So, yeah, I don't know. What if I said that the ones that they're referring to, the ones that Bugs are referring to, aren't in this rumored list? Well, that would make more sense to think. If you're going to sort of put your chips all in and say that we were going to have the greatest run of themes in the history of pinball, then it's going to need to be better than what we've got on this rumored list. Based on what I know, he's coming from a place of excitement, but also they do have some monsters coming, man. I'll give them credit. That's good. They do. But Stern has had some of the top licenses. In five years, Stern, you could argue Stern within five years had Ghostbusters and Star Wars. So good luck beating that. Right. Yeah. So I guess, long story short, I think Bug is incorrect, but I do think that they will have a very impressive run of themes.
    41:48
    Speaking of Bug, social media-wise, Spooky Pinball Company showed a video, I think it was a couple days ago, showing a rose of Looney Tunes and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre games being nearly ready to ship. Oh, ho, ho, ho, ho. We know that this usually around end of January, end of February, they start shipping out the first, I don't know, 20 to 30 games. And they go typically to people that they know, locations they know, that they can keep an eye on what's working, what's not, so they can adjust as they're manufacturing the remainder. Do folks get those first or Pulp Fiction's first? Oh, that's a good question. Oh, that's a really good question. It's going to be close right now. dealers like myself that are dealing for all of these games. We're getting the, are we there yet? Are we there yet? That's been my last week is, are we there yet? I call it the, are we there yet? The good news, Zach, is that's your favorite thing. I love it. Are we there yet? Is my game ready? When's it shipping? How's it shipping? Why is it shipping? Who's it shipping to? Does it ship to you first? And then does it ship out? And then when am I going to get it? So yeah, they are coming. A lot of games coming right now in the Q1 here that were announced over the last six months or so. So we should see those rolling out as well. Yeah, Pulp Fiction, Chicago Gaming Company, uncharacteristically sharing a social media video this last week of Pulp Fiction SE games on the line and saying that shipping is going to be happening, or they told me that, but shipping is going to be happening as early as this week.
    43:29
    Whoa! where they came out of nowhere and they're like here's a video they never do that they're like i wonder if they're getting a lot of pressure surely they are absolutely they are people where's my fucking game remember that whole bit we used to do years back i do not there's my fucking pirates of the caribbean our game now that was more you just you're saying that with Chicago Gaming, though. You know, you've heard the parable of the tortoise and the hare. I'm not sure CGC has heard this one. I think they saw the cover of the book and saw the turtle and thought, oh, that guy looks armored and fun. That's right. And we're going to model our whole production philosophy on a tortoise. well i can say that uh i was talking to management there over at chicago gaming company to prepare our games uh coming and yes it is true that games are online you've seen it on the video and they are shipping as early as i would say more realistically at the end of this week best case scenario it's the very best case yeah they don't want to they don't want to pull a muscle. You've got to be careful. Yes. The good thing about CGC is typically, unless they find something in these first I think they're running about 20-30 of the SEDs. It's what we call the SEDs with the black coin door, SUSO HAP coin door for the dollar bill acceptors. So a lot of locations. Focusing on locations first. I think they're doing 30 of those. And then after that probably 2030 maybe even simultaneously of the stainless steel coin door version of the sc so they're running this but usually once they start rolling they stay pretty consistent because they take a little too long in some people's minds uh to get them to this point whereas some other manufacturers may be like well we'll we'll iron out the details as we're going uh but let's start trickling some out where cgc kind of holds the entire force back until they let it let the flow go but we'll see american pinball shipping some games too yeah hold or let you see dave fixes must have hold or uh well they don't have that theme because they don't like to do licenses Well, they're holding back their thermos. Hold on. All right. I've got... What's the thing? All right. Thermos gate. I'm gating it because... It's gate worthy. Yeah. I mean, what the hell, man? Here's the issue I'm having. Look, promises were made, were they not? GTF. Sorry. GTF. Craig Bobby, side note. What the fuck was that attempt at GTF in your top stories? GTF thing? GTF when they announced this game they announced the signature edition which was a bad idea not that I told them and they ignored me but they announced it and they said we're going to have lunchboxes with the signature edition that has a limited lunchbox and thermos now if your customers want to buy a lunchbox we're selling those as an accessory okay but what differentiated that the signature, in some respects, was the thermos. You could buy the thermos because the thermos only came with the signature edition. Now, I do want to go ahead and note, because I'm sure a lot of people who are listening would think this, so I want to note my agreement that in terms of reasons to buy the ultra-expensive version, the exclusive thermos might not have been the best sweetener to throw into the pot. Nor the signed apron decal. But nonetheless, as part of their litany of strategic decisions that they have made at American Pinball, this is one that they said was the right thing to do.
    47:44
    And then a week or two ago, they come out with this big old social media campaign that says, buy, buy, buy now. No, they didn't take that from them. They said, you can buy your combo lunchbox GTF and accompanied thermos. now this is thermos gate because what the hell that was a signature edition thing why are they selling a thermi now i'm gonna i'm not gonna tell you i'm gonna speculate i'm gonna speculate that maybe if your company is in dire financial straits that a thermos at this point is your roll of the dice what can we do to keep these lights on could we sell the lunchboxes there was buzz about them look joel ingerbrough may go out and buy your lunchbox in fact i know he said he did but that ain gonna be enough i i would have i would have bought that lunchbox had it been at tpf but it wasn Oh okay That a good point Now is it going to be at this current TPF I don't even know if American Pinball is going to be at the current TPF.
