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Episode 250 – ClusterVUK 4, The Dream Master

Slam Tilt Podcast·podcast_episode·2h 10m·analyzed·Jun 3, 2025
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.042

TL;DR

Slam Tilt 250: Clusterfuck roundtable debates Harry Potter hype, JJP's new buyer strategy, J.K. Rowling controversy, and secondary market depreciation.

Summary

Slam Tilt Podcast's 250th episode features an expanded 'Clusterfuck' roundtable with 9 hosts and guests discussing Jersey Jack Pinball's Harry Potter reveal and release timeline. The panel explores anticipated sales, manufacturing capacity, market positioning toward new buyers vs. enthusiasts, J.K. Rowling's controversial statements and their potential impact on game sales, and secondary market depreciation trends seen with recent JJP releases like Guns N' Roses. Key tensions emerge around whether the game will bring new players into pinball or just reach existing fans, and whether ethical concerns about the creator will meaningfully affect adoption.

Key Claims

  • Harry Potter pinball is being released Thursday (reveal date confirmed)

    high confidence · Bruce and panel confirm Friday release of timer/availability, Thursday reveal announcement

  • JJP is using a time-limited production window rather than numbered limited edition for Harry Potter

    high confidence · Panel discussion confirms JJP's intentional choice to market via timeframe rather than unit count to drive continuous sales

  • Guns N' Roses, JJP's highest-volume seller, has depreciated to $4,500 used (from ~$9,000 retail) within months

    high confidence · Joe Snee references recent secondary market pricing, mentions SD sold one for $4,500 last month

  • JJP's recent games are 'underselling a lot' relative to production capacity

    medium confidence · Panel references market trend videos showing JJP underperformance, attributes to oversupply driving secondary market collapse

  • Star Wars pinball (earlier Stern release) did not significantly move the needle on attracting new first-time pinball buyers

    medium confidence · Joe argues Star Wars brought awareness but not new equipment buyers; Orby counters that Harry Potter demographic is different

  • Harry Potter arcade version pricing is $9,999 (not $15,000+)

    high confidence · Pinball Princess clarifies arcade vs. home pricing during discussion of accessibility to non-enthusiasts

  • JJP is actively marketing Harry Potter via Facebook to specific age/income demographics, not to hardcore pinball enthusiasts

    medium confidence · Joe Snee interprets JJP's strategy as targeting family/casual buyers (lake house, grandkids) rather than collectors

  • J.K. Rowling actively receives financial benefit from Harry Potter pinball sales (royalties/licensing deal)

    medium confidence · Panel debates whether creator compensation occurs; exact terms unknown, but financial transfer assumed by participants

Notable Quotes

  • “You're welcome. Thank you. Okay. Harry Potter. So Harry Potter was announced at Texas. Yes. In March, Jack Winery told us not to buy anything. I can't even buy groceries or anything. I'm fucked right now. You know, I'm starving. I'm eating wood.”

    Josh Roop (Loser Kid) @ ~15:00 — Expresses frustration at Jack Danger's pre-announcement warning to hold off purchases; reveals pent-up demand and community frustration with JJP delays

  • “It's going to be the next Star Wars. You would need literal magic. Oh, fuck Star Wars.”

    Joe Snee @ ~22:00 — Skepticism about Harry Potter meeting unrealistic expectations; indirect criticism of Star Wars pinball's market reception

  • “If JJP does it right, they can make a killing... If you actually go to, look at Universal and look at how much money they put into the new Epic Adventure theme park and they made a separate, you know, one of the five new parks at Universal is Harry Potter.”

    Orby @ ~27:00 — Emphasizes scale of Harry Potter IP value; suggests if JJP leverages theme park integration potential, success is achievable

  • “The FOMO is going to be pretty strong, I think, regardless of the fact that there's no limited number to it. I think people who want it are going to get it as soon as they possibly can. And it's a smart move because they're going to continue to sell.”

    Orby @ ~35:00 — Defends JJP's time-limited (vs. unit-limited) production strategy; argues psychological FOMO remains strong despite unlimited production window

  • “This is a unicorn event in pinball where we're going to be bringing in so many people who are massive Harry Potter fans who aren't necessarily pinball fans... I think this is a neat moment in time, and I'd like to think from here moving forward in the market, we're going to have a lot more new buyers not just for Jersey Jack or Harry Potter, but that's going to bring in new buyers for Stern and all the other companies as well.”

    Albert (Orby/Orbital Albert) @ ~45:00 — Optimistic view that Harry Potter serves as industry gateway event; potential tidal wave of cross-manufacturer new buyers from non-pinball demographics

  • “They're not going to buy it. As soon as any kind of Harry Potter fan finds out about a pinball machine like that, they'll be like, wow, great, I can't wait to play it. What? It's $15,000? Okay. Maybe if it's at an arcade, I'll play it.”

Entities

Jersey Jack PinballcompanyHarry Potter PinballgameOrby (Orbital Albert)personJosh RooppersonJoe SneepersonRon HallerpersonBruce Nightingaleperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: JJP faces strategic contradiction: high volume sales needed for profitability but high supply drives secondary market depreciation, which alienates collector base and erodes perceived value

    high · Joe Snee: 'JJP has put themselves in a rock and a hard place because they know they need to move units with Harry Potter, but we all know that drives down value... they are not marketing towards us as the buying demographic right now'

  • ?

    business_signal: JJP's recent game line underselling significantly; panel references market trend videos documenting Guns N' Roses, Avatar, and other recent JJP releases underperforming vs. production volume

    medium · Joe: 'JJP, all their games are underselling a lot now... Guns N' Roses is the highest selling volume-wise of the JJP line'; panel discusses market trend data from YouTube showing underperformance

  • ?

    community_signal: J.K. Rowling's anti-trans advocacy and controversial statements are creating ethical friction within pinball community; some players planning to avoid or buy secondhand only; LGBT communities may boycott locations with the game

    high · Pinball Princess: 'Is John Trudeau actively backing legislation to antagonize an entire group of people?'; panel discussion of Elvis pinball being removed from gay bar due to artist's perceived views; discussion of Harry Potter release timing (June = Pride Month) as 'perfect timing' for irony

  • ?

    community_signal: Harry Potter positioning as 'unicorn event' in pinball with potential to bring new non-pinball demographics into the hobby, benefiting entire industry if successful

    medium · Albert: 'This is a unicorn event in pinball where we're going to be bringing in so many people who are massive Harry Potter fans who aren't necessarily pinball fans... I think this is a neat moment in time, and I'd like to think from here moving forward in the market, we're going to have a lot more new buyers'

Topics

Harry Potter Pinball Release & HypeprimaryJ.K. Rowling Controversy & Ethical PurchasingprimaryJJP Manufacturing Capacity & Supply ChainprimaryNew Buyer Acquisition vs. Existing Enthusiast MarketprimarySecondary Market Depreciation & FOMO StrategyprimaryGuns N' Roses Pinball Underselling & Value CollapsesecondaryStar Wars Pinball Market Reception (Comparison)secondaryTime-Limited vs. Unit-Limited Production Modelssecondary

Sentiment

mixed(0.35)— Panel shows excitement about Harry Potter's commercial potential and industry impact, but underlying skepticism about JJP's execution, concerns about secondary market depreciation, ethical conflicts around J.K. Rowling, and doubts about whether the game will actually convert non-enthusiasts into buyers. Joe Snee and Pinball Princess express strong reservations; Orby and Albert more optimistic. Tone is pragmatic and concerned rather than celebratory.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.390