    48:52
    So I don't know what's going on. So they're selling the thermos now, too. Okay. So there's that. But, Zach, I'm hearing all the – and you're a distributor for American Pinball. I know. I know where this is going. There was this article, I think it might have the most views of any article ever on Nap Arcade. I don't know if that's true or not, but there were a ton of comments. Sounds good. About that Ametron is shopping the American Pinball subsidiary around to see if there's a buyer. Yeah, I've seen that article. So what's going on? What has Mr. Fix told you? Well, they haven't told me anything. So first I heard on Pinball Party, I think Kale on Pinball Party. said that he got a text that Amtron is shopping around American Pinball. Holy shit. And then I see Knapp running with the article, and I'm like, oh, wow. Okay. Because that is a bold article to run. Because that affects a lot of things. I know you won't know the answer to this, but I want to throw it out there. So, like, so Kale got a text. Are they trying to see if he'll buy it? I mean. I don't know. I'm like, where's mine?
    50:02
    I can't buy American Pinball. I don't know. Here's my take on it. I think every single manufacturing pinball company is shopping around. Like, everything's for sale. That's not spending text worthy, though. Yeah, you can always go and make an offer to a company.
    50:24
    But that's not news, and that's not a rumor. This is some yoke around our neck, and we need to fling it off. and I well you and I have not reached out to dealers at all okay well okay so so far no and there's also been a lot of reports that they are planning to reveal a new game at TPF yeah here in the coming weeks here in the coming have you heard anything about that uh no just look when it comes to American Pinball and some of these manufacturers is pretty sad but as a distributor, I get my information from listening to podcasts.
    51:06
    And right now, you're laughing and the listener's laughing. Because that's not true, really, is it? Sadly, I'm not fucking joking. That's how I get my business information from whenever a representative might go on their podcast. And I'm like, okay, well, I better note that for my business that I run in partnership with them. not that I'm bitter or frustrated about companies doing that regularly, but yeah, that's what they do. So no, we've not heard, I've not heard anything. The only thing I hear from them is if I'm to put in an order, request, you know, inquire about turnaround times on something, they would respond then most of the time.
    51:46
    Okay. Well, nothing's selling right now from American Pinball. Nothing's sold anyway ever. So nothing's really selling right now. Now, sure, they might be shopping around, but I also think that that could be a pretty easy to fabricate rumor to get discussion going to. Like, you know, you see a company that you're perceiving to not be doing well, so then you just throw out a rumor like, oh, they're trying to sell the – like, okay, that's easy to do. And over on Eclectic Gamers Podcast, Tony and I, I think, have predicted American Pinball's imminent demise for like four years in a row now. And we've been wrong every year. But all the signs have always pointed to that this company is being carried by AIM-SHAW and Popper because there's no way they're making enough to cover all the expenses of that. I mean, it's just like I don't even have to see the numbers to be able to tell that. So let's play this game. Oh, a game. Let's play this game. So let's say hypothetically any manufacturer could be selling, you know, Jersey Jack, they could be shopping around. Anybody could be shopping around. Let's say that American Pinball is shopping around the idea of selling AP. What does that cost? And not only what does that cost, what are you getting as a buyer? If I were to purchase American Pinball, what am I getting? Am I getting, so I'm getting all the, I'm getting Goodwill, I'm getting IP in their branding, right? Yeah, you get that. You get all of that. You get all the equipment that they house. But what do they have? I wonder. That was my first thought would be that would be where the main value is. But, again, I'm not verifying this because I haven't confirmed it. Others were claiming, though, well, but they don't build their own cabinets. They don't make the play fields. So they might have some rudimentary tools to assemble stuff, but that they don't have any sort of major mass production stuff that another company would look at and go, like an existing company would. The thing I always like to bring up is that fancy press thing that puts all the little marks on. Oh, yeah, the Gottlieb press. Yeah, from Gottlieb that Stern uses. That's a serious piece of equipment that another manufacturer would be like, you know what? I wish we had the giant Gottlieb press thing. A couple of hand drills and some rotisseries. Some exhaust fans. Maybe a startup. Maybe a startup would be interested in the equipment, but then they probably wouldn't want the name. So you're buying a lot of parts, probably, if you have parts that you've accumulated for building inventory sake. Yeah, all those barrels. Well, the things that aren't left. Hey, they can throw those barrels on Lord of the Rings. Stern can buy the barrels from Oktoberfest, throw them on Lord of the Rings, and then re-theme it as a good Hobbit.
    54:52
    Rails stay the same, you know. Slingshots stay the same. Screws stay the same. So you get a lot of that stuff. They probably have a lot of those leftover Naughty Monkey translates. I think you're probably buying the IP of the non-licensed games. Yeah, because you'd have to renegotiate to run Hot Wheels again anyway. Sure, so that's probably not included. But you're buying the likes of, like, Oktoberfest, Houdini, probably not Legends of Valhalla, honestly. Yeah, Riot might, yeah, that probably reverts to Riot. It might already have. GTF. And I don't know if some of those are not, I don't know if Nordman owns any of the rights to GTF. I don't know. I only own the rights to the plastic ramps. The ramps? They should sell American people to me.
    55:46
    I will give you Whitewater 2.0. The watering. Look, search for Yeti. Where is he? Yukon Yeti, where are you? Are you mining for gold? Are they respecting all the labor laws? Yukon Yeti will explore the geopolitical nature of Nepal where I trained with Ra's al-Drain I was trying to reference Ra's al Ghul but I forgot I need a pinball reference for him I can't believe they you'll know when things are in trouble when I fly away I am the caped canary in the coal mine where does Nordman go next I'm waiting for that article to come out.
    56:35
    Barrels of fun. Call me. I have ideas. I can get you a deal on a bunch of Oktoberfest barrels. It's in your name. Use them. Otto, the bartender. We can't leave Otto behind. We can work him into a Yukon game.
    56:54
    I don't think another manufacturer would want to buy the cabinet heads because they're all different.
    57:00
    Sounds like shit. Bring it back, Sharky. They have made, like, no right decisions ever. That's why I was so sure they'd have gone away years ago.
    57:09
    But if you have someone, if you've got someone to carry you, you know, that's what a lot of people say about JJP. When you've got billionaire money, you can do as many Toy Story 4s and Elton Johns as you want. The family behind Ametron is doing just fine. Sure, but at what point it's – Do they want tickets? Yeah, it's like it's not – at some stage, right, It was supposed to find its legs, and whatever it found, it ain't walking.
    57:38
    The sad part of all of this is I still really like GTF, and I play it. That's fine. I still play it. You know what? I think if hypothetically they were to go away and GTF never happened again, you would see GTF prices fucking shoot up. I guarantee you it would happen. Well, that depends if people can keep them working. It would. If there's enough pinball life compatible available parts and things, then sure. But before Pinball Brothers came along, we weren't seeing these massive dollar demands for Alien out of the highway because people couldn't keep them working. They're called American Pinball here in America. America, we can 3D print anything. I don't know how much it costs to buy American Pinball if they were shopping around. I do like the branding of the name. The name, I do like that. I don't know if I need to buy it. You get all the baggage, though. I'm thinking hypothetically if I were looking to start my own pinball company, manufacturing company, or buy over the rights to something else, do I want to spend money on – okay. I don't think anybody's going to come in here and say, you know what? I want to buy it and continue it seamlessly, continue the catalog of games. I don't see that happening. I think it would be a rebranding of American Pinball or it would just be buying up because you're wanting to start up a pinball company. But I don't know if I want some of that stuff if I'm buying – unless it was just heavily discounted. Yeah, no, it – Because it's not building. The building is not for sale. Right, right. To my knowledge, it wouldn't be. Right. I don't think I'm translating the building. At least I would assume they're not. So, no, I don't think they find a buyer. I don't because there's nothing of value. fundamentally you don't want the name here here in america people don't want to be associated with losers and i kind of want that i like that name it doesn't matter the name is toxic if they go out of business and someone else resurrects like the twippies talk again there's a reason why no one ended up pulling that there's a reason why there's probably multiple reasons but there's a reason why roger sharp and crew didn't pull the trigger and and salvage and buy premiere like there's a reason why no one's trying to run with the Gottlieb name today do you think it could be salvaged with an established person sure there are lots of things that do you mean like under current ownership or do you mean someone buying it and then bringing someone buying and saying we're going to keep American Pinball alive because I'm not saying that my way is the only way I'm just saying that it's not... It would be hard for a new no-name company. It's not worth the lift. Why not just start from scratch?
    60:28
    Here's the example. Here's the comparison for you. Here's your version of they sell, somebody buys it and says, yeah, we're going to keep it as American Pinball. They have the IPs and stuff, which again, other than GTF, have been multi-year running games. So how much money are you really going to make on Oktoberfest and Houdini's at this point? But whatever. And they do that and they turn it around and under this new ownership, it becomes a thing. Yeah, absolutely could happen. But why go and pay all of that when you can look at barrels of fun, just come out of nowhere with a new name, new entity, and be successful? Like why burden yourself with the baggage of American pen? Because you being the new owner and it being under new ownership doesn't mean the public knows that. And so you say American pen ball and there are going to be a bunch of people going, oh, the people that broke their promise on the thermos. And now in the internet days, they're always going to bring up the old, that's the downside. Yeah. That's why anytime it's searched, it goes back. Unless they had something of real value, there's no reason. So what I think happens is if Ametron decides that they're done with American pinball, nobody buys American pinball. They liquidate the supplies. Liquidate it. Yeah. And so people can buy the drills. Because we don't know if they have contracts, if you're paying workers. Does that include that? Not bankruptcy. They just shut it. It just goes. It just goes and they sell off the stuff. I think a million dollars buys it. I think well under a million buys it. Well under. Yeah. I don't think they have anything. I don't think they have any expensive equipment. You don't get the building. They've been running. The IPs are too old. Other than GTF, they're too old to make much money. so there's no value in having the Houdini IP the AP Houdini IP what about Barrels of Fun what buys that Barrels of Fun is a little bit trickier obviously you know there's a license associated with Labyrinth and they're still selling Labyrinth at a pretty decent they're building them to meet the sales demand their stock is kind of high right now they do continue to ship games over at Barrels We continue to ship Labyrinths slowly but surely. A big portion of our order will be starting to manufacture at the end of February here, mid-end of February, throughout March. A lot of the Flippin' Out Pinball