This Sunday night, get ready for the biggest monster truck heavy metal tractor pull thrash-a-thon ever! Coming to the Metroplex Sports Arena, watch as the pile driver takes on the screen machine! Huge monster trucks tearing ass all night long! Ticket price pays for the whole seat, but you'll only need the edge! That was cool We're there dude Coming to you from beautiful upstate New York This is the Slam Pill Podcast The show about all things pinball I'm your host Ron Haller Here with the other host Bruce Nightingale Clusterfuck Yes this is the Clusterfuck This is episode 250 the clusterfuck, the thing Bruce made me do. And now I'm looking at a screen with one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine people on it. Thank you, Bruce. Eight and a half, actually. We still haven't heard from one of them. Yes. He's trying. I think he's trying in the background. All right. So. You get to do introductions, Ron, since you're the master of ceremonies. Everyone's going to introduce themselves. Ooh, even better. So you know me, Ron, and you know Bruce. I'm Bruce. I'm 53. I'm a gentle little giant, and my turn-ons are pinball and ELO. Okay. Actually, I'll go through the list by what names they put into this chat. Okay. We have Orby is here. Hello, Orby. He's muted himself. Hello, Bruce and Ron. Thank you so much for having me. How's it going? Episode 250. I have listened to almost all of them. And I just couldn't be more excited to be anywhere else other than being here today. So congratulations, Bruce. Congratulations, Ron. And so excited to be here. I'm not part of the Clusterbuck, so thanks for including me for one night as a temporary Clusterbucker. I've been bucking all morning to try to get good enough to join. And, hey, for one day, I'll take it. All right. That's one hell of an intro. Okay. Okay, you guys got to top that one. Next we have Pinball Princess is here. Hi. I knew that was coming. He killed it. Then we have Loser Kid Josh is here. I was lied to. I was told this was the reveal for the Harry Potter pinball. Yeah, he thought he was interviewing Jersey Jack people. The best things in sliced bread, brother. Okay. I've been holding on to my money ever since. Yes, you have. We have Chase's here. I'm not going to possibly butcher his last name. Hello, Chase. Hello. Groff. Okay, it is the way it's spelled. I just wanted to make sure I did not kill that. He was one of our listeners that emailed us and said, I want to be on this. Indeed. Probably the person that's been listening the least amount of time on this call. Okay. How about how long? A year or so, a year and a half. Okay. Newbie. Fresh meat. Yeah, fresh meat. Yeah. Since you've been gone. Welcome, Chase. Well, welcome. We have a former guest on here, the head degenerate himself, Joe Snee. You get it. I'm the dope. I'm the degeneratist of all time, and this podcast episode is going to be pretty degenerate because we've got four other Degene winners on here. Oh. Zach, Bruce, Ron, and, of course, Albert, the newest of the Degene winners here for Most Degenerate Pinball Podcast for Pinball Nerds Podcast. Congrats to all. Thank you. We have our third host. Zach is here. Hello. Greetings. Greetings. Wow Wow I love the Zach unmute pop I hear every time it's great I love it and then we have it's Chris but he is muted we will see if he ever pops in come on Chris but it's Chris he's one of our longest time listeners he's been there from the beginning yeah And I really wish his mic would work. We could figure out what's going on. And I am actively looking at the messenger and email to see if he's emailing saying, hey, this is what it's doing. But I think I'm past the point of being able to do tech support while we're recording, unfortunately. Oh, you have multiple tasks and multiple challenges. Yeah, you ain't kidding. And I still love you for that. Yes. Yes. Yes, I'm looking at the screen of all these people and it's scary. I am saving frequently. Yes, great. All right. Okay, so everyone, welcome and thank you for coming on. We'll talk later and have a good night. Thank you very much. I thought you were going to say tell us about how you got into this. No, no, God, no. We can actually ask two people that. We can ask Chase because he's never been on, and we can ask Orby. Orby, you've never been on either, right? I have never been on, although you did thank me on one episode after I joined your Facebook group. So there you go. Kind of I've been on the show a little. So, Orby, how did you get into this pinball thing? Oh, God. You've got two minutes. Okay, no. I'm going to do it in one minute, okay? Right. One year, my mom got me a really rad pinball machine out of the Sears catalog for Christmas, and I played the gosh darn tootin' thing so much my stepdad got mad because he had to go back to the store three times on Boxing Day to get more D batteries because I kept playing the freaking thing. Since then, I've been in love with pinball and then I started a pinball podcast five or six years ago and the rest is history. I don't know, last year I won the New Brunswick Pinball Championship and now I'm even more hooked and someday my lifelong dream was of course to play in Pinmasters which I got to do but now I only have one pinball dream left which is to make it to the Rochester Pinball Collective to play with all you nerds. Wow. You can do that this weekend. We still have spots available for Stomp. Okay. I'll get in the car right now. Go. Chase. Yeah. You have the same question. Yeah. I started working as an arcade operator tech for a local company here in town. We mostly focused on redemption games, but we did have a few pinballs. So I got into it through working on them, learning how to work on them. And I was at my local arcade one night while I was doing that and saw an advertisement for a tournament. And, yeah, the rest is history. I've been playing for about a year and a half now. All right. Nice. Cool. Nice. Very cool. All right, Bruce, where do you want to start this with the topics? I got some topics. Good. And then we have some other things surprised for some people here. So it will be pretty cool to hear it all. Yes. Let's just go right to the open wound. Open wound. Which one is the open wound, Bruce? J.J.P. Okay. How is an open wound? Okay. Because they're still dragging. Harry Potter. You're welcome. Thank you. Okay. Harry Potter. So Harry Potter was announced at Texas. Yes. In March, Jack Guarnieri told us not to buy anything. I can't even buy groceries or anything. I'm fucked right now. You know, I'm starving. I'm eating wood. Since he told us not to buy anything, June and King Kong have come out. Yes. I think Pinball Brothers and probably American were waiting for Predator and Cuphead, respectively, until this game came out. I think Pinball Brothers got tired of waiting, so they started doing teasers for Predator. But now Harry Potter has finally come out, and they have a timer now. They just came out. When did that come out? Friday? Yes. So it's supposed to be released. Harry Potter is coming out. And you remember the last episode we said there was rumors there was going to be a delay, etc. Well, rumors be gone. It's going to be coming out Thursday, or at least the reveal is Thursday. Get for the chopper! No, that's the wrong game. Harry Potter. Damn it. Harry Potter is coming out Thursday. what do we think about Harry Potter are we excited who has seen the trailer of just the artwork I mean yeah artwork like yay like yeah yeah it's like is it gonna be Harry Potter or is it just gonna be you know Hogwarts and it's nice to see there's actual the kids from the show and yeah yeah well in case You're worried. I just have the word HP. Well, I have to say, even though I haven't watched any of the movies, I know who's in it. And when I saw the art, it's like, okay, it looks like they got all the people that you would want them to get for this license. And they photoshopped them all on the side of the cabinet. Yeah, they photoshopped them all on the side of the cabinet. And it's pre-existing artwork, which is really bad. So it's not even like original shit. Okay, how do you know that? Is that a picture of Christopher Franchi? What? Oh, you see? My wife is a humongous Harry Potter fan. She's like, this looks like this, and this looks like that. And she started, I'm like, oh, boy, here we go. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So are we excited for Harry Potter? Just in time for the series reboot, the TV series, right? They recast every month. Yes. There you go. I'm excited for this to all be over. Perfect timing. I'm with Zach on that. Okay. Well, why are you not excited? Let's hear that one. Do you really want me to get into that? Well, you can. That's your choice. But I'm just stating first, do you think the license... Yeah, wait. Is the license going to be what it is? Is the game going to be as good as people think it is? Of course not. It's impossible to reach that level of expectation. It's going to be the next Star Wars. You would need literal magic. Oh, fuck Star Wars. Great. But not in the other way where everyone hates it. Do we think it's going to sell a lot? Yes. I sure hope so. I'll sell Guns N' Roses. That's very hard. But if they market it the right way, it will sell more than Guns N' Roses. Yes. If you actually go to, look at Universal and look at how much money they put into the new Epic Adventure theme park. and they made a separate, you know, one of the five new parks at Universal is Harry Potter. And they already had another Harry Potter section in the old park. They know what this license can bring money-wise. If JJP does it right, they can make a killing. And why is that the question? Because Willy Wonka's assets all over again. Yeah. Here's the real question, though. We've all seen their line. At least I assume everyone here has seen their line. okay, so let's say they sell Gangbusters. They're still producing Avatar CEs right now. Do they really have a fighting chance? Whoop-de-doo, they sold 10,000 of these. Now how are you going to make them? I'm assuming because they've been having sales and everything and trying to sell them. I'm assuming they already have piles of these boxed up. I sure hope so. They are already on the line. You would hope. They have been on the line. They have been on the line actually for a couple of weeks. Yeah. I don't think there's going to be an issue with how they build, because apparently the CE or whatever they're calling it is going to have a time frame, so they're going to know what time frame they can build the CEs. So I don't think manufacturing is going to be an issue, but you'll get one eventually if you want one. I guess there's a possibility, like Guns N' Roses, where they had a whole bunch pre-built and they sold them immediately, so you get your stuff in a week, and then there was like two months before the next set of people got theirs and half the hype died. Did it really die since they did sell a ton of them? I feel like that was the first drop off in hype was like what everyone was like waiting for. By the time everyone started getting them again, people were like less enthused than they were if they just were pumping them out immediately. Yeah, I agree with Joe on that one. I don't think it was as big a drop as you think it was because they would have never sold that many. Now, if you look at it, it's pretty funny when they're trying to sell a $9,000 Guns N' Roses, and on the used market, they're going for $5,000 and $6,000. And SD just sold this last month for $4,500. Wow. Yeah, that's bad. Wow. I mean, it's good for us. I don't think that the timeframe thing, like instead of doing a limited run, I think that's a good choice, personally, because I think, and again, I'm speaking, Not for myself, I'm just thinking for the rest of the market, for people who are enthusiasts about Harry Potter. I think that people who want or are big enthusiasts of Harry Potter are going to want it now. And it doesn't matter if it's limited, a time limit or a number limit, it doesn't matter. Those people are going to want it as soon as possible. They're going to want to show it off. They're going to want to get it in their home. It doesn't matter. The FOMO is going to be pretty strong, I think, regardless of the fact that there's no limited number to it. I think people who want it are going to get it as soon as they possibly can. And it's a smart move because they're going to continue to sell. People are, you know, in an ideal world, the game is good, and people are going to see how good the game is, and even if they're on the fence about it over time, they're going to put that money aside and buy the game long term. So I think J.J.P. has put themselves, set them up for a good way of marketing it and making as maximum amount of money as they possibly can out of this franchise. now again I'm just I'm not I personally I'm very ambivalent about the theme I wasn't a big fan of the movies I fell asleep during halfway through the second one which is unfortunate hey sorry Albert I know I know this is going to hurt you I know but listen I never got to Prisoner of Azkaban which I hear is like one of the pinnacle one of the best films of the series okay so I never gave it its fair shake but for me it just was like I don't know it was like a bunch of kids with magic wands and I was like I'm way too old for this to be watching this in the movie theater but I get it and it's just for me it's a new pinball machine great I hope JJP is successful but you know a theme does absolutely nothing for me Joe is far too mature to be into that kind of yeah far too mature I'll have the floor thank you I'm a massive Harry Potter fan I ended up reading the books basically accidentally because my wife was pregnant and I couldn't find another book I was reading a Chuck Palahniuk not Fight Club but maybe Choke one of his other books and it was just very inappropriate to be reading to a baby even unborn in the mother's belly so I looked around the room for something more child appropriate then even after she fell asleep I fell in love with Harry Potter read all the books watched all the movies re-read all the books wrote fan fiction about it knew Snape was good when everyone still thought he was bad That's neither here nor there. What I'm most interested to see from Jersey Jack Pinball is how much new blood. This is a unicorn event in pinball where we're going to be bringing in so many people who are massive Harry Potter fans who aren't necessarily pinball fans who have ever bought pinball before or even sought after playing a pinball machine in an arcade because they're such huge Harry Potter fans. and I'm really excited to see if we can bring in more new, younger, especially people, men, women, everybody to pinball because I think this is a different demographic than we usually get. And it would be really neat if Jersey Jack somehow tracked what percentage of purchases were going to brand new pinball buyers because I think this is a neat moment in time, and I'd like to think from here moving forward in the market, we're going to have a lot more new buyers not just for Jersey Jack or Harry Potter, but that's going to bring in new buyers for Stern and all the other companies as well. So that's what I'm most interested to track after the pinball machine comes out. Can I have a rebuttal to Orby's rebuttal? No. Point of order. Subjection. I agree. 30 seconds to rebuttal. I agree with Albert in the sense that it's going to bring new eyes to this game. It's not going to bring new buyers. That's impossible. As soon as any kind of Harry Potter fan finds out about a pinball machine like that, they'll be like, wow, great, I can't wait to play it. What? It's $15,000? Okay. Maybe if it's at an arcade, I'll play it. Whoa, whoa, whoa. They're not going to buy it. Whoa, whoa, whoa. $9,999 for the arcade version. That's the arcade version. Okay, sure. But wait, wait. If you're an enthusiast, you're not going to buy the arcade version, right? That's true. No, no, no. Okay. You're going to play it out on location. And I'm sure, yes, Orbeez is 100% correct. It's going to bring a whole new demographic of people to be aware of pinball and to play pinball. You're not going to get very... Like, same thing happened with Star Wars. Star Wars, huge license. Way bigger than Harry Potter. I think we all could agree. I don't think that moved the needle with getting more pinball players buying pinball machines, maybe playing pinball machines, but that's where it starts. You start as a player, then you say, oh, what other games do they have? Oh, wow, okay, I like this, I like that, I don't like this, I don't like that. And then you get into maybe like, oh, maybe one day I will buy a game down the line. Maybe it will be Harry Potter, maybe further down the line. But I think immediately you're not going to get a huge amount of like a tidal wave of sales from Harry Potter enthusiasts. That just doesn't, the way it works. Yes, you will get people who are pinball enthusiasts who love Harry Potter, like Albert. You will get people like that who are like, man, I want to buy this now, 100%. But they're already pinball players. They're already pinball players. Okay, Joe, Joe, Joe. World's quickest counterpoint, my wife has never wanted to buy a pinball machine before until now. End point. Great, great. Love you. I don't want to rebuttal. But you're both buying the game, right? You're both deciding on that purchase. Well, it's mostly her money, so yeah. Oh, wow. Okay. Woo-hoo! Well, how about you, Bruce? What? Cat's the big Harry Potter fan. She wants to see it. That's the next thing. She wants to see it. Wait, I'm going to say this. When has a pinball company extended the reach of the product that they're trying to do as well as they should be doing? I think D&D, 100%. I think D&D is a case in point, for sure. I have talked to many people who are not even related to pinball, and they're like, Joe, have you seen this? This is crazy. And I'm like, yep. So, again, but they're not looking to buy a game. They want to play it on location. They want to play it on location. Again, people are going to buy it, but, I mean, it's just you're not going to have a huge wave of new buyers. It's not going to really move the needle, I don't think, for new first-time buyers. You have to aim for those first-time buyers. And the reason being, here's the reality of the situation, too. if you've watched us do the market trends or this month's pinball market on YouTube, JJP, all their games are underselling a lot now. Like we just said, like Guns N' Roses has seized at $4,500. Guns N' Roses is the highest selling volume-wise of the JJP line. And so when you produce more, the value of the product is less. Uses that are in the hobby know that. So a lot of us are salivating at the fact, like, bring on Harry Potter. It's awesome. We'll all be able to get it. Yeah, you're going to get $3,000, $4,000 off. So JJP has put themselves in a rock and a hard place because they know they need to move units with Harry Potter, but we all know that drives down value. So if you look at JJP's strategy right now, they are not marketing towards us as the buying demographic right now, us as the diehards for pinball, because they know we're going to nickel and dime them, right? They are actively hitting Facebook for the people that are through a certain age range, a certain price income, a salary, and they're targeting those people that want the Harry Potter. They want one machine. They want two machines for their lake house, for their grandkids or whatever. So really there's a lot that hinges on this game because I think it makes or breaks more than we know throughout the whole industry, just not for Jersey Jack. Agreed. Well, for Jersey Jack, we know they're all in on this. Yeah, they have to be. They had, I think, their pentastic seminar. It was like this is the culmination of their, what, 14 years now in existence? Like this, it's all leading to this point, this game. Don't spend a dime. Don't spend a dime. Oh, is that Chris? I finally got it working. Yay! Welcome! Gaza! Gaza! So, hey, Chris, how did you get into pinball? You're not going to get away with not answering the question. Ooh. Oh, man. I used to ride my bicycle to an arcade when I was about 10 years old, and all they had was pool tables and some pinball machines