customers are going to start seeing their games then. I have seen the ones that have come out. Still relatively little issues that people are facing. I will point people to go over to the Flippin' Out Pinball Facebook, Instagram and all that I had some fun, did a gameplay video this last week and been doing reels and short form media and having fun with that I'm also hearing that some of the accessories for Labyrinth are going to be shipping soon as well oh they might focus those on games that are leaving simultaneously so instead of like, okay, Flippin' Out's got 10 or 100 toppers on order. Let me just ship them all of them so they can ship them back. They may focus on, okay, Flippin' Out has five games leaving this week to these people. Do these people have shooter rod orders or topper order? Let's kind of bundle it with that as they leave. So they may be doing that. Jersey Jack pinball in the news. Ooh. We haven't talked about Jersey Jack in a while. Yeah, I guess it's been a couple episodes. Some really interesting stuff happening with JJP, including a new IO driver board that's being offered for sale that many collectors are snatching up to put in their Hobbits, Dialed In's, Pirates of the Caribbean's, Wizard of Oz's. May it help enhance the flipper feel, power, consistency. Elton John. And we'll hear that later on in this episode in a big way. But I've been playing a lot of Elton John, Dennis. Okay. A lot of Elton John, and I've got some strong opinions about it. I don't know if you guys will be surprised or not, but I've got a lot of things that I really like about Elton John, and I've got a lot of stuff that I'm sorry I just don't like. But you can hear all of this exclusively as a club member of the pinball show. Exclusively on Patreon. Patreon.com slash the pinball show. They can sign up to this thing and hear exclusive content covering Jersey Jack pinballs, driver board stuff, things I like, things I don't about Elton John, as well as some other tidbits that you'll want to know if you have any interest in Elton John or any of their past catalog. Speaking of exclusive content Episode 145 we did an exclusive content For our Patreon club members and supporters Covering Dutch Pinball And the rumor of them coming out with not only Back to the Future But mainly Alice in Wonderland We covered that and I will encourage people to go back Listen to Dennis and I's detailed rundown of what you need to know Regarding those rumors But quickly a couple of things that we discussed included because we were talking about Chris Cooler's reporting that Dutch is going to be producing a limited number of those Alice in Wonderland based on the foam core crafting of John Papaduke and the failed Zidware company. Some of the artwork being by Jeremy Packer's Zambietti. But then again, we don't know if it is going to be because Jeremy Packer came out and said, look, a company reached out to me to see if I wanted to complete this whole work. I didn't have any interest in it. Let it be dead. I did the back glass. I don't even know if he did the cabinet. But he said the play field, I didn't even do art on that. Like John Papaduke clipped some art out from other things and put it on there. So he didn't want to have any part of it. And then we also brought up some red flags that we had regarding, you know, anything related to an Alice in Wonderland coming back out that was originally designed by John Papaduke. some of them including like the game only being created in concept we have no clue if it works hell look at magic girl come on another red flag you got a small amount of games being made like how many resources are really going to be put into rules animation coding lighting sound that worries me as well as when are they going to be made if it is dutch pinball back to the future is supposed to be announced at the end of the year. They're still building big Lebowskis. They've been working on that for 10 years. People continue to have troubles with those big Lebowskis even this many years later. How are they going to build them? Are they going to be able to support them?
    67:37
    And if you have a history of a big red flag in and of itself with your early achievers and not being able to get them games, still not having all of those early achievers of big Lebowski's. That was a damn mess. But you're like, oh, I think it's a great idea to team up to make a limited game from none other than John Papadu. That's great for our image. That's a red flag to me. That concerns me quite a bit. And then you're like, hmm, can we sprinkle in some more red flags? Can we sprinkle in some more? And then you've got Chris Coolers, a.k.a. Kaneda, being your company spokesperson, essentially, saying that, you know, you can be able to purchase one of these games if you're paying him through his Patreon. Like, red flags are waving everywhere but we discuss that more in depth more in detail in our patreon go check that out speaking of red flags nap arcade reporting another new pinball company question mark sweet mother mary what is going on everyone had ideas and saw money being made and demand through the roof during the pandemic and now it's not the pandemic but we spent a lot of money but Wheels are in motion, and execution has to happen. Tires are made to...
    68:50
    That's the sound I made when I hit the ground. That's right. Orange dust. Cheeto all up in my... I probably have cheese spestas or something up in my lungs.
    69:03
    Cheese spestas. Oh, that's the joke of the episode. Cheese spestas. Okay, where is it? Oh, yeah. So NAP reporting that a new company is going to be launching their first title themed around Little Shop of Horrors. Feed me, Seymour. We've talked about that theme, and I think it's a good thing for pinball, honestly. Yeah, I'm kind of indifferent to it. But what if Plant don't eat ball? I was going to say, Audrey, you better eat that ball.
    69:35
    I'm starving. Feed me, Seymour. See, I like that movie. Steve Martin as the dentist Feed me all night long And Rick Moranis Man can we not get every Pinball machine in 2024 Featuring Rick Moranis I think it's a good idea I like that theme It's one of those themes that I put Kind of alongside like The cult love Like the Labyrinth Or like the Big Lebowski Kind of stuff like that Not like your Jaws Hollywood blockbusters But they're still relevant in 2024 because people have a lot of love and following toward them. I'd much rather see it than another Back to the Future. Fuck off, Dennis. No. That's just crazy talk. It's been done. It's one and done. One and done. God. He gives him his little blood on his finger. Yep.
    70:34
    We're not going to have to wait long to see our Screaming Go Club members. We have to thank some people. I want to thank the Bobcat.
    70:43
    You know, I have people now when they talk to me randomly, people that some of these people know too, they'll be like, shoot that fucker. It's just, it's a thing now. Oh, shoot that fucker. When people talk to me, they talk about the Bobcat and attacking somebody's wife. You know what else people will talk about? Bidets. Oh, boy. Oh, my God. Wow. We really hit on something there, didn't we? Well, that was you. George something loose here, Tiger. A bunch of people. I swear it's the most off-topic Discord topic I have ever seen on pinball discussions. It has now been the bidet discussion. Even in regular pinball community, people are talking about bidets. It's not just like the TPS thing. I won't say everywhere, but it's been vast. I've created a movement. A bowel movement.
    71:34
    Yes. I didn't know so many assholes were being squirted upon. I love it. The cleaner, the better is what I say. So thank you for all you bidet lovers. Some of you emailed some really questionable stuff to me. I'm not going to lie. I seen where your heart was and your brain was catching up. But some of that stuff, y'all, very much too much information. I made me blush. I'm like, geez, we got to go back to thanking people. Okay. So for anybody that's going to send Dennis a bidet, thank you.
    72:12
    Look, y'all, send him the nice one. Don't cheap out and get a tushy or something. No, no, no. Go with the Toto or go with something like that. We want a nice one. Thank you, Steve.
    72:22
    Bumblebee, thank you so much for the continued support. I think Jav has got a game coming here soon. Rob, thank you so much. Panther, continued support. I think Rob's got a Jaws coming. it's getting closer rob calling with the kineticist did you see the new kineticist website yeah wow yeah getting over the twip stuff getting all that stuff over integrated i like this new game thing that he's got going where like you click on foo fighters and then you see like you get all the information you want right there media everything i like that but thank you nonetheless colin the falcon i got a great story about the falcon i had uh somebody delivering a game to me from a customer or whatnot and he was like you know what i was just delivering a game to somebody and they said that you do a podcast and you call them the falcon he was like he was like so the guy the guy uh was delighted to know that i was coming to deliver to you after him and uh yeah he said so the i'm supposed to tell you that the falcon said hello i said oh that's great yeah frank tell him i said that thought i was crazy yes oh dave shake it if you got it and dave got it It's Bates. Shaker motor. I don't think we'll ever add another accessory to the Screaming Goat Club membership. I think he's there by himself. Well, the bell's kind of an accessory. I suppose. Very watched Tower of Enemy. Maybe. Thank you, Charlie. Ding and ding. Thank you so much. I think Charlie's got a... Does Charlie have a... Jaws coming, maybe?
    74:14
    Oh, it could be the bell on the buoy. Oh, the buoy bell. Okay, now I've got to find that sound effect. You're welcome.
    74:24
    Joe. Thank you, Joe. Joe, does Joe have a Jaws? I don't think Joe has a Jaws. Yeah, he does. No. I think he does. I don't know if it's an L.A. They're all getting Jaws. Wow. I mean, come on. If you're going to be part of the Screaming Goat Club, you're buying the coolest shit on the market, I would guess. Are they buying the thermos? It wouldn't surprise me if all these fellows – I don't know. You know what? We need to find out. Maybe we'll do – Are you an official LaunchBox distributor? That's one – technically, yeah, but I didn't buy any. The margins were pretty low. That says a lot about potential sales you first saw. I didn't even buy any. You're just like reducing your expectations to zero. Maybe I'm being picky, but some accessories now that come, I just – I can see which ones are going to have trouble shipping. or like because we go out of our way to fix stuff if like if FedEx with a rubber mallet hammering out dents in this lunchbox. Exactly. I thought about, you know, if that thing dents, then UPS isn't going to cover it. American's going to go tell me to kick rock. Like I'm going to have to fit now two of these didn't things and my margins are going for selling 20. No, thanks. That's how I think now. It's weird, which is why I won't sell like some back glasses and stuff. No, thanks. No. Or Invisiglass? Nope. I don't get enough margin to cover one of her breaks.
    75:51
    Feed me, see my... Now I'm going to have to watch that movie. The Dude. Thank you, Dude. Near the In-N-Out Burger. Those are good burgers, Walter. Shut the fuck up, Donnie. I know the dude's buying a Jaws. Well, I don't know that, but I'm betting. I'm wondering who all is buying a Jaws out of this. All of you Screaming Goat Club members, feel free. You've got that private message with Dennis and I. Let us know if you have a bidet. Let us know if you're getting a Jaws. And let us know, what was the other thing, if you're buying a lunchbox. GTF lunchbox. Should I sell the GTF lunchbox, Dennis? I think the window is closed. I think they've gone to the website or whatever, the AP website, if they really wanted it and already ordered. See, and that's the other thing. Sell it direct.