and foosball. There wasn't even any video games out yet. And, of course, it was all EMs, so I would ride my bicycle to this place and play EMs for hours at a time. That was in the mid-'70s. And I bought my first machine in 2009. I actually bought two machines at the same time. I bought a Judge Dredd and a Mary Shelley Frankenstein. Those were my first two machines. Do you have a Lord of the Rings? Do you have a Lord of the Rings? Of course I have a Lord of the Rings. I've had it for probably, I don't know, a long time. 12 years, 14 years, something like that. Is it your favorite? It's not my favorite anymore. It was at one time. It probably has the most, you know, sentimental value because it was also one of the first games that I bought. But as far as a player goes, it's probably not my favorite anymore, but it was at one time. Cool. So, Steph, you were talking about the other stuff. If you want to talk, come on in. Oh, boy. I always like that. It's not. Well, I can frame it this way. Do we think that the certain views of the creator of Harry Potter will affect the sales of this game? Absolutely, yes. That's been in discussions in groups that I've been in since the thing was announced. I have a counterpoint to that. The video game that just came out when she started all this stuff. It sold like gangbusters. It doesn't cost $12,000. I know that, but guess what? It's still, people still play it. The numbers are very good still for that game. I'm not encouraging or discouraging anything here. I'm just stating that people who show it with their money more than their other ways. Okay, I can give a counterpoint. And I can give it directly to the pinball princess. Because I've foreseen this argument. What about John Trudeau games? People who own those games. The Creature from the Black Lagoon is up 3% in the last few months. Or. For $9,000. Or. Or. Like the Black Rose, that pinball princess, or cell phones. Right. Is John Trudeau actively backing legislation to antagonize an entire group of people? And that money's not going to John anymore, right? Like he. Yeah, that's the other argument. Is not benefiting financially in any way from reselling of Creature from the Black Lagoon or any other game that he made. And also, again, many other people, as we know, work on a pinball machine, and it's unfortunate to be tethered to that reputation. But I think that – I think it's a different situation, even though I would say – I would contend that John Trudeau is marginally a worse human being, very marginally a worse human being than J.K. Rowling. We're really splitting hairs there. Yeah. But again, I mean – I mean, anyhow. Yeah, but I think that, yeah, the fact that he's, that person is not financially benefiting, you're not financially supporting that person. In the case of Harry Potter, that is the case. You will be supporting that person. I don't know exactly how much was given, how much money changed hands in the deal, or if there's even, like, a royalties thing that's potentially a part of it. I don't even know, and I don't really care. It's just the fact that there was money. I mean, it's pretty easy to say that, like, if they hadn't fired Trudeau, and if he hadn't gone to prison, like, that would probably affect his game sales of his next game after he goes to prison. Oh, of course. Certainly. Certainly. Yeah. Yeah. But Deadpool would not be the great game it is nowadays. Yeah, that's the smartest thing they did was redesign that one because that would have never worked. Got to call in George. Got to call in George for the emergency. Yeah, that's a good one, too. Dave Christensen as well. We could get into that, too. I mean, like, how far down the rabbit hole do you want to go? Yeah, exactly. Well, Dave Christensen, he loved Nazis. I mean, he was really into that stuff. I think he was one. He's also like an awful artist. And he's also dead. He's also dead. Even without the Nazi thing, I just want to own one of his games anyway because they just look so shit. Wow. You own one? Don't you own one? What's that one of his? Future Spa? Anybody? Not even Nitro? Are you kidding me? Old Chicago? Old Chicago that you do own? Oh, yeah, that one. followers, he grew himself in making Oh, wait a minute. I love it. I wouldn't own one of his games. Oh, wait. Wait, I do own one of his games. Again, again, these people are not benefiting in any kind of substantial way. No, he's not benefiting at all. He's dead. He's dead. He's dead. But again, I think there is a distinction to be made. For sure. Let's put it this way. It will affect sales to some degree, certainly. I think that the LGBT community has put a vocal have made themselves known to operators in their communities that these games are not really appreciated and they can do whatever they want with their tokens or their dollar and they will also in this kind of democratic system voting with your dollar, they will not frequent those establishments if they choose to bring that game in and that's their right to do so. It's a tough call, man. It's going to be interesting. I have it. I have a narrative that speaks for this, actually. When I was working for the operator, one of our locations we had was a gay bar. And we put in and we were kind of struggling to figure out what to put in. And our higher up decided, let's throw our Elvis pin in there. It was gone in a month because their clientele was very opposed to Elvis. and I guess some of his beliefs and views that he had voiced at certain points. So that was gone pretty quickly. So, yeah, those people will make themselves known for sure. I feel bad for Jersey Jack, though. I know that they knew going into this. So when Stern was trying to chase this license, this was before everything happened with JK because they had been working with her for so long. And obviously Jack came in three years ago and scooped it out from underneath them because Cam and Cal was nice enough to announce that across all social to us. but like I feel bad because it's like you get yourself knees deep into this product right you've got a whole team you've got a whole factory depending on you to make this a good game and it's like where do you separate the art from the artist I get like she definitely benefits on the back end from it because she is the creator of it but you have so many lives riding on this one product so does it become separating the art from the artist or does it become no we need to make a stand and is this where you make a stand on a small business taking a chance on a product like this it must be hilarious just like jack in his office whatever like every single time like some new art new news item comes up about rolling he's like fuck not again i was gonna say i totally agree with josh and i feel like the amount of the couple extra pennies she might earn in royalties per pin. I would personally care more about helping JJP. If I absolutely love the pinball machine, I want to buy it. But if you are dead against, and I can understand this as well, if you're dead against supporting JK at all, the easy way out is you just buy it on the used market so that you're not supporting her whatsoever. So I don't know. It's a middle-of-the-road answer, but that's kind of what I think. Wait a second. If you're buying it secondhand, you're still supporting – I would look at it this way. You're supporting the values. You know, is the machine, as they said, like, you know, with Elvis, is it totally taboo? Is it really? Think about it. Not to me. Not to me. But to someone, if it was, tell them to not buy it, right? But to me, what she's done, is it quite bad enough for me to be like, oh, I can't support. You know, I still read the books. I still watch the movies. So I still support that way, right? So, I mean, it'd be silly if I wouldn't play the pinball machine, but I'll support her in other ways, right? I mean, it is slightly ironic they're releasing in June in Pride Month, so, I mean, there's that. Perfect timing, perfect timing. Perfect timing. If you watch Mental Gymnastics, the cast of the Not remake, which is probably why they're making a remake, to be cynical about it, have all openly said, trans women are women, we stand with the trans community. And basically had a schism with Joanne because of it. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, they've all been very vocal about disavowing and disavowing. Yeah, and she's been very vocal and quite the opposite. And, Orby, I hate to contradict you again, but it's not pennies. We're not talking about pennies here. You know, I mean, she is a multimillionaire, no question. She is still one of the richest women in the world, I think. I think she's a billionaire. I think you've got to go to the billions. She's back in the billions. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. This is not pennies, though, Joe. I can't afford to buy one, so. Okay, well, there you go. Like, again, or if you can't even afford to buy one, right? Like, again, what is that saying about bringing new people in? If fanboy number one of Harry Potter can't afford to buy this game, are people who are just, like, invested in the property, the books, and the movies and stuff, are they going to really chip in, like, $15,000 to buy a game? Or we don't worry about it. In six months, you'll be able to pick it up for six grand. I don't think so. Exactly, yeah. It'll be less. There you go. There you go. But I don't think – I still won't be able to afford it, but I'll be closer. I don't think enthusiasts are going to wait. They're not going to wait for that to come down. They're not going to wait. They're going to jump on it as soon as possible. Exactly. People who are buying their first pinball machine new, and it's this game, though, I feel like most of them are not the demographic that's going to get into pinball either. If you want to make it as a marketing thing and you want to say, guess what? The way to do it is to put as many people, as many people as you can, put it in each one of their stores, the Harry Potter stores, and put it at the amusement parks. that will get overseeing an amazing amount of people going past it. You could argue that's why Indiana Jones is so high priced. Exactly. And again, I don't want this to be a reflection of JJT's values, which I don't even really know personally, but they did just release an Elton John game like two years ago who was a very out musical performer That would be good for your location I just want to say yeah I just want to say like you know like again this has been in the works for, again, well before any of this commentary came out from JJP. And you lock into this thing when you think you've got, like, you've hit gold. Of course, you would go for it. And it's just a really unfortunate circumstance that I think for JJP. I don't think that in any way it really should reflect the values of them as a company or personally. I think that definitely we can separate that. Do you think it would be enough impact that Stern's back there looking and saying, hey, maybe it was good that we didn't get this? Maybe, maybe not. I don't know. I think it's still going to make a lot of money. You still have to make a lot of money. At the end of the day, these companies are looking at one thing. What's on the line right now? I guarantee they're sitting back salivating, wondering what's going to happen. They're actually watching this. Oh, of course. Spike 3 is coming out, and they're debating where they're going to price their stuff. And depending on how Harry Potter does it, because Stern does this all the time, right? They'll let everyone else take the chance, and then they apply it to their system. So I really think a lot rides on Harry Potter more than we realize. Yeah, absolutely. They let somebody else take the lead, for sure. And J.K. Rowling's value last year when the thing came out went down to $759 million. As of three days ago, Forbes, 1.2 billion. Holy shit. Wow. Yeah. That's awesome. So, you know, I'm just stating facts here. Maybe it is pennies. Maybe it is pennies. Maybe it is pennies. Sorry. Holy shit. There you go. But again, how much of that money is going towards her funding these different programs that are hurting trans athletes? I do not know. Again, it's hard to square that circle for me as a player. and people in my community that I play with here in Toronto, it's hard to look people in the eye and tell them, yeah, I can't wait to play Harry Potter. So is everyone – Okay, now I have a question for every one of you. I'm going to do a shootout. Oh, Bruce is – I know Bruce is going to say, yep. Yep, is the game at your favorite location? Are you boycotting it? Yeah, I was going to ask the same thing. I'm going to be honest. That's what I want to hear. No, I'll play it. Sorry. I'll play it. No, I will not boycott it. I don't believe that that's the right way to go about it personally for me. I 100% support people who do, though. I 100% support those who do. The location. Because as you just heard from Chase before, when they put in a machine that didn't make money, who knows, maybe they didn't even go there after seeing that. That might have been a major insult. That was what the clientele were telling the owners. It's like, hey, we're not going to come if you have the stand in here. And so we had to pull it. Yeah. So is it you boycott the place? No, certainly not the place. Don't play it. There's different levels, right? Like, no, don't boycott. But I'm going to the highest level. If you're spending $15,000, you're now taking the risk of insulting some of your people who come to your place. Yes, of course. Do you take that risk? Of course. Bruce is really wanting to know if he brought it to the RPC. Yes. Guess what? I'm not going to bring it to the RPC if I ever bought it. One reason why is my wife would then kill me because she would want it at her house. There are certain titles that you don't bring. Like, you know, one of our members owns a very nice TX Sector that I sold them. Never been to RPC. You know, that's like their baby. You know, that's the same thing, you know. But if you were going, first, would you not play the game if it was at location? And second, would you or would you not boycott that location? That's one of the two questions we're going to ask each one of you. So I'm going to go right out. Boom, boom. Me personally, I'll go first. Me personally, I know almost all the operators in Utah. They're all small mom and pop places. A lot of them are doing this for the love of pinball, and they're making, you know, quarters on the dollar, literally. You know what I'm saying? I couldn't do that I might go in if I want to boycott that game I might not play that game but then again they just spent anywhere from $10,000 to $15,000 to bring that game in for us to experience too and that money is going directly to the operator it's not going to JK I think if you really want to support the community and they take this chance support them on that I'll say I couldn't boycott I mean, if they brought it in to, say, Excelsior, which is my main location, where the first league probably in the 5-1-8 ever was there. We had a road show. No, we had road show and Twilight Zone, and they were broke half the time. Now we have, like, X-Men, King Kong, World Cup soccer. There's four games there now. I came in one day, and they had Harry Potter there. I would play it. I think for me, I wouldn't boycott either the game or the venue, but I think that it behooves a conscientious operator or owner to, if they can, create some sort of fundraiser event with the game or maybe not include the game or whatever they want to do, create some sort of separate event that would support trans athletes in some way, some meaningful way. I think that to show as a sign of good faith and part of the community, that is if it's something they want to be part of that community and want to sort of kind of come to a common ground, I think that giving some of those proceeds from the operation of that game to a program that supports trans youth would be a good olive branch to some degree to show good faith. That's all I'm saying. I'm just waiting for like the IFBA ruling debate of like they put this in a tournament and then a player refuses to play it. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. We haven't gotten to the first two questions. What do you think, Zach? What would you do? I don't plan to play it. Okay. That's your choice. I, you know, I'm not going to say yes or no. You know, that way, like, you know, being against that, that's your choice. Well, you hate Jersey Jacks, so. Unless it's Lawler. Yes, unless it's Lawler. Well, I hate half the Lawlers, too. If there's a Lawler. Amen. Amen. Wow. Wow. They've made one slightly okay game once. Dialed in. John, I totally agree. Dialed in. 100%. The walk is right over there in my house, yeah. No, thank you. Now would you boycott a place that has it? Zach. I would probably at least say something to the operator maybe, but depending on how many games they have. But also, I don't play much location pinball. No, I know. Not really a factor. No, I know. I know, I'm just trying to ask. It's just a hypothetical. Yeah, staff. So, what are the questions again? First, would you not play it? Yes or no? I'm not going to go out of my way to play it, no. Okay, that's totally fine. I have no problem with that. Would you boycott the place? So, I've been thinking about this in two ways. If I walked into, like, Swill Burger and went, why is that there? and if I walked into RBC, what I would have to – like, those are two different beasts. No, I'm going to be devil's advocate here. I don't think it is two different beasts. Well, it is for my specific situation. I know, and it would be for mine too because I – Also, one's plane drop and one's not. Exactly, that's first. Basically, if I walked into Swillburger and saw that Knox had it on route or something or if I went to Pocketeer for some reason and it was there, I would not put a coin in it. If someone brought it to our PC, I would float the idea of for every play that we get on that thing, we're donating a dollar to a trans charity. Well, that would be impossible. Because you don't have any plays, some of our games yet. I think we'd be broke. Then we're doing some kind of charity tournament that goes to trans charity. We are doing something to actively combat. I did not disagree with that at all either. But, you know, I don't know what the right or wrong answer would be. It's sticky because from a completely divorced from ethics and morality completely, it's a brilliant business decision. It's a huge property. The second that you bring ethics back in, you want to throw up, or at least I do. I agree. It's a touchy situation. Yeah. I'd rather they hadn't. I understand why they did. And navigating that is going to be a case-by-case for every person, every location, every situation. It's just going to be a lot. I'm going to throw another little monkey wrench into this thing. What happens if it's at a major event? IFPA Nationals or what happens then? You take a game and you get DQ'd and that's it. If that's your choice. Slam tilt it. Oh, there you go. I've done that in tournaments. It's out of the window. There you go. It's your moral obligation to tilt these as hard as possible. Yeah. To answer all three questions, I would play it if it was somewhere. I can't wait to play it. also I'm very very very excited to get you play it in a tournament as well and I'm excited even to podcast about it and talk about it and do five rad and one bad if a location had it I would never say a darn tootin thing unless unless like my local location that I play here in Moncton New Brunswick they used to be a gay bar they're still a gay adjacent bar they still have lots of nights that are like, you know, they have drag nights. They have other nights where it's, you know, the women just wear the tassels. It's not a strip bar or anything, but, you know, it's very close. Burlesque. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. There's really cool burlesque nights and stuff. And sometimes I'm there practicing for provincials and they're like, oh, wow, there's still pinball machines. And I'm like, please don't let my wife walk down the stairs while the woman in tassels is talking to me. Oh, there she is. Great. but for a bar like that if they brought it in and because I am friends with the owner and I was comfortable I might say like just by the way because you have you know a big portion of your crowd is LGBTQ adjacent at the very least you know you might want to consider that and honestly the only way I wouldn't play that machine is if I was with a friend or family member who you know was in that realm and they they were there and I knew they were comfortable and they don't like supporting J.K., I wouldn't maybe go to the venue. I'd still go to the venue. I would just avoid playing that machine. Now, if I'm playing with you in a tournament and you're uncomfortable playing it, I'm sorry. I'm giving you an X because it's no different than if you're uncomfortable playing Future Spa. There's art on there that is uncomfortable to people. Come on. Also, if you're playing Playboy and you get to the wizard mode and the girl takes, you know, her top down, you see her breasts, right? Like, so sometimes in tournaments, you're going to play games that you're not comfortable with the whole thing on. You can't make that decision. I would think if I makes a rule on it that you can just say, no, I don't want to play on this machine. That opens a can of worms to just say, oh, I'm not comfortable playing on this machine or that machine due to other things. So I'm against all of those. But for the most part, I don't agree with what she's done, but it wouldn't prevent me from playing it or playing in a tournament. And my view is, no, I will play it. I will not discriminate against any place that owns it or stay, you know, you know. But I would hope that they do something like Joe said, where they support in other ways. That would be cool. Yeah. Because, you know, people, you know, it is stating that, you know, you're trying to help out in other different ways, which we always try to do in pinball. And that's what I want to see. Chase and Chris are like, what have we got ourselves into here? I didn't want to answer that. What the hell? Anybody else want to chime in on this? Crickets. If you don't want to, I have no problem with that either. That's not, you know. I will just say that it's a pinball machine, and I wouldn't really let the politics of stuff that's going on with the people that, well, the rights, the owner of the IP, however you want to put that, to me, I can separate the two. and it's a pinball machine that's there to play and have fun. So if our local location picked one up, I would definitely play it, and I wouldn't boycott the location just because they had a Harry Potter there. To me, I associate it more with the movies and the pinball that we all enjoy rather than the other side of things. That's the way I see it. anybody else? okay I could just say going back to Dave Christensen he liked Nazi so much even Python Anghelo was like he went a little overboard on that one that's all you gotta know about that that guy's crazy that guy's crazy if Python thinks you went too far then yeah that's a sign are we going to get a Python voice out of you to tell us that. Yeah, because you've got to tell us that. Yeah, what's the Python thing? Yes, Dave Christensen, he is fucking insane. No, he's a little too much into the whole Nazi thing. You know, I put them on all his artwork and shit. I can do it with the nudity. That's good, but all the Nazis can't. No, no. Hands up, yes. Nazis, no. Yes. Okay, so what is next on the list? Well, that's not the only new game that's coming out. I know. That's why we're here. Shoot here and here. No, that's the wrong one. Wrong Arnold. Sorry. Predator. Get to the chopper. Yes, I think Pinball Brothers got sick of waiting for Harry Potter, so they started coming out with the Predator teasers. But now there's an actual date for Harry Potter. So I don't know when Predator's coming out. They just had another teaser. Oh, one thing we didn't mention is the Harry Potter teaser. that debuted on JJP machines with internet connectivity. Yes, it did. It just started showing up in the video clips. It's like, what? What the hell is that? I thought that was interesting. Yeah, it was kind of funny. Do you think that was intentional? Yeah, oh yeah. Yeah, oh yeah. 100%. I don't know. I'm not sure if somebody screwed up. Somebody screwed up? They hit the button too early? No, you asshole. I think ideally you'd want to have that in conjunction with the official release. Yeah, but you show a teaser, and the teaser didn't show a play field. It just showed, like, the art. It showed you enough to know that it's off the movies and the actors are in it, so you're like, okay. I guess so. So, yeah. Yes, Predator. And hold on, I'm trying to find it. Is it going to glow in the dark? That's what I want to know. Well, the latest teaser they put on their Facebook page. It's basically a picture of the game, just the cabinet, But in the Predator vision. Yes. Like the night vision. Not the night vision. The night vision. The Predator. The heat vision that the Predator has. Yes. Are any of us excited about Predator? If they have all the assets, I'll be excited. If they get. It wasn't the Dino Brothers. If it wasn't, that's what I was going to say. It's like. Hey, what the fuck it up. Well, here's the thing. Here's the thing, though. Here's the thing. Yes, we say. Because Alien was Highway. Yes. And most of the people like any of the Pinball Brothers games. That's the one they like. And they pretty much think that. But it wasn't one. It wasn't Pinball Brothers. But they pretty much, most people, they don't like Queen. They don't like ABBA. But the thing is, on the software side, the code side, it's the same people. The same people did Alien, did Queen, and ABBA. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong on that, but I'm pretty sure it's the same team. Who was the programmer on Alien? I forget. What was his name? It's Joe Schober Yeah, Joe Schober, yeah No, not just him Well, Tim and the other guy What's his name? He got let go midway through, right? I'm pretty sure it's the same It's basically the same team That has worked on all their games So Like Bruce said They haven't shown me anything from a playfield perspective so far Yeah, I don't think that's true, Ron Because I remember a lot of Like the same code work of the game but a lot of the strength of Alien is the video and sound design. Yeah, who was doing that? I'm pretty sure whoever did all the video work for them was Tom Sparrow. He was on for it. Brian Dominic. Brian Dominic, yeah, there you go. Brian Dominic, yeah. He's not involved. He was a big part of that game. I thought he was still involved with their newer games. No, I don't think he... No, they cut ties with him, unfortunately. He's a really smart guy. That's really... So the whole correct me if I'm wrong thing just happened for those that haven't seen it. Plus the play field Alien According to Dennis Norgman Most of that is him Yeah We can be honest here They're not wide bodies So they're not going to shoot Oh yes Yes Zach loves wide bodies But Well the one article Said it was a wide body It is a wide body So it's supposedly A wide body Yeah Did you guys get the email today An email went out today With some Like a picture of the play field But it was like All LED And it's blown out It's like Yeah, you can't really see much. You can see the inserts, the green inserts. You know, I love Alien. I'm a huge fan of that franchise, and I'm a huge fan of the Predator franchise, especially the first movie, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. For me, not having Arnold Schwarzenegger gives me the same interest in getting or playing an Alien game that doesn't have Sigourney Weaver in it. But wait, wait, wait. Arnold isn't in it? Come on. Arnold isn't in it? I don't think so. We don't know. It's definitely loaded with key scenes and toy features So who knows what that will be But I don't think Arnold's going to be in any of that You've got to have Arnold in it No absolutely he's got some of the greatest one-liners In that movie A lot of guys have great one-liners Yeah but Arnie has the best Arnie has the best one-liners in that movie for sure And you know if they're going to have those one-liners Like stick around But it's just going to be text I think Is Arnold in Last Action Hero other than the back of the list? Yeah, man, absolutely. Like, he has actual call-outs he did for the game? Yeah, yeah. Well, not original call-outs. They're from the movie. No, it was movie call-outs. Yeah, okay. I think it was like 10 or 12, because it was a limited. Arnold insisted on that fucking Last Action Hero. That is the biggest fucking thing on the backlash. 100%. So he was very involved in that game. But I'm just saying, like, I'm sorry, but, like, for me, like, it's like having Terminator without Arnold Schwarzenegger. Like, okay, sure, you have the robot. I'm happy they do have the music. It seems like they do have the Alan Silvestri theme to the movie. Which is important, very much. Which is to me important. They didn't have it for Alien. You'll notice that there's no music from either Alien film or Aliens in that, which is unfortunate because those are two of some of the greatest composers of all time. But they made up for it pretty well with the sound work. Well, the sound design is exceptional. Exceptional. I feel like it might actually have been worse if they did have the original soundtrack, to be honest. I don't know. I would have liked a little bit of it. I think it was literally through. No, no, no. What's the track? Bishop's Landing or whatever it's called? Yes. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. It's used in, yeah. That's used in like a million trailers. Yeah. That would have been appreciated. And, you know, Jerry Goldsmith is much more low-key. His Alien is much more atmospheric and stuff. So, I don't know. I think that it could have been. But, again, people don't listen to music a lot of playing pinball machines. and I can't even hear it in the arcade. But, anyhow, my point is, like, if it doesn't have Arnold, I'm super uninterested in that. Like, what's the point? Like, super, super interested. And by doesn't have Arnold, you mean it has the lines that are in it, in the movie with Randy Joe? You don't mean, like, custom calls, necessarily? I mean, it doesn't have to be custom calls, no, but that would be great, but you've got to have Arnold Schwarzenegger. You've got to have Dylan, you son of a bitch! And, like, you know, that's, like, the fucking match sequence here. It's replay. No, no, instead of the replay, like, knocker, it's the fucking two hands coming together, you know? That'd be amazing. I like that. Like, come on, guys, let's get it together. Let's get Arnold, let's get everybody in there, let's get... Joe's got this all figured out. He's making his own prayer at this point. I mean, again, for me, it's the complete opposite of, like, Albert, really, because Albert, I think, doesn't give a shit about this theme. Like, you speak for yourself, Albert, but, like, it's, like, almost the complete opposite, like, in terms of interest, I think. Albert's going to be terminated I mean Albert's not a big fan of the franchise but yeah I love Arnold but I'd rather throw Mama from the Train, Kindergarten Cop I don't know I want to call him he's not in there wait wait is that only Danny DeVito see I'd rather than that that's what I'm saying I only watched it once 20 years ago Danny DeVito I don't know Are you thinking twins? Twins, thank you. There you go. Anything else other than... I don't know anything about Predator. Junior. I'm not going to go watch it. We want to see Junior. Jesus. Fucking Junior. I would rather Space Hunt. I'm sorry. I don't know anything about Predator. Space Hunt. I don't like the company that's making it. That's what I'm saying. Okay. I will try to be objective. I'm not going to go back and watch Predator. I don't like those type of movies from back then. I don't know. I was conceived in the 70s and born in 1980. I don't know. I just missed it by a year or two. I'm sorry. Hold on. We'll go down. Pinball Princess. Any interest in Predator? Or you've never seen it? It's another one of the ones you haven't seen. That is, in fact, another one that I have not seen. Oh, my God. That's almost a bad one. Oh, my God. Can I probably watch the Matrix over that? No. Predator. I'd rather watch Predator over Matrix. Matrix. No. No. No, I think it's just a breakthrough that changed the industry. Is there a point to Predator? A point to Predator? Zero. It is basically like the ultimate beefcake, or a bunch of beefcakes, from the 80s. You get them all, almost like the movie, what's the one that Sylvester Stallone did? The Expendables? Yeah, yeah, the Expendables. It's kind of like a pre-Expendables kind of... Well, it's Expendables before they were old. Exactly, exactly. so it's like it's like Expendable Rambo basically but the second Rambo not the first the first Rambo is actually a really beautiful drama about how we treat Vietnam vets and like shit like that but the second Rambo yeah I did like Rambo I did like Rambo Rambo's a great movie that's like the first Rocky movie is actually a masterpiece he made First Blood First Blood yeah and then First Blood 2 Rambo they took First Blood they took First Blood that week but yeah getting back to Predator like I mean yeah like I think it's like the point of it is that you get, like, the most, like, the, like, you know, the best of the best in terms of, like, the biggest macho fucking machismo shit, and they all get destroyed by this alien, and it's so much fun to watch them get just demolished by this alien, and then at the end, you've got this, like, primal battle between Arnie, he's, like, in mud, and he's, like, got fire, and he's screaming like a fucking caveman, and, you know, he's like, come on, do it, kill me, come on, do it, man, do it. You've had to heard, like, get to the chopper. You've had to heard that at least once. Oh, that's what that's from? Yeah. Get to the chopper. It's such a real line? It's get to the chopper. If it bleeds, we can kill it. Just great lines like that. So many great lines. So many great lines. And you've got a lot of great supporting actors with it also. Yeah, man. You've got Apollo Creed, man. You've got Apollo Creed. You've got Apollo Creed. You've got the Mandalorian. You've got the Governator. The Governator. Oh, yeah, Justin Valdivanturo. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Apparently there's going to be a minigun. There will be a minigun that shoots balls, apparently. That's fucking crazy. It will be. I think three people in there end up being governor or mayor or something like that. Yeah. No, it's crazy. Two people. Two people are government governors. Well, no, the one guy I thought was like a politician also. I don't know. Shane Black's in it, who became a very famous director. I don't know about any else. So, Josh, are you excited? Are you excited? I mean, I'd be more excited if it wasn't for Pinball Brothers. Yeah. Oh, yeah, Milano. For sure, for sure. Like, not dogging on them or whatever. Like, maybe I am. I don't know. I think that Predator is one of those games, like, the problem was I was born in the late 80s and grew up in the 90s. I remember, like, Alien vs. Predator, like, the video game and, like, I actually liked that movie and stuff like that. I enjoyed that stuff. And so going back and watching the original Predator, still good stuff. But, like, it's not something I'm like, oh, I've got to have it in the collection. I definitely want to play it. Like, it's not like I don't have any feelings of like, oh, this is stupid. But it's, I don't know. It's one of those things. Like, I was interested to play Queen, and I just wasn't super impressed. And then I had no interest for ABBA. So, like, Alien's fine. Like, it's a good game. I wouldn't own it. But like you have stated before, it wasn't designed by Pinball Brothers. It was actually Highway's game that picked it up. So I just, I don't know. It's one of those games that's like, you're going to have to impress me to make me play. to play it. Unless, they haven't impressed me in three years with their quality and... Well, you were banned from their factories. There it is. What the fuck it up? I've been pretty much bad about the quality since the initial Aliens. I've heard a lot of issues with Queen. I know two people that own it and they're at their wits end some part of it. You know people own Queen? Yes, I do. Bruce, what did you do to get banned from there? Like, you had some sure-stroming in Sweden and go like... What the fuck it up? Hey, I don't know. ...in their toilets at the factories. Oh, God. I did it up a decker. I did it up a decker. I did it up a decker. Oh, God. I did it up a decker. What smells like burning garbage and baby diapers in here? Okay, Chase, would you play Predator? Are you excited? I also, far too young to have seen the movie. It's on my list. But, yeah, I mean, I'll play any new pinball that comes out for the most part. So did you play Queen and did you play ABBA? No. Well, we don't have any on location anywhere near me. Okay. So I have not had a chance. So you probably won't get to play Predator either, I'm guessing. Yeah. It sounds like. Yeah, likely not. Okay, Chris. Chris. Yeah, I think it's a fantastic theme. I mean, I did grow up with those movies. Yeah. All us old guys are like, yeah, Predator. Yeah. I mean, just, you know, I can just picture Arnold right now in that thicket with his face covered in mud, and then he opens his eyes, and that's all you can see is his eyes. I mean, so my trepidation is like Josh said. It's pinball brothers, you know, because I have not played Ava, but I've heard it's terrible. I have played Queen, and it is terrible. and we talked about the fact that Alien wasn't really their design. So I'm hoping that they may slowly begin to evolve like Spooky has evolved because if you think back, America's Most Haunted was pretty bad. I actually liked it. It wasn't great. Wait a second, my ball's down at the bottom of the cabinet. I will admit. What? When you play that game, America's Most Haunted, sometimes the ball would actually drop into the cabinet. Yeah. We had a local one. And a quick story, America's Most Haunted, a friend of mine had one, and we took it to a tournament. We took it to Southern Pride. And Ben Heck was there. and it was only maybe two or three hours into the pump and dump that the elevator broke and actually Ben Heck came over and repaired the game. So that was pretty cool. That is actually. Spooky's games have improved significantly to the point where they are actually pretty good machines that are fun to play. So I'm hoping that. I'm like, Bruce isn't good at this. I had a question. Bruce is totally wrong on Evil Dead, by the way. Evil Dead. You're totally wrong on Evil Dead. I've talked to so many people that have played it, and they're fucking losing their minds how great this game is. I haven't played it myself, but Bruce, you're so off on Evil Dead, man. You're so wrong. Joe, I have not played it yet either, but I've heard nothing but good things about it. Yeah, for sure. Cool. I will give Pinball Brothers a bonus if they use Arnold Schwarzenegger's metal band Austrian Death Machine and put the song Get Your Chopper in the game. Oh, God. Wow, I've never heard of this. It's a real thing. Yes. Is it a sample, or is he actually, like, recording it for the, like, originally for the song? He found a band out of California and made his own band. How have you never heard of Austrian Death Machine? Never. It's not something I'd normally Google. Okay, Zach, are you psyched for Predator? No, I'm not. Have you seen Predator, Zach? Yes, I have. I don't know what all these older people are saying about being too young, but I've seen all the classics, except for those I haven't. The classics? You're on board? I like the movie. I'm a big fan of action movies that are somewhat suspense and stuff, too, and not just straight-up action. So I like The First Terminator. I liked Predator. I liked the first Bourne movie gave me those vibes, too. Yeah. I like it. It seems like a theme that has potential. Like, it's not everything that you need to make a good machine out of. It's just Pinball Brothers is zero for games that actually are good that they designed so far. Wow. They can turn around at any point. That's true. I'm going to fire him. Oh, my God. It's a job pitch. Wow. He just put it into those DMs. Hey, you gotta come to Fuck It Italy! Yeah! Fuck it, uh... Oh, what a horrible thing to go play design pinball in Italy. What a nightmare. Yeah. What a nightmare. Missed me with that one. I'm up for it. I don't expect much for it. I don't think I'll be able to play one for a long time unless something happens again. Don't go, Cheryl. I still can't play Naba. I played a queen once and I broke it in 30 seconds. So I just had an inside source text me. I've been told Arnold is in the game, but no idea where. Okay. Okay. You think you want to show me. It's encouraging. You want to show me. I'm Arnold. Photoshop in the middle. In the middle of the play field. Photoshop to Arnold. Oh, now. Now. Oh, now. You're one ugly motherfucker. Oh, Steph, you don't know what you're missing. It's a classic. It's a classic. It is kind of an insane machismo guy thing. Yes, you need to watch this movie immediately. You need to get this movie and watch it Again like Zach was saying the great thing about watching it in the theater is you like oh I just watching a movie like Commando where there a bunch of guys and then it takes a pretty fun twist I was the child of the ace I got to watch fucking Predator and Robocop in the same year God damn, I was lucky. I like Robocop way better. Yeah, I like Robocop way better. And just so I don't seem like an ageist, if I was going to have a fighting pinball machine, I would love to see a Bruce Lee one, and that's certainly a lot of fun. Oh, that would be amazing. Yes, if you had to come newer, what about like a Jackie Chan or even like the Karate Kid? Come on. Like, what Bible would have a bodyguard? No, no, no, no, no, no. No? Okay, well, I tried. I tried. No, no, no, no. Not that. I'm saying Bruce Lee. But Bruce Lee, come on. I agree. Bruce Lee is a great IP that they could totally use. Amazing, amazing stuff you could do with that, for sure. I think Will Dragonfist, though. I think Jackie Chan, man. I think Jackie Chan's had some political controversies of his own. Well, they hate him in Hong Kong now. Yes, that is true. He's a very pro-China. You just put out Cannonball Run. We're good. Oh, yeah, Cannonball Run. Smokey's abandoned. No, Cannonball Run, he was in both of them. He was in both of them. Oh, shit, really? Yes. He was in the Japanese, basically the generic. Mitsubishi car, that would be right. Well, in the second one, I think he's with Richard Kiel. Yes. Yes. I'm not making this up, by the way. No. Him and Richard Kiel are in the same vehicle. That alone is. Rubble in the Bronx where you have that scene where they're all smashing pinball machines in the fight scene. Or where he breaks his ankle and then he just wears the sock that's painted like a shoe. The water skiing scene at the end. That was the last great movie that didn't have a whole bunch of AI for the stunts. You know what I mean? Like, come on. Or special effects. Yeah. Yes, yes. Well, I mean, that's his friend Butter is doing his own stunts. Yeah. Well, it was. But now he's, like, really fucking old and should not be doing any stunts at this point. 74, I think he is. No, he is. I don't know. He's 71 years old. Okay. Yeah. And he can still do a backflip. I want to see that. I don't believe it. Just kidding. Yeah. All right. What else do we got here? Stomp! We're not going to talk tariffs. We're not talking about tariffs here. We're not talking about tariffs. Well, I think, guys, like, aluminum and steel tariffs just are going up by 50% worldwide, guys. That's going to be devastating. No, but the thing is going to be this. It's not going to go through. The courts are still fighting him. But they're getting injunctions, and he's getting, like, appeals courts. It's going to go to the Supreme Court. It's fucking chaos. No, it's going to go to the Supreme Court. It doesn't matter. It's the chaos. nobody's going to invest in a fucking chaotic situation. Oh, I agree with that totally. It just doesn't matter where the courts eventually lie. Well, once they say he's overstepped his thing in the Supreme Court. But how long is that going to take? Oh, no, three months. Three months. No, three months. That's going to take years. Three months. It's going to the federal appeals court next week. No, it's going to the federal appeals court next week. I thought there was something last week saying that it was too unconstitutional and they were trying to stick that right. No, and then they appealed it to the Federal Appeals Court, and they put an injunction back on it. So now it's back on. So now the hearing is this week. Later, I think it's Friday. And then whoever wins or loses is going to go to Supreme Court. And right after that is the Robert Mueller hearing, I hear. Oh, wow. Cool. Can we get a live feed of the Robert Mueller hearing? That's right, brother. I'm so interested, dude. Pinbar. Dubbed by Ron. Pinbar, brother. Does he get all the witnesses, all the old people that he bilked from all their money? He just does a flying elbow to each one of them? Yes. Or the big leg. Sorry, Hogan did the big leg. I'm thinking about the big leg. Yeah, so he did the big leg drop. He throws him out of the wheelchair, and then he just... And then suddenly, out of the back of the court, there comes a Dave Fix, the American Dream. Oh, baby, I'm here! I'm here! It's just like out of nowhere. Hey, at least American Pinball got some good PR this weekend. They gave away a free Barrio pinball machine at the European Pinball Championship. I saw that. You can't sell it. We'll give it away. Yeah, because that's all we do. Wow. What was that comment about Dennis Nordman posted on Facebook that they sold out of all the Galactic Tank Forces or something? Is that true? Was he making a joke, or was he actually proud of it? That's Bill now? I mean, that's got to be proud of him. He liked that game. He liked that game. It was his dream. He did everything he wanted to do on the damn thing. It looks pretty as hell. Yes. Thanks to Franchi for that. It's pretty. Pretty. Yes, pretty. So my understanding is he had convinced them to get more than they should have because he thought it was going to sell so well, and that's why they gave him games is because they bought so many extra ones. Like, we can't pay you because it's in stock. and so they're like, here, have these extra games, and you can sell them yourself to get your money out of them. If he was smart, you'd have everyone sign it that he knows, and then there you go. That's right, baby. We're going to give you these games. You can sell them, baby. They're yours, baby. Here you go. What do we think about American real fast? Singing ship, never going to see Cuphead? What about it? Yeah, what about it? I've seen a game that might be called Cuphead. Yeah, we've all seen. Come on, just tell us. Is it going to be a fucking, is it going to be like a, what's it called, Big House? Oh, no, no, what's that? What's the gangster game? Well, it was Big House, the one with the dogs on it. No, what's the one that Tristan did the artwork on? Mafia. No, not Mafia. Jeez, that is the worst game ever made, by the way, even worse than Thunderbirds. I will go to the fucking, that is the worst game ever made. Wow. Honestly, I saw my friend play that game. I saw my friend play that game for 30 minutes straight and I thought he was really having a great time have you played Blues Brothers? yeah, have you had? yeah, but then S.T.A.R.S. is still like a basically okay, have you played Spinal Tap? no, I haven't, but have you played Mafia though? like Mafia has nothing in it it has nothing in it there's two orbits and a shot up the middle that's it there's not even ramps in the goddamn thing guys, like Mafia, Jesus Christ and also, it's also a stereotypical portrayal of Italians which I'm not a big fan of. Hey, what's up? Hey, what's up? There you go. Hey, what the fuck it up? What the fuck it up? Huge brief. But whatever. It's a piece of shit. Like, honestly, I would much rather say... It's a mini Mario. Hey! It's a mini Mafia. Just wanted to mention that, that there is a worse game than Thunderbirds out there. Okay, so... By the way, hello, Glenn. Glenn has joined. Hey, Glenn. Glenn! Glenn! Another former guest. Glenn the Skateboarder, welcome. I've got a few minutes. Very short period of time, but I have a segment for you. All right. Go for it. Go ahead. This was supposed to have an intro song to it. How are my levels, by the way? Great. It's okay. It's good. Foodiful. That's fine. This segment, hopefully we'll have a theme song very soon. It's called Good Game, Bad Game, Credit, Blame. Who gets the credit? Who gets the blame? Good game, bad game, credit, blame. and then, you know, commence discussion. So we're going to talk about Star Wars. Who gets the credit or who gets the blame for Speed Ritchie Star Wars? Can I pause you just two seconds? We didn't finish our last topic. I will tell you, I cannot confirm or deny if Cuphead is the next one, but I will tell you this. I have seen the game. The game actually, I think, looks the best out of all of American's games that they've made so far. Maybe, like, give or take a little bit, but I have zero faith in them. If they do make it, I have zero faith in them supporting it. No, they're not going to be able to. Send a product case like that? I want to see it. I think it's dead in the water. I want to see it just because I've heard what you just said. Like, it's your best game. I will take it a step further. Then I've heard the opposite. It is the game that would have gotten them another game after this. Oh, 100%. It is that good. 100%. Yep, 100%. But I've also heard it's a complete piece of crap. Yes, I heard that also. I don't know what to believe. All right, let's play good game, bad game, credit blame. All right. Okay. Oh, Jesus. Oh, man. I can't do that. I've never played it. Yeah. All right, then we'll go back to Star Wars. Yes, Star Wars, bad game. Why? Who's to blame, Bruce? Yeah, who's to blame? Why is Star Wars a bad game? I blame the programmer himself. Oh, God. And also the designer for a shit launch on that fucking game. It's so bad of a game design-wise that you had to make a save three times, possibly, in one ball. Oh, it goes up to five now, Bruce. Oh, great. Even better. Wait, wouldn't that be a situation where the designer was to blame if it didn't rain that many times? They're both, but who's more to blame? Who's more to blame? Yeah, the coder did good by fixing the design by adding the five-time ball save. Thank you. Five-time ball save of greatness. So, by the way, Zach, it's a winner of the Zach. It's a shit show of both. Passing chips. So, Zach, so you think it's good, and who's to blame for it being good? That's not how it works That's taking my whole idea wrong Yeah, it's What's the worst part? What's the bad part of the game? You either give credit to somebody Or you give them shame You don't say why did it not work I'm confused Are we just saying Star Wars is bad? No, you can say it's great And you say why Dwight did everything perfectly Almost as much as he could And the layout's okay. Yeah, I agree with Zach. Okay, so this game comes down to your opinion of the game and why it's either good or why it's bad. Whose fault it is that it's bad. Or who's credited. Who to praise that it's good. Whose fault it is that it's good. I feel like if it was any layout that's just wide open, it would have been the same. I don't think he had that much to do with it besides decide to make it a wide open layout. Yeah. I've got to give Dwight more of the credit on Star Wars. It's a pretty pedestrian layout. Agreed. Good show. Both of them. Oh, jeez. Okay, I'll go next. It's a bad game, but the person to blame is licensing 100%, or whatever they use, the Jesus Christ. Like, you could not have fucked that license up anymore and made it any more bland. How? Because it's Star Wars, and it's like the most, well, they did a great job. I think Randy and Martinez sort of pulled the art packet. Yeah, but they're all over the place. I don't want to be playing the call-outs. It doesn't have any cinematic. It has no, it's a complete contrast with something like Dune, which has a cinematic quality that brings you into a story narrative. When your voice actor is from a rental. They play the clips in order of how they come in the movie. It's just the presentation. Randy Martinez did a great job. I think the art package on that is fantastic. but other than that, really, really, really just such a disappointing presentation I prefer the comic book more the implementation Randy Martinez, he did the comic book version and that's the best part of that whole game I agree, I agree I think that Dwight did something really different and I don't think that was the right it's not a bad design but I think it's the wrong design for that kind of game I think that you should have had a much more casual almost like Monsters-esque Yes. An S, not exactly like monsters, but a monster S, lower level, like depth of quality. Okay, who else here has an incorrect opinion? Oh, my God. You and your fucking multipliers. Get out of here. Get out of here with your fucking multipliers. Okay, Joe. Joe, you know I love you. The first thing you think about when you think about Star Wars is fucking multipliers? Okay. Joe, you know I love you. Calm down. Calm down. Chris. Joe, I have a point. Chris has a point. One thing, Zach. Star Wars is a great game. Whoa. And I just played it over the weekend in a tournament. And it's a fantastic game for people who like a challenging game. It is not a natural thing to take your hands off the flipper buttons and work a, you know, a multiplier. Neither is herpes, but you don't see me as like me. Hey, I can't help it if you can't multitask. Wait, how would you know, Bruce? Yes. Bruce cannot multitask. I can't help it. It's a fantastic game. and people that know how to play it will win it every time. Yes, that is true. It's a great game. Who gets the most credit? I will admit they did not knock it out of the park with the theme, but it is Star Wars through and through. It's just not the Star Wars that a lot of people wanted. George Lucas gets the credit for Star Wars being good. Okay. I think it's a great game. All right. Chase. Yeah, I've only played it a couple times, and it's been a while. But what I do remember of it for the most part, I remember liking of it, and I do remember mostly the code. It was the thing that stood out to me most, so I'd say if anyone gets the credit, it's definitely Dwight. Dwight Lover, excellent. Steph? Well. What? What's your opinion of Star Wars? I like it. I'm in agreement with the rules make it. She's on Team Dwight. Yeah, I'm on Team Dwight. that. Nope, nobody's on Steve Ritchie's team. No, no, no. Steve Ritchie is the one that made that launch, which was an interesting idea, but it, um, well, you know. Think about it, the last two games that Steve Ritchie made at Stern both sucked. Wrong. Wow. It's not that bad. Led Zeppelin is pretty bad. Led Zeppelin is awesome. Just like how, just like how I'm saying Dwight helped a lot with the code. Ray and Timmy helped a lot with the code. That's the only thing that saves Led Zeppelin. I think the play field... Wait, we've moved on to Led Zeppelin now. Well, no, the reason is just, you know, it's just, you know... Who haven't we heard about Star Wars yet? I'm trying to control the chaos here. Who hasn't had Star Wars? Star Wars! Star Wars! Star Wars! What we need to do is actually re-theme Star Wars as Star Wars 1978 Christmas special. Oh, God. Oh, God. I play it. The Wookiee's a Wookiee mode. No, no, no, no. Okay. I think I have a little bit of a different take for Star Wars, okay? You're high. True, true, but I'm not wrong. Here's the thing. Just like your favorite band that you love that might now suck, your favorite skateboard, if I can relate to Glenmore, that might now suck, Anything that you loved at the start. I might suck. Right? So my Monday night league at Call the Office in London, Ontario, where I went for every Thursday all you can play for five bucks, had Star Wars, and I got really good at Star Wars. So over the years, I always pick Star Wars in a tournament if I get to choose because I know the rules very well and I'm decent at it. So for me, even though maybe it's not as good of a shooter as an Elowen, obviously, it's still really a fun machine that I guess I'm nostalgic for and I'll always love. Could it be better? Yes, but it's still pretty freaking rad. Okay, hold on. Hold on. I'm going to throw my two cents into Ron and Zach. Okay. Just you two guys. Yes. When you guys pick it in a tournament, most of the time, does it burn you? No, not lately. This year, yes. Before that, no. I just always burn you constantly. Yeah. Okay, so you hear yes on one side and no on the other side. What? I said yes. I'm 30 numbers. I can't play pinball. Yeah, exactly. That's right, Zach's old. He's done. Old man. Before I turned 30, I always wanted Star Wars. Unless you played me in the New York State Finals. Boom! Yeah. Well, yeah. It's just a crapshoot. Unless I played a fellow owner. How about that? True. There you go. There you go. But it is a crapshoot. It really is a crapshoot. Okay, next one, Glenn. That was not a crapshoot. We just invested that. Everyone who knows how to play it wins. I'm going to have to walk out. That was a crapshoot. He's going to have to walk out. I want to congratulate you guys on 250. I'm happy to be part of this show in any way I can be. I have to run. But I want to hear tomorrow or whenever this gets posted, High Roller Casino, good game, bad game, credit Blaine. Talk to you guys later. Fuck yeah. We're going right now. Good game. Okay. Mid at bat. Fuck yeah. I love you. Fuck yeah. Glenn Wichter. Fuck yeah. Okay. High Roller Casino, good game. Rules make that game. So the rules. Who did the rules on High Roller Casino? Oh, you should know the guy. It's Keith P. Johnson, isn't it? Keith P. Johnson? Yeah, okay. I just couldn't get into that game. I agree. It is a good game. And who's to blame is, I think, the theming. The theming's terrible. I love it. You're actually gambling. You're playing gambling games. That's why I didn't like it. I'm not a gambler. You're playing a slot machine. You're playing high-low. You're playing crap. Can you lose points? No, you cannot. No, you can't. It's only one game you can lose points at. You lose because you have to restart the game and you can drain. That's your punishment. There's plenty of Gottlieb games where you can lose points. Tons of them. And they're terrible. Exactly. It's called Double or Nothing. Whodunit and poker both exist. Well, poker is only a single. Also, Teed Off. Teed Off, you're good, yes. Teed Off literally has Double or Nothing. Double or Nothing. And so does Jackpot. You can double or nothing. Isn't that on the Speakeasy or one of those older games as well? No wonder Zach has a Jackpot. You can lose points. That's why he likes it. What's the one with the roulette wheel? You can lose the points that you haven't gotten. Oh, gotten, yes. Okay, so it's not good enough for you. You are gambling some, but you can't actually go back to zero. Okay. But I like the game. It's an idealty pleasure. I like the game a lot. I think Norris, for what he had, did a pretty good play feel with that. Okay. This is one of the ones we were talking about before we started recording. Everyone's guilty pleasure game. The game you like and you know most people hate. For me, I have several because I guess I like a lot of games people hate. I got one. But I'll say most people seem to not like Road Kings, so I'll say Road Kings for me. Okay. I'll end mine, so I'll do the last one. So who's next? Chris, what do you like that you know most people hate? You could say Star Wars. Guilty Pleasure, any two-inch EM, two-inch flipper EM game. I love them. Oh, me too. I think they're great. For sure. I think, yeah, you got something. People overlook those two-inch flipper games. They're missing something in, like, a lot of games. Target Pool would be a good example. I love Target Pool. Absolutely. I love Target Pool. Zach, you have a Target Pool. Oh, no, you have the other one. I have a Mini Pool. Mini Pool. You have the one with better art. And better rules. So go ahead, Zach. What's yours? Guilty pleasure. Road Kings. You like Road Kings, too, so it's not just me. Didn't this come up in the last episode, you guys? You guys were ragging on Zach for liking Road Kings, and then Bruce incorrectly said that Zach has had three big guns. How many have you had, Zach? One. I thought you had two. No, why would I have two big guns? See, that's what I said during the episode. I only had the one in my head, but you could just go up top and just do your frippers all day and they'd be completely boring. Okay, Josie. Guilty pleasure game. Oh, I got one here for you. Zingy bingy. Oh, boy. You know you want the stinger. Come on. Zingy bingy. No, but one that's probably just as much as reviled by most players. The Rolling Stones by Stern. Okay. I love it, too. It's a great game. Make a stick. Okay, look, the fucking stick breaks off immediately and becomes like a non-issue, okay? So don't worry about the Mick on the stick. It's just going to get smashed seconds into the game anyhow. It becomes a non-issue. It's a really fun, flowy game. And yes, Bruce's favorite software designer, Lonnie D. Ropp, did work on the game. Yeah. But also the much-beloved Lyman F. Sheats Jr. Jr. worked on that game, too. Yes, he did. I like it. So I think this game deserves a real look back again. It's fun. It's got original call-outs from Mick, and it's an exciting game. The music is fantastic. Love the music. And I think it's actually one of the better music games that were ever made, and that's a guilty pleasure, even though pretty much all pinball games to me are like a guilty pleasure because I'm embarrassed telling people that I play pinball. I 100% agree with Joe on this one. Wow. I like it, too. There's two-two. We have two of the two same games. Josh. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the pro version. Okay. That's the premium. A lot of people don't like that game. They say it's too hard. Yeah, I really enjoy it, but then again, I grew up on Ninja Turtles. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Chase is up next, but he's so young, he probably hardly played anything. I have played some older titles, but nothing that I think anyone just straight up hates. I guess the closest for me would be John Wick. I really do like that. Okay. It is one of my favorite action franchises. I think it is kind of the action franchise of my generation. So I love it for that reason. I was probably going to like it no matter how it turned out. Could it have been better? sure, but I still really enjoy playing that game whenever it comes up in a tournament, or just for fun even. Okay! I think everybody... Pinball Princess is next! Sorry, I have the Chapel Rowan song Guilty Pleasure in my head. Does Spectrum count? Let's go, Chapel! Spectrum does count, yes. Spectrum! Most people are not going to want to play Spectrum. But it's Mastermind. It's so good. Yeah, until you realize you can just hit it up top near the saucer over and over. Play the game. I do. I like to try to play the game and try to remember as the rows go off the play field so I've got to remember what it was before. I just think that you're liable for using tournaments. That one thing would be. I've seen Spectrum used in a tournament once. It was Texas. Twice I've seen it. Yeah, I've seen it twice. We used it at RPC when we had it. Yeah, I remember when it was. The ball started getting lost constantly. Yeah. It was in Texas, and I remember Trent Augustine was playing it, I'm just walking around. And I came back an hour later, and he was still playing it. And I'm like, oh, he keeps playing Spectrum. They're like, no, that's the same game. It's the same game. He's still playing it. I'm like, dear God. Yeah. Oh, my God. Okay, my turn. I'm last. Well, Orby. Orby said his game. Orby, yeah. Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Okay, first I want to say, Josh, over there at Loser Kid, I love everything you and Scott are doing. Okay? Thank you. But I got to disagree with you here. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I'm a pretty okay pinball player, and as being a half-Dutch man, that cost me a loonie here, or sometimes even a toonie for my family to play, and, like, the best player in our family has, like, a 12-second ball, and it's done. I'm like, what happened? What happened? But my guilty pleasure game is Roller Coaster Tycoon, because everybody hates on it, and honestly, okay, the troll in the back, kind of weird, maybe replace that. Obviously, it needs a code update, but when I had it here at home during the COVID, the pandemic and everything, we're stuck here at home. My oldest son and I, Hayden, got to this routine of playing one game in the morning, and sometimes it would go two, two and a half, sometimes three hours. If we didn't get to the wizard mode three times, you were screwed. You got the wizard mode twice. It didn't matter. So it's a very fun game, but it plays too long. It needs a code update, and honestly, we need more video game. You know, we've had lots of movies, we've had lots of bands, but we haven't had enough video game actual content turned into pinball machines. So I would say my guilty pleasure is and will always be Roller Coaster Tycoon. Okay. Okay. And I guess I bring up the rear. Yeah. And I'm going to get Zach on this one really good. Oh, God. Okay. And you're going to hate it, too. Black Knight 2000, baby. Yeah. I don't hate it. Everyone hates it because they hate playing it. I don't want to be second, third, or fourth. I hate playing it. I think the other reason they hate a game besides that playing it is just awful and breaks your heart. No, it's great. I love it. I love it. This sound alone is worth it. I like listening to someone play it. Yes. But honestly, if you're playing a four-player game and you're playing fourth, you're going, fuck, these flippers are going to be marshmallow by the time I get to play it. And I love that part. It's like, yeah. It's a feature. Yeah. I love it when you get your bonus maxed out and it goes, constant heavy metal guitar going on heavy metal meltdown that was the best thing about that was the best thing about Black Knight the music was fucking awesome the newer version the best thing about heavy metal is when you hit the buttons on the sides heavy heavy metal I just want to make one point about John Wick I think that despite some people really dislike it I think personally it's got an incredible layout and I think it would be a real shame if that is Elliot Iseman's only game I think that they should give him another chance because I don't think what's wrong with that game is his fault at all I think he's a really great designer and I think that he should be given another chance I just want to be on record for that. On record. Okay. I think that he's done a lot of really great. Way too tight shots. No, but it's exciting. Way too tight shots. But it's a fan layup. I think he's coming back. It's got to be challenging. You don't think so? Oh, I think he'll come back, but I think the shots are. Oh, yeah, he's definitely coming back. Yeah, the shots are. Oh, I'm glad to hear that because I think that he showed a lot of really, for me personally, I think that even though the shots are tight, when you make them, they are butter smooth and fast. And I think it's a really interesting design for what it is. Yeah, you didn't know his next game was going to be Trump, the president? Oh, God. Is it Pokemon supposedly coming out? Yeah, that's right, though. Yeah, but Elwin's making that. That makes no sense, though. He's the monster guy. But it doesn't go with the correct order. Yeah, they took it from Danger and said, we better give this to Elwin. No, no. And again, X-Men is not Jack Danger's fault. Yeah, I... Whatsoever. You've never played ours Ours was pretty much a turn I've heard wildly different experiences And the one we I've had someone who came in Who's had really bad experiences playing X-Men And they played the one here in Toronto He put the second highest score on the game I don't think he's going to be allowed To go that crazy again That's also a real shame Because he had to convince Gomez This is Gomez's own words. He had to convince him that this would play with this weird, you know, basically with the Gold Wings bottom. Well, that part was fine. And that part, yeah. Yeah, no, no. There were more crazy bottoms. It stopped in the cross-play field shots. The cross-play field shots and hoping the ramp will all flow right. Redesigning the shooter lane so it doesn't work. We already know they're going to stop doing that. I think it's really unfortunate. I think that's really unfortunate. I think that's a brilliant use of the space of using the shooter lane as an out lane, and I think that's really unfortunate that they are not going to pursue any games. They're going to restrict that sort of level of design. I think that's a real mistake. I think they're playing it way too safe. I don't know if they'll restrict it. I think they'll restrict it in the fact that, like, I think the margin of error with when you're building those machines was too tight. Yeah. And you need just a little bit of give, especially with people that are building these games. or literally that's just their job. Like, they don't care about pinball. They're just making these games. It becomes this problem of, like, well, you want to do something interesting and new. And, like, even, like, Jack, he told me the story of, like, I think he said this publicly to me. If he didn't, I apologize. But he had to, like, get Gary drunk and then show him the play field. Yeah, he said that publicly. Yeah, he did. And so, like, they were talking about, like, and Gary's like, well, Seth's in charge now. Like, we'll see what happens. and so I think it did well in the fact that people were excited for it. I just think if it was manufactured properly, I think people would have loved it more. And I think the other point, I love Wason. I just don't know if Wason is a lead code designer. No, no. And I think that really hampered what X-Men could have been. I think it would have sold fine and received fine if it had different code. Yeah, I feel it doesn't. How can I say this? Even when Deadpool was super early, like Alpha Code, I felt it had a soul. You know what I mean? It just had a certain fun. Like, I tell you, this thing is probably going to come along good. But also Deadpool was clunky. I don't feel that with X-Men. Deadpool was clunky the first few Deadpools, the way people were setting up, because you're making that katana shot, and it wasn't going up that secondary ramp. It wasn't going through the S-ramp. And same thing with also Walking Dead. I remind everyone that balls are coming out of that pop bumper cluster and draining right down the middle. And that was not a fun time to be playing Walking Dead until people knew how to level their games properly. And, look, pinball's a game of millimeters in every way. And there's going to be manufacturing issues for every game. And it's impossible to figure out from play testing as much as you can. But the problem is when you put out a thing to say, this is your fix, and half of them still don't work from your fix and you don't address it ever again, that's the problem. I don't know about that. I thought that they resolved the shooter lane issue. Yeah, not in our PC. Not in our PC. It didn't work on our PC's one. And the thing is, if you look on Pinside, there's a lot of people still complaining about it. I don't go on Pinside. Stern doesn't like having to make kits for games. I'm sure they don't like having to do that. No, I'm sure they don't. But, again, it's part of the... Unless you have people playtesting them and maniacs going full tilt for months on end, you're never going to be able to work out all that stuff until it gets released. The problem is they don't put them on location beforehand because they're afraid of making a game out and having everything like that. Yeah, they don't have the location like they used to. It never really tracks to me. Remember they talk about Star Trek and Vici wanted to have the kickback all to the upper flipper, and they couldn't get to work reliably, even though it was fine in the factory, so they couldn't do it. In fact, like, all these places where they, like, run these mechs that run constantly, you know, to test stuff, but then, like, multiple games in a row come out where just clearly completely broken shooter lanes. Yes. If things aren't exactly perfect, like, you should be able to figure this shit out. Yeah, if you're plunging the ball and it doesn't work, that's a problem for the rest of the game. If you build 20 things, if the first 20 games off the line don't all plunge correctly, you can't do that. Yeah, you've got to tap the brakes. so you can't have your designer going and tweaking each one for the first 20 often to make it work properly like I just think that in the showroom well you got four different ones in the showroom for media day and none of them play the same Yeah that a problem I just think that it sucks that that's going to limit future innovation and, you know, design elements. I think that's not – it's playing it safe, and I guess Stern can be kind of – that can be one of their biggest sort of, like, criticisms that they are playing a lot of games. Not as safe as they used to, at least not everything has a free pop-up or nest. Sure, sure. And Elwin at this point, I think, could convince them to do what he wants to do at this point. Yeah. He might be the only exception, though. Yeah, he's the one that's making the games sell. He's selling the games. Yeah, so it's like, what do you want to do, Mr. Elwin? Yes, sure, yes, do that. How about the vault? Even his buttons don't work. Well, yeah. Oh, yeah. Hey, hey, that's the truth, too, man. I had a very rarely played a properly plunging Elwin game. I have one last stern note here. Jaws 50th. Do we think this is going to happen? Do we think there's going to be a special... It's not going to be black and white. It's not going to be black and white. Oh, we do. We do. Okay. No. It'll just be black like a doll. No, it's going to be all red. It'll just be all red. Red and blue. Red and blue. No. Red and blue. Okay. It did make me laugh when we did the rebuild podcast for King Kong, and they're like, the penny pinchers are trying to pull stuff out of the pro. I'm like, we're taking out the drop talker, and he's like, sorry, I've already put it in there. like, I've built around it. There's nothing you can do. And they're like, okay, I guess we can't. Only Elwynn could do that, right? Yeah. Because he's got the, you're not taking it out. Yeah, they're like, figure it out, you know? Yeah. I agree totally. So what do we think about Avengers going into the vault? Yay. Yeah, I mean, it's been out for a long time. Yeah. Surprise was already there. I'm surprised it wasn't either. and Mando that went in the vault that was earlier yeah I do find it interesting Mando and Star Wars both went in the vault and all of a sudden we're hearing rumors of a new Star Wars game yeah that was weird and like Bruce said last episode there's a Mando movie so you would think you would like just make more Mandos you would think but hey alright folks it's been like an hour and whatever Hour and 30 minutes. So let's do this. Just getting started. Oh, Jesus. Well, how long is your game going to take, Pinball Princess? With this many people? Uh-oh. Oh, shit. Because what I can do is we can just, so for the ball bag, what I can do is just kind of read through. We have some 250 specific emails, like just a few. And we can finish up with that. And I have a few audio clips that were sent in. I can give you a semi. Keep going. Okay. Oh, my. Okay. So the game that I was making was the most overrated WPC. Oh, God. The other game, also known as I noticed a data point and it made me so mad that I had to make a separate field for it. Uh-huh. Wow. is the rating of that game as of March 20th, 2025 on Pinside compared to Slugfest. Slugfest? You mean the pitch and bat? Yes. I have a column that says, is it better than Slugfest? Okay. I mean, with WPC, unless it's like Gilligan's Island or something, I would say most of them are better than Slugfest. I had to make a column so your presumption is wrong okay well let's make it easier let's just do our most overrated WPC game how does that sound? okay Ron you're first most overrated so this has to be one that most people seem to think is good that you kind of think is I don't think it's the cat's meow as Python would say he's not the cat's meow you know and it could have sold over 10,000 copies. It can't have sold? What? What? Because everyone's just going to say like Twilight Zone or shit and I'll be like, yeah, that's what I was going to say. Be more creative, Ron. Be more creative? You just took my guess or my thing. Yeah, that sounds very This game is hard. Very unpredictable, yeah, totally. How can it be overrated? It's got to be overrated because lots of people like it so it's a big seller but you don't like it. Exactly. Choose something that pins my top 20 for the top 10, you know? What's WPC? Yeah, a lot of outside of the top 20. You just want me to say like attack from Mars or something. That's WPC 95. I'll say one. Medieval Madness. That's 95. That's WPC 95. And it's under 10K. He's got you there. Yeah, there you go, Zach. Suck on that. You can't disagree with me either. Because you don't like it either. You get my point, but sure, you went by the exact reading of the rules. Yeah, I went by the reading of the rules. You said under 10K. That definitely saw way less than 10K. And everyone loves that game. And I think AFM is better. So do I. AFM is better. Okay. Okay, next. I guess I'm really an obvious choice here. But, yeah, 100% Adams family is totally overrated. You went against Zach's rules. You went against Zach's rules, but screw Zach's rules. It's not Zach's fucking game. It's not Zach's game. No, everything is Zach's game. I changed the game, son of Clinton. Look, it's Adam's family because what makes that game amazing? It's not the layout. It's not the rules. It's the presentation, okay? It's the TEMA. It's the presentation. It's the voice call-outs by Raul Julia and Angelica Houston and the music and the sound effects. You can hear that fucking train sound effect in any arcade where there's an Addams Family. Why? Because it sticks out. It's iconic. The sound package, the music, the voice callouts, and the lighting, and everything else is what makes that game so memorable. Not the game itself. They just made a lot of that game. That's the only reason why people like it. It's because they made a lot of it. They remember it. But it's not necessarily a great game. I don't think that makes someone drop quarters in it for, like, 10 hours straight at Bruce's bar every weekend. Well, that person probably has something very – that person is a broken person, has some, like, emotional issues. A broken person. Jesus. No, I mean, whatever. I don't know what's their deal. They probably have something very specific. Okay, okay. But I think that's just my opinion. It's an overrated game. I'm sure Chris has an opinion. Okay, I was going to say Adam's family, but since we're playing by the rules, I'm going to say Monster Trash. Oh, man. I've never seemed to gel with that game. Anytime I draw it in a tournament, it usually kicks my ass, and then when I do win it, all the people I play against laugh and say, you won on Monster Trash because it's just, I don't know, it's not a terrible game, but it's so drainy. you miss a shot, you drain. I'm not a fan of games that you plunge with a button and it goes into the pops and you have no control over it. So that aspect of it I'm not crazy about. You can find a repeatable shot and just repeat it and repeat it. You're trying to get stupid Frankenstein during your ball save because you know how drainy that shot is. I'm just not a fan of that game. and I will forever call it monster trash. Wow. Okay. We're not mesmerized by any semicircular motion. And you did not have any moisturizer. Oh, God. What? What are we doing here? Okay, Chase. Chase. Probably have to be Funhaus for me. I don't know how loved that game is in general, but every time. I'm with you on that one, too. every time I drew on that game. We had it on location the first year I was playing, and I drew it so many times in league and in