    76:37
    Only 5%, maybe, question mark. do you think they sold 50 lunchboxes no do you not nope oh if you're a dealer and you were going to buy lunchboxes to resell how many would you buy right into us five oh you meant me if i was a dealer yeah no no i wasn't gonna sell lunchboxes okay so you wouldn't either this ain't no grocery store i feel bad it's too weird i wouldn't count it as an accessory because it's too standalone Yeah, plus if I ordered them back in October or whenever they came out, last March or whatever, then I have to waste two sausages. But then I have to jot down and remind myself that I ordered them.
    77:22
    And then I've got to factor in that I don't want to oversell them or I have to re-up my thing. And then when are they coming?
    77:30
    I've got too much shit to worry about. No, to me, that would have been one of my probably poor marketing ideas. It would have been like at TPF when they were showing off GTF. You at the American Pinball booth have the lunchboxes for sale. So people that weren't going to buy the game could at least buy the lunchbox as part of your hype package. People are walking around the show with these metal lunchboxes and people like, well, that looks so cool. Or if you couldn't do it then, then you have done it at Expo when they did their last press push and burned the rest of their cash on bringing in all those actors. But.
    78:03
    Oh, well, it is what it is. you leave alone Queen Anoya, whatever her name is. I still love Clemmie. I thought she was good. All right. So thank you all of our screaming goat club members. And as a reminder, last month on the zoom or last month on the live hangout, I messed up, totally messed up. And I forgot to update that on our Patreon. so many of you did not know that we're having a live hangout last what was that wednesday yep yeah and many of you didn't show up so but we were there the whole time yeah so thank you for those that found a way well we opened it up to everybody see that's the perks of being part of the club people are very busy on wednesdays apparently so yeah so sorry about that that was my fault and we'll make it even even better in february coming soon and i can't tease this any longer. No more coming soon. It's coming right now. It's coming fast. It's coming hot. It's coming as quick as that nozzle sprays. Right in your brown kiss edition.
    79:09
    Brown blood. Sorry. I just pictured Elvira Blood Red Kiss as a brown version. Okay. Right in your brown kisser. It's the only pinball podcasting segment that keeps you up at night. It's Pinball Market Trends! Bobcat, take my word!
    79:32
    I like your style, dude. Training up this week, Dennis, is Elton John, my Jersey Jack pinball. Wait a minute! Now, there are some things in life that are easy to explain via science. But other things that data may not support. It's why running all these polynomials is cute. But sometimes you just got to grip the earth with your hands, Dennis, to feel it breathe. You know what I'm saying? No.
    80:07
    You got to taste that grass to know that Mother Nature is still alive and well. You got to be one with the land. And that's where this data is coming from. For whatever reason, statistics wise, it doesn't make sense that Elton John would be trending up right now. But for whatever reason, it is trending up. There has been an uptick in Elton John interest and sales over the last week. Any guesses as to where that is? I don't know where this is coming from.
    80:40
    No, I have no idea. It doesn't make any sense. It's not like it's been covered more. I don't know. But yes, interest. It's very organic. Very organic, this moving market. And that's the only explanation I have for Elton John. So dig down, grab some grass, and smoke it. Go play some Elton John. It is trending up. You'll see. And I don't expect you, listener, to agree with me. This is more, you know, you're riding shotgun as this pro driver drives you across the finish line. You'll see. Over the next week or so, a continued trend in Elton John. And you'll be like, that son of a bitch knows his market. I do. also training up this week is Venom LE. Wait, no. There's no way that's correct. No. Okay. Now you're just distro into distro. Yes, that's wrong because I've seen that. All right. The system wants me to say Venom LE. It's this whole AI thing I've been working with. It's not mef. Don't worry, pinball player. It's not that. It's like some AI thing that wants me to train up Venom LE because Pinside now has it as number two. Did you see this on the top 100? No, I don't look at the top very often. What a joke. Wow. Oh, man. That is what we call a broken system, if that's the case, because no, no. AI, I'm typing. AI, down, bubba. No, no, no. You are wrong. That's why we need humans, Dennis. That is why we need humans. So that's not training up. Sorry about that, people. Oh, what is training up? Speaking of shilling products, Escalera's Tilt and Truck Table. Again, kind of out of nowhere, trending up this week is that TNT table. I've done a video on it. You guys don't have to go see it. It's badass. It's pricey, but it is badass if you can afford it. But for some reason, over the last three weeks, we have sold more of these Escalera tilt and truck tables than we have in the last three months. Again, numbers don't lie. I only report the facts. I just don't know often where they're coming from. So, yeah, there has been a trend in those tables. I would have thought that's the type of product that you get out there. It has a boom in sales because it's new, and then over the time period, it'll casually just keep selling because it's a good product. Had a little boom lately, and I don't know why.