tournaments. And, oh, my gosh. Yeah, I don't care how innovative or cool the head is. That layout is just a clunk fest to me and always will be. Okay. Okay, Josh. What do you got? I don't know why Zach wants to protect Adam's family, because I think, like, universally we all here agree that, like, Adam's Family. Like, Joe put it perfectly. That's my vote, but I guess apparently I can't vote that. You're not worthy. I think it was being too obvious. Probably. I mean, that's what it is. I don't know. Speaking of worthy, it's just way too expensive. It's way too overhyped. Indiana Jones Pinball Adventure. It's a good game. Okay, we can't be friends anymore. That's my favorite game. Wow. We're done. I'm out of here. See you later. Mike, drop him out. Bye. Is it the worst game ever? No, no. Like, it's a fun game. But is it, like, what is it at now? Like, $15,000, $18,000, whatever it is. It's fucking stupid. It's so overpriced. It's so overpriced. I'll give you that. It's so insanely overpriced, and it breaks my heart every day because I'll never own one. Yeah, like, I wouldn't mind having one. Like, it's not, like, looking at the list of WPCs, I don't know. Either that or fishtails. I don't understand the love for fishtails. Oh, now we can't be friends anymore. left boat right boat let's shoot the monster fish it's great it's goofy the best part about that game is the video mode because you get to shoot jet skiers and stuff like that that's what I play towards that video mode because it's hilarious but when it boils down to it that's based on a famous video game called Beachhead or something where you're shooting like things in the distance it's a very famous like mechanical game that got turned into a video game it's actually a really like legendary design like it's a there's a reason why Maybe video mode is good because it's actually a really fun arcade game. All right, Steph. Play your own game. I was going to say, I want to make it very clear, though. Like, Adam Sandling is, like, the bottom of the barrel. These are the ones I mentioned. They're good. They're not, like, the worst games ever. It's just, like, they're overrated, in my opinion. Okay, Steph. Play your own game. Better than 12 WPCs, including such apparent shit things as Whodunit, Jackbot, Black Rose, Junkyard, No Fear, Party Zone, Popeye and Gilligan's. That's right. It's Slugfest. Oh, so Slugfest is better than those games. Yeah. No, it's not. According to Pinside. Well, Pinside. Ergo, it is the most overrated WPC. Hold on. A chom, a chom, a jimmy chom chom is what he said about Pinside. It does give you playing baseball cards, though. That's true. That's true. Wait, how many of these people that rated these have the David Fix five-year coin? Because, you know, Pinty's got to be valid. That's right. You've got to be in Pinty for five years, babe, before you have an opinion. Does Pinty have the David Fix five-year coin badge yet, or are they still working on that in post? I don't know. It should be next to the name. Like, honestly, with his face on it with the thumbs up. That would be cool. Yeah, thumbs up. Yes, yes. Orby. Okay, wait. It's been so long. What's the question? I might have forgot. I had an answer. Just remind me. Overrated WPC game. And it can't be Adam's family. Okay, okay. Can I say Preacher? Does that count? I don't know. Preacher. Preacher. It's under 10,000. Yes. Yes. Okay, here's the thing. I like the artwork. It has some neat shots in it. I suck at playing in tournaments. I always lose to a newbie. If someone's like, oh, I've never played this game before. It's fun. then I always lose to them because they're like, they just do the move the car thing a lot or something. They're like, oh, that middle shot's so easy. I just hit it three times and beat you. And I'm like, what the hell? Like, I suck at it. I don't know why. People have explained the rule to me like 30 times. I like the artwork. If I had it in my own collection, I might learn to like it. But right now it's ranked 61st in the world. Give me a break. Okay. All right. Yeah, if you want to get Bruce to quit in a tournament, just pretend you've never played before. and have no idea what you're doing and kick his ass, he will quit instantly. It's great. Fuck you, people. Yeah. It's so good. Anybody else besides myself? That was it. We got everybody. What about me? My turn. Oh, Zach. Okay, Zach. What do you think is overrated? You're going to stay back from Mars, aren't you? No, I'm not going to say that one. That would be too easy. Oh, okay. You know, speaking of. But before I do this, I want to say I was going down the Penn State top 100 to look for what games were high rated. So, Fishtails, which I was going to say because someone else said it, is 78. 8 Ball Deluxe is 80. Guess what 79 is. Uh, Dracula. You got the right letter. Oh. Haunted Hot Dogging. No. Hot Dogging. Nope. It's Halloween. Oh. Oh, my God. Halloween is rated higher than 8-Ball Deluxe. We should do this game again. I love this game. No, no, no. Is the game How Wild is Pinside's Ratings? No, How Stupid. So Zach hates fish pails. Another reason that Zach is wrong a lot. But what do you got, Zach? Bram Stokers. Dracula! Blah! I did sell it, but I would still play it, though. I still kind of like it. boring layout. You got something against Ron Jeremy? Good sound. Ron Jeremy. That's who he looks like. I think I've seen way too many tournaments, especially high-level tournaments, ruined because of the bugs in that thing. The bugs. It's too buggy to use in a high-end tournament because he forgets where the balls are so much. It's unbelievable. The missed multiball really messes up everything. It's the same as high-speed, the getaway. it just can't be used in a particular way. No, you can use it with the correct ROM in it. Okay, but still, or out of whatever the standard factory is. And we got an email from that very person who makes the fixed ROM. Woo-hoo! Okay. My pick. My pick. Oh, Bruce, you've got to do one. I forgot about you, Bruce. Circus Voltaire. Overrated. Way, just... Really? I always liked it. It's a beautiful game. It's kind of unique in some things. Cool toy. But guess what? You have to do one thing. It's the bash toy. It's the bash toy. It's the bash toy. Staged wizard mode, one of the first ones. Yep, still not good. Yeah, but it's the same thing with, like, Theory of Magic, though. You've got to shoot the left orbit. Oh, I know, but I think that's actually worse. There's too many gimmicks, too many, you know, the juggler. Ooh, my ball gets caught up on the side and kicks over. It's just too many gimmicks. That big ball in the cage is like a wasted thing. Exactly. Too many gimmicks. It just doesn't do anything. It doesn't really add that much chaos to the game. And the boom cannon, not needed for anything. The boom balloon! The boom balloon. Done. If you really want to go wacky, tic-tac-toe. Is that really overrated? That's not WPC, and no one likes that game anyway. It is WPC. It's WPC 95, tic-tac-toe. Tic-tac-toe? No, it isn't. It's only a prototype. It only made ten. Oh, Jesus. Add a safe cracker cap. Stupid. How is the game overrated if they only made ten of them? Because it's terrible. It's just a terrible game. But that doesn't mean it's overrated. It just means it's a bad game. That's the difference. No, the queue is overrated. Jesus Christ. It is overrated. No, it's not. No, it's not. Nobody knows it fucking exists. Zimmy Fanny is overrated. No, it's not. No, it's not. You take that back, sir. Yes, you take that back, you fucker. It's awesome. It's the best game for you. You and your partner, you play together. You play together. It's definitely circus ball tear for me. It's way overrated. One hand on the flipper. One hand on the flipper and the other hand you know where. God, Jesus. Okay. Ronald. Yes. You get to do the thing. Yeah, all right. We're going to do the ball bag. We're going to finish it up here. Yes. Thanks for you all coming on. Yes, thank you for everyone coming on. It's short, so it's not. And thank you for 250 episodes plus. Yes. Coming on the ball bag. Coming on the ball bag. Wow. I'm done. Hold on. We were talking about whether we should do this with everyone on the Clusterfuck guys, so we're just going to do like quickies, if you will. Oh, my. Just because these are audio clips. All right. So, first one is from Bill. It says, great to meet you, Friday. This was at Pintastic. And really great to meet your dad. I put a face to the name we hear on the podcast. Catch you at the next show, I hope. And then he sent a little WAV file here, which I will play now. Now, Bill, he's from the New Robert Englunds area, but he lives in Vegas, and he frequently drives back and forth between them, which is insane to me. Yes. We might have mentioned him on a previous... He has the CPR high-speed play field that I sold. I sold it to him. Oh, okay. The old CPR one, back when they still Marc Silk screen. Yeah, now it's a shit screen. Is that a shit screen? Shit screen. Okay, what does Bill have to say? I'd like to congratulate Ron Holland and Bruce Nightingale on 250 episodes of Slam Tilt. Let's hope you still have another 250 episodes in the tank. Oh, wait a minute. Did I just curse Ron into putting up with Bruce for another 250 episodes? I'm on somebody's shit list now. You sure are. 100% he's on his shit list. Okay, we got this one. This is from... Oh, I actually didn't leave a message. He just sent the WAV file. Okay, so I'll let it speak for itself. Hey, Ron and Bruce. This is CERN here A.K.A. SORN ROMS Huge congrats for making it to 250 episodes And I have listened to every one of them Believe that It was partly entertaining And mostly factual Thanks Thank you SORN As we say your name wrong again I like how he says his name You know, correct Because it's his name And then he says it wrong Because of the way everyone else says it SORN, we have one request We need a ROM for Black Knight 2000 to neuter the jackpot. In four days. In four days. That's all I want. We need something that kills the power of the right flipper. Yeah. All right. Thank you, Soren. Thank you, Soren. And last one, and this was one hell of a clip, Seth. This is from Dave. And, Bruce, I think you know this is Dave Souza. Dave Souza from Buffalo. From Buffalo. Thank you, sir, for this. This is Bruce and Ron. Congratulations, guys. 250 episodes is quite the achievement. Thanks for the countless hours of entertainment. We hope you guys enjoy the audio message. And it says, here's Dave, Scott, and Christy. Thank you. And this is what he sent. And I will tell you, this is not AI. This is 100% legit. Welcome to Slim Tilt's podcast, 250th episode. Elvira, what time is it? It's time to get scared stiff because it's Bruce and Ron's Slam Tilt's 250th episode. Hey, bartender, get me an extra virgin, extra bloody Mary. It's time to celebrate. Go law! How did you make 250 episodes? You're traveling through another dimension. There's a signpost up ahead that reads, Bruce and Ron's 250th episode. No moral, no lesson. Just a couple of guys who've never grown up, who still enjoy eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and watching Bewitched in Gilligan's Island at lunchtime. Oh, Gilligan, maybe we could bribe Kona. Somewhere in the Twilight Zone. The Earth is under attack! An attack from Mars! And Bruce and Ron are the only ones who can save us! Bruce and Ron, return to the battlefield, soldiers, or I'll build a blaster and blast your asses! I got my paycheck. Let's go wreck some road, honey, and buy Bruce and Ron a drink. Well, blow me down. It's the Seahawk. It's also Bruce and Ron's 250th episode. That's Tim Tim Kitzrow. That's fucking awesome. If you can name all the games from him. Oh, my God. That was pretty fucking cool. That was cool. That was cool. I will say one thing I'm really appreciative of. I was finally first instead of Ron you were finally Bruce and then Ron he said all the time oh okay I very appreciate it that was very fucking cool thank you Dave very much and thanks to the Clusterbuckers thank you very much for coming on thank you guys for everything thank you for you know very cool making it a cool experience that maybe I'll want to do again but we'll see how the edit goes. 300. They already stated it. Oh, God. Jesus Christ. Okay. Yeah, I don't think I have anything else, Bruce. Do you have anything? You don't? Come on. We have Stomp to talk about. Oh, Jesus Christ. Four more spots. Come on, people. Yes, you can play Stomp at the Rochester Pinball Collective, which is at 349 West Commercial Street, East Rochester, New York. Yes. number 2965. See? Is that enough, Bruce? That's enough. You want to talk about your shitty show, the other one you do? I'm on another podcast called the Silver Ball Chronicles. We just recorded yesterday a new exciting episode that should be out soon. There you go. Anybody else want to put in some plugs? If you want to plug anything, you have a chance to plug for at least 200 people that are listening to this right now? 250, 300, 400, 500, thousands. Sure, I'll do it. Sure, I'll do it, yeah. I'm Josh Rupp with Loser Kid Pinball Podcast and being on Strong for six years. One of the great reasons is because of the example Slam Tilt has done. They've helped drive us and our content and whatnot, too. We've always appreciated and respected what you guys do, and we thank you for leading the charge. So if you want to check us out, we are Loser Kid Pinball Podcast at, you know, at gmail.com. We're on YouTube. We're on the podcasts and everything like that. Just look for Loser Kid. Heck, even if you type in Loser Kid, we've become such a search engine name that if you just type in Loser Kid all together it's no space, it pops up me and Scott and actually has an AI definition for us, which I thought was pretty cool. One thing I did want to bring up, there was a question you guys posed like years ago and I have the answer to it. You always ask some of your guests who's slam and who's tilt? and I realized this. It's alphabetical, so Bruce is slam and Ron is tilt, but if you go by initials, Bruce is BS for Bruce slam and Ron is RT for Ron tilt. If Ron gives you RT or Bruce is BS in you, you know you've got it right. Woohoo! Cool. Alright, anyone else have anything? Or if you have a podcast, it's your chance to plug it. Okay, here I go. But basically keep your expectations super low. I like to joke that it's kind of like a blog, but it's over in the Poor Men's Pimble Network. It's mostly myself right now. If you see PMP for Pimble Nerds Podcast, you know that's one of mine. I'm up at episode 619 or probably 620 by the time this gets edited and put out. But I just wanted to say thank you so much to Bruce and Ron for having me on. I've listened to absolutely every episode. I remember after I moved from Ontario out here to the East Coast, I had to drive back home with my buddy's truck and I went back and I started on episode one and over three and a half days of driving back I actually caught all the way up to episode 100 and whatever where I started and it was so cool and I just feel like this connection with these guys and I'm so appreciative to get to be on the show finally with of course Bruce, perhaps the only pinball podcaster not behind a paywall that's maybe more controversial than me sometimes so thank you Bruce for that, I appreciate it but everybody it was my pleasure to be on here with so many awesome, cool pinball people. And I can't wait for, like you heard the last person say, episode 500. It's on the record. Let's hear it, boys. Anybody else? Yeah, I got a podcast. It is behind a paywall, but it's not controversial. Damn you. It is a controversial name. It's just $2, Roos. My God. Nope, nope, nope. You've got to pay your content creators, man. Anyhow, yeah, if you want to check it out, it's called Dude, Where's My Code? And I talk to people who are kind of behind the scenes working on pinball rules design. It's not a technical pinball sort of discussion of technical coding or anything. It's more of kind of a high level, you know, what makes games fun, what makes pinball specifically work with rules, or how do you work with other people in making the most fun possible pinball experience. But anyhow, some really fantastic, incredibly genius people, way smarter, than me I could ever dream. It's really wonderful. So check it out. Dude, where's my code? It's on Patreon. $2 a month. And we've got about a dozen, maybe 10, over 10 podcasts. I can't remember now. Almost very soon, getting a new one out soon. So, yeah. And, of course, Pinball Degenerates on the Facebook page. You guys check it out. Or on YouTube, we've got a bunch of clips from the Degenes that just happened or some archived broadcasts of the Degenerate Awards, pinball degenerate awards and uh it's just a lot of fun so um check it out and thanks guys i appreciate it thanks to all you buckers out there uh who joined me and it was a privilege to be one of your uh buckers as well anybody else hey it's chris uh aka lord of the rings breath i do not create any content so i would like to plug the slam tilt podcast you guys are awesome i've been listening to you from just about episode one and I look forward to every episode I think uh you you know like the the silliness of it is awesome and that's why some some people can't get into y'all but I think it's great I love the fact that you begin every episode with a Beavis and Butthead clip that's just that's your thing and I love it I love all the voices that Ron does and I love all the Bruce-isms that make absolutely no sense sometimes. It's great entertainment if you're into pinball. It's fantastic, and I love you guys. Keep doing what you're doing. Thank you. Thank you very much. Stewie really likes your comments. You like my voices. That's wonderful. Did you know Beavis and Butthead was renewed for a third season? I'm so excited. And King of the Hill is coming. King of the Hill is coming on, yes. Can't wait for that. All right. Ron, anybody else first? I would just echo a lot of what Chris said. I haven't been listening very long, but I recently decluttered a lot of my internet activity and cut down to one podcast per topic or hobby that I'm into because I have far too many. You were the one pinball podcast that I kept around, so you guys, you're killing it. Keep up the good work. Take that, fucking Canada. Sorry. Oh, Jesus Christ. We didn't have an episode without that, did we? Nope. Here's your sign. As far as plugs, if anyone on the off-chance happens to be listening from Wichita, Kansas, or the surrounding area, hey, support the arcade. Support Kirby's Flipside. Come out and play some pinball. Excellent. Cool. Anybody else? I want to say something. I just want to say thanks, everyone. 250, big, big step. I want to thank my buddy, Ron. He's the one that got me in this show, and we're going to keep going for as long as we want. And I'm very grateful for Ron being with us. Thank you, brother. Yes, and I'm happy Bruce is here. When I thought about starting a podcast, there was only one person I thought that even came in my mind. Oh, my. Oh, my. Yes. So just thank you all out there Thank you all Clusterbuckers Thanks for 250 episodes Which is actually like 252 episodes But it's like 200 and good enough But we'll see you next time Hopefully after Harry Potter comes out Thursday Yes And yeah we'll look at it And I'm sure Bruce will absolutely love it As he loves all games And will not say anything negative at all Right Okay until next time Say goodbye Bruce Goodbye Mark Dano All my life, all my life, can you go there, can you fly? All my life, all my life, you can go there if you try. All my life, all my life, I guarantee to keep you alive. Meteor Level Zero Clusterfuck Swish the Kai Gearballs Roost in the Tournament Talk Car Holder Cheetah Sanity Taskcraft ELO Ball Pay What you find Game you love Game you hate Tournament Talk Game of Princess Oh my Oh my Oh my Oh my Oh my Oh my All right, turning off the record button now. Hey guys, Tim Kitzer here. Congratulations on this milestone achievement. 250th episode. You've got to be kidding me. Welcome to Slam Tilt Blitz 2025 with Bruce and Ron. Totally unnecessary, but a whole lot of fun to listen to. Slim tilt is on fire! No, seriously, Bruce was heating up some pizza in the toaster oven in a sleeve-caught fire. The nail on the coffin! Boom shakalaka!