    83:03
    This is the Pinball Market Trans, huh, edition. Yeah, huh, indeed. Ideology is beyond me. I have no clue. All's turning up this week. I've got to throw it out there. It's Ted, the series. Have you heard of this Peacock series called Ted? I've seen a couple of the commercials. okay well I can report back to you I've watched through season one it's actually good it's actually a good series was not expecting that and I don't know how high or drunk I had to have been to even click on episode one because not really something that I would necessarily click on I've seen the film the first film I thought it was fine I didn't watch the second film because the first film was just fine but clicked on that got hooked watched the first season and I can confirm. Trending up, it's good. It is an enjoyable series. I've not actually seen any of it. I'd say the first one's worth watching. It's not going to knock your boots off, but the series is good. It's enjoyable. Filthy, but it's enjoyable. Enough of the flowers and the butterflies. Let's trend down some shit. Trending down this week is A-List 90s Valley Williams games. Ouch. Ouch. Okay, well, what I mean by that is the likes of like Twilight Zone, Totem, Tales of Arabian Nights, Theater of Magic. Right now, you're seeing a lot of hesitant buying base for these games because there are rumors. Well, there's not even rumors. There are reports that Pedretti or Euro Pinball Corp. is going to be remaking some of the most sought-after remakes of Bally Williams games. And we can only assume that's going to be 90s. We've heard little rumblings here and there throughout over the years that Twilight Zone may be remade or Theater of Magic. What I'm saying is anybody who saw Jaws and was like, nah, I think I'm good. I'm going to stick with the tried and true. I'm going to go all in on a restored game or a really nice A-list Bally Williams. They're hesitant. They're holding off because they're waiting to see what is revealed. Now, you will see that start to even out, or else they could even go up some of these titles after an announcement is made on what that first title is going to be. But until then, you're going to see this probably be the lowest point to which people are buying those A-list 90s Bally Williams games. It's just a numbers thing, people. And it's a low-hanging fruit market trend, but nonetheless, a true viable trend. And also trending down, sadly, is American Pinball. Say what? Yeah, I mean, talk about comfort level of buyers.
    85:42
    All of this information and reports being written about the rumor that they're trying to sell this company, the prospective buyers of things like GTF are saying, WTF? Do I want to wait? What is going on? Should I buy a game if they do sell the business? Are they going to keep making the part? I don't think it's anything to worry about, but not everybody listens to the likes of someone like me. When you put that information out there, it affects the marketplace for better or for worse. In this situation, I think it hurts the brand and the products associated with American Pinball. And I don't like saying that because I sell their products.
    86:24
    Having said that, we do have Houdini deluxes and stuff. Buy, buy, buy! Shit. I'm going to have to do free shipping here soon. Damn. All right. I don't have a deal of the week for you this week. Go to Flippin' Out Pinball. Check out all the awesome deals that we're running. I think we've got a Godfather CE coming in on trade, if anybody's interested in that. I should have trended up Godfather Ellie. That one went quick. We sold. But I do have an additional bounty. So I'm still looking for that Radical. Still looking for the Congo. But now added to the bounty list is Terminator 2.
    86:57
    What? It's another AI thing. Fucking Skynet taking over. I'm not looking for it. Okay. Hold up. AI uses the dot, dot, dot ellipses when they're typing too. Does it really take that long or is it just for effect? It's just to make it feel more human. You're better. This is what it said. I'm reading it. You're better looking straight down the middle. Counterpart Greg Bone asked to add Terminator 2 to your pinball bounty. What a lazy bastard. So he can figure out how to AI and get into my notes here. But he can't figure out how to chill to get his own Terminator 2. All right, you heard it here. Greg Bone, part of Straight Down the Middle, is looking for a restored, really nice Terminator 2. You can reach out to him at Greg, G-R-E-G. This is weird to do it. FlippinOutPinball.com. I don't know about this. He should be doing more Straight Down the Middle videos. I know. Asking for stuff, not piggybacking on his non-podcast. Oh, shit. The hell is this? Tacky is what it is. He knows somebody in AI, I guess. Yes. I hate AI. You know what? I'm going to do this. Training down this week. I've got to do this. No. I've been ranting. Don't make the machines mad. Fuck the machines. I am so sick and tired. Here's what. And this is going to make people upset because some of my friends do this. Yes. And they're going to be like, I hate you, Zach. But here's the deal. I'm so tired of seeing, Dennis, advertisements for businesses or for league nights or for anything in pinball that are utilizing AI-generated artwork. But it's so easy. It's so, look. I've even done it on a couple of my wristwatch video thumbnails. Oh, Dennis, no. Just the thumbnails.
    88:41
    You are the chosen one. Not you. Yes, as I'm the filth you speak of. That's a dark side. No. I gave him permission. He needed it because he likes the ability to vacuum form. I killed him. Even the women and children.
    89:01
    I killed them all. And the Yukon Yeti. They're all dead. I killed them. And I liked it, too. I hate sand. It gets everywhere. It's gritty.
    89:15
    Oh, my God. Not you. Damn it, Dennis. I did not think you would be in one of these guilty parties. Because I ain't paying no fiver guy to come up with a thumbnail thing. She's doing the same thing. you're just paying him to do it and a lot of my friends are doing this I'm not I don't hate you as a person I just think you're I just think you don't want to put in the work it's as nice as I can say it without calling my friends tacky and lazy just here's the deal people creativity is such a beautiful thing don't use ai i just i every time i get on the internet and i see like i see advertisements for pinball league and then your dracula's got seven fucking fingers i'm like oh fuck guys can we not can we can i don't know enough about ai but like when you generate something that is clearly craziness can you be like render last thing but make dracula have five fingers instead of like can you do that i don't know i think so from seeing some example i've always i've used like a phone app thing for what i need where they all look dumb so i've only used it a couple times because i've been like i just kind of want this and this because i don't want to i anyway it's just it's never worked out well for me but i pride myself on the creativity of advertisement and marketing. Please, commercial art is nothing. Oh!