Orby won the New Brunswick Pinball Championship last year

high confidence · Orby's self-introduction: 'last year I won the New Brunswick Pinball Championship'

  • Harry Potter movie remakes/reboots are actively happening with recast actors

    medium confidence · Orby jokes about series reboot with monthly recasting; context suggests new adaptation in development but tone is speculative/sarcastic

  • Joe Snee @ ~48:00 — Directly counters Orby's optimism; argues price barrier prevents casual Harry Potter fans from converting to home pinball buyers

  • “My wife has never wanted to buy a pinball machine before until now.”

    Albert @ ~55:00 — Personal anecdote supporting thesis that Harry Potter is converting non-pinball enthusiasts into prospective buyers; counters Joe's skepticism

  • “JJP has put themselves in a rock and a hard place because they know they need to move units with Harry Potter, but we all know that drives down value... they are not marketing towards us as the buying demographic right now, us as the diehards for pinball, because they know we're going to nickel and dime them, right?”

    Joe Snee @ ~65:00 — Key insight into JJP's strategic dilemma: high volume sales necessary for profitability but cannibalize secondary market value and collector resale premiums

  • “If you are dead against supporting JK at all, the easy way out is you just buy it on the used market so that you're not supporting her whatsoever.”

    Orby @ ~105:00 — Proposes ethical workaround for buyers conflicted about J.K. Rowling's controversial statements; frames used market as morally neutral alternative

  • “I still read the books. I still watch the movies. So I still support her in other ways, right? So, I mean, it'd be silly if I wouldn't play the pinball machine, but I'll support her in other ways, right?”

    Bruce Nightingale @ ~110:00 — Pragmatic stance on separating art from artist; acknowledges existing support through media consumption makes pinball moral consistency irrelevant

  • Chase Groffperson
    Pinball Princessperson
    Zachperson
    Chrisperson
    Guns N' Roses Pinballgame
    Star Wars Pinballgame
    J.K. Rowlingperson
    Jack Dangerperson
    Rochester Pinball Collective (RPC)organization
    Texas Pinball Festivalevent
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Pinball Nerds Podcastmedia
    Loser Kid Pinball Podcastmedia
    Slam Tilt Podcastmedia
    Universal Studios Harry Potter Expansionevent
    Harry Potter Video Game (Hogwarts Legacy)product
    Creature from the Black Lagoon Pinballgame
    Deadpool Pinballgame
  • ?

    design_philosophy: JJP using time-limited (vs. unit-limited) production strategy for Harry Potter; strategy aims to maintain FOMO and continuous sales momentum despite unlimited production window

    medium · Orby: 'The FOMO is going to be pretty strong, I think, regardless of the fact that there's no limited number to it. I think people who want it are going to get it as soon as they possibly can. And it's a smart move because they're going to continue to sell'

  • $

    market_signal: Narrative forming around Harry Potter as test case for whether massive pop culture IP can rescue JJP from recent underselling trend and whether it brings meaningful new player base into pinball

    high · Joe: 'There's a lot that hinges on this game because I think it makes or breaks more than we know throughout the whole industry, just not for Jersey Jack'; 'this is the culmination of their, what, 14 years now in existence?'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: J.K. Rowling actively receives financial benefit from Harry Potter pinball licensing deal; exact terms unknown but creator compensation confirmed by panel discussion

    medium · Joe: 'In the case of Harry Potter, that is the case. You will be supporting that person. I don't know exactly how much was given, how much money changed hands in the deal... It's just the fact that there was money'

  • $

    market_signal: JJP is deliberately marketing Harry Potter via Facebook to non-pinball demographics (specific age/income ranges, family/casual buyers) rather than to hardcore enthusiast collector base

    medium · Joe: 'They are actively hitting Facebook for the people that are through a certain age range, a certain price income, a salary, and they're targeting those people that want the Harry Potter. They want one machine. They want two machines for their lake house, for their grandkids'

  • $

    market_signal: Guns N' Roses (highest-volume JJP seller) has depreciated to $4,500 used market ($4,000 discount off retail), indicating severe secondary market collapse for recent JJP releases

    high · Joe: 'And SD just sold this last month for $4,500. Wow. Yeah, that's bad... if you look at it, it's pretty funny when they're trying to sell a $9,000 Guns N' Roses, and on the used market, they're going for $5,000 and $6,000'

  • ?

    announcement: Harry Potter pinball officially using pre-existing movie artwork with photoshopped cast images (not original/custom art); artwork quality and design approach raised as concern by panel

    high · Bruce: 'They photoshopped them all on the side of the cabinet. And it's pre-existing artwork, which is really bad. So it's not even like original shit'; wife noted specific artwork reuse patterns

  • ?

    product_strategy: Harry Potter release confirmed for Thursday reveal with Friday availability; JJP is using time-limited production window (not unit-limited) to drive continuous sales momentum

    high · Bruce: 'Harry Potter is coming out Thursday. what do we think about Harry Potter are we excited'; confirmed Friday release of availability timer

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Growing skepticism within panel about whether Harry Potter will actually convert non-enthusiasts into home equipment buyers; Star Wars precedent cited as failed example despite massive IP scale

    medium · Joe: 'I don't think that moved the needle with getting more pinball players buying pinball machines... you're not going to get very... a huge amount of like a tidal wave of sales from Harry Potter enthusiasts'; 'if fanboy number one of Harry Potter can't afford to buy this game, are people who are just, like, invested in the property, the books, and the movies and stuff, are they going to really chip in, like, $15,000 to buy a game?'