    90:55
    You're the chosen one! Marketing crap. Commercials. I pride myself on this beautiful commercial. It's commercial. It's trash by default. But it is a form of art. And it's a form of expression. Oh, that is so wanting to elevate something that doesn't warrant it. Oh, it does. and this AI waxy ass renderings that I see just make me, it makes me put my nose up and I say, you know what? I won't attend that pinball league night. You know what? I won't. You're overstating this. No, I won't patron that location. I will not buy that product. No, thank you. If this is how lazy they are selling me the product, what are they going to have a robot call me whenever I need a switch that needs fixing?
    91:44
    Training down. Just come on. I'd rather have a sloppy Photoshop than I would this AI-generated stuff.
    91:54
    Then again, I'm just on my porch yelling at people to get off my lawn, I suppose. I'm telling you, it's a slippery slope, people, ask Dennis Greasel. Like Oppenheimer, wasn't it?
    92:06
    Just an orange fucking cloud. I wish you would have got up and it looked like you had a spray tan with orange all over you. I'm back. 2024, I'm gonna be great. You're already voting for me. I see the numbers. We're gonna have a whole... Dennis, I get to do Trump for a whole fucking year. I cannot wait. Maybe more. Oh, as always, people, I'm just here to report the facts and shit on AI, because numbers don't lie. The fucking robots do, though. On Pinball Market Trends.
    92:38
    Oh, it's going to be long. It's going to be more than just this year. It's going to be the next four years. Well, you know what now? It's going to be the next two and a half years.
    92:50
    Okay. What a show. What an ending. We really ended it well there. Where can people catch you? They can. Always email me at collectorgamerspodcast at gmail.com. Reach out to the Pinball Show at gmail.com. Follow, like, subscribe to all of our social media stuff there. Straight down the middle, follow, like, and subscribe there. Flippin' Out Pinball, I'd really appreciate the clicks, the follows, the likes. We're doing a lot of short-form media stuff. YouTube, Instagram, follow there. When I buy my pinball shit, I buy from Flippin' Out. From Topper, Sharp, Blaze, Remy, Oz, I've got it figured out. Flippin' Out, figured out. When I make a pinball, I think Flippin' Out. Flippin' Out, figured out. When I buy, buy, buy, I buy from Flippin' Out. Buy, buy, buy. Product showcase this week. I should just make it that used Highway Pinball Alien that I deal with a week and I still didn't sell it. Oh no! Take another $200. Shit. We got everything in stock that you guys want. Come on. I told you how to price it but you refused to do what I said. Godzilla Premium.
    93:58
    TMNTs. Elvira Blood Red Kiss. I think we got one of those left. Star Wars Pro, one left. Guardians of the Galaxy. Venoms. We've got all kinds of pre-owned stuff coming in also. So I've got a sub-$10,000 Toy Story 4 CE. Come on. Flippin' Out's where it's at. A little bit of everything. Flippin' Out with friends. Joel, this week I think he's got a Jaws Pro. Oh.
    94:20
    And the following week I believe he's going to be playing Jaws with someone, part of the creative team over at Stern Pinball that helped create Jaws. Maybe a new face. That's going to be really interesting. So follow Flippin' Out Pinball on YouTube. TPN last week, Dennis. What happened? We had a lot. Well, we had two. We had two podcasts. So, Pinball Invaders and Makers Podcast, episode 19. Also known as Pimp. Yeah. That one went in and dived into understanding things about 3D print with Greg. Not your Greg, but Beer Fest Homebrew Pinball Greg. Okay. And then just actually, while we were recording this, I saw that Silver Ball Chronicles episode 35. That's part two of the Capcom episode. Oh, man. I love the first episode, so I'm going to check that out. But they're always good. Ron and Dave, they're probably the best of us. They were the chosen one, not me, not AI. Have you not heard how frustrated Bruce gets every time it's brought up? Because it's so much better. Because it gets more listens.
    95:23
    And Bruce, I can tell you what you can do to make Slam Tilt better. Just reach out. No, what? I'll let you know. That was a tease. Or was it? Tune in this week, TPN. We've got the goods. Enter Your Initials. I've got to give a shout out to that guy. Killing it with his streams. Go follow Enter Your Initials right now. That's like a stream that I can watch. It teaches people something, doesn't it?
    95:47
    Look, this is the Nordman. If you need to buy American Pinball, you have to act now. You get me. I am the greatest. I have designed so many ramps and so many shots. I have Yetis and I have Elvira. We can do a fourth one. I can make it happen. But only if you help me. I'm tired of being the caped canary in the coal mine. Just let me be free. Or Zofia. I'll take her with me. Save us. Is Zofia the braven to Nordman? I think it might be. Don't reveal her on this episode. That should be behind the paywall. And always practice safe pinball. And if AI is just so big and bad and smart, you know what, AI? I'm going to allow you to close out this segment. generate whatever waxy figure you want to to close it out or say something witty because lord knows that uh you can't replicate the gold weaving here that we do on the pinball show stage is yours there you go ai what's that nothing see see dennis it's all bullshit i guess that's not how ai works you were the chosen one it was said that you would destroy this they've not joined them Bring balance to the force Not leave it in darkness And I Will always love you I will always