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Ep 137: Gomez! Lots of Gomez!

LoserKid Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 27m·analyzed·May 11, 2024
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TL;DR

Gomez explains John Wick gun controversy as licensor requirement, discusses game innovation and design philosophy.

Summary

George Gomez, Chief Creative Officer at Stern Pinball, discusses the design philosophy behind John Wick pinball, released in May 2024. The interview addresses the controversial gun-imagery restriction imposed by licensor Lionsgate (due to all-ages arcade placement), clarifies it is a licensing requirement rather than a political stance, and highlights innovative features like adaptive AI-driven gameplay and choreography systems. Gomez also discusses Stern's approach to license selection, design mentorship, and how licensors impose different creative constraints based on their own sensibilities.

Key Claims

  • John Wick is Stern's 65th cornerstone title, released in May 2024

    high confidence · Josh Roop mentions 'new game release' and discusses John Wick launching at the start of the episode; this aligns with KB context confirming May 2024 release

  • Lionsgate required no guns on exterior art surfaces due to all-ages classification (games placed in commercial locations accessible to children)

    high confidence · George Gomez directly explains: 'Lionsgate asked us, is there an American Pinball rating system, we said no... some percentage of the games go into commercial locations. That means that anyone can interact with them... they said, okay, you guys fall into the all-ages category... we don't want to see any guns on any of the art on the exterior surfaces'

  • Guns remain in John Wick gameplay and film footage from all four films; the restriction applies only to 2D art on cabinet exterior

    high confidence · Gomez: 'once you press start, you've made a conscious choice to interact with this thing... we've got all the gunplay in the films because we've got film footage from four of the films... plenty of gunplay. We're not changing any of that... it's just simply – it's like, yes, there are no illustrations of him on the back glass'

  • George Gomez has been in the pinball industry for approximately 46 years

    high confidence · Josh Roop: 'he's been in the industry for about 46 years'

  • Elliot Eisman was the lead designer on John Wick

    high confidence · Josh Roop: 'Elliot Eisman was the lead designer on this' and earlier mentions 'Elliot Eisman, Lead game designer at Stern Pinball known for designing the John Wick pinball machine'

  • Tim Elliot and Josh Henderson were involved in John Wick design and both are Eagle Scouts

    high confidence · Gomez: 'Tim and Josh, this totally took us by surprise. We're both Eagle Scouts... There was a marksmanship merit badge' and Josh Roop confirms 'I'm an Eagle Scout too'

  • The gun artwork restriction came as a surprise to the design team and was not anticipated during project planning

    high confidence · Gomez: 'And it took us by surprise because we never assumed that it, you know, the essence of the franchise is John Wick... And I think it was like a, there was a piece of Randy Martinez art that got submitted and he had weapons in it and that started the conversation'

Notable Quotes

  • “We live in interesting times.”

    George Gomez @ early in interview — Opening statement reflecting on the complexity of launching John Wick amid controversy

  • “It's not any kind of a political statement on behalf of Stern Pinball relative to guns, even though that conversation has spawned off into the bigger conversation that's happening in our country about guns.”

    George Gomez @ gun controversy section — Directly addresses misperception that the gun restriction is ideologically motivated

  • “Once you press start, you've made a conscious choice to interact with this thing and so, and now if you're a 10 year old, maybe your mom wasn't looking and you did it, but the reality is that mom is supposed to have given you permission to do this.”

    George Gomez @ licensing discussion — Explains the distinction between exterior art (all-ages) vs. in-game content (age-gated by play action)

  • “We have to walk the line to what the licensor wants us to do.”

    George Gomez @ licensing section — Core principle: licensors control creative output within their IP boundaries

  • “I don't want to make games about things I'm not interested in.”

    George Gomez @ license selection discussion — Reveals design philosophy: personal passion drives game development

  • “Me and my studio, while we may be slightly different members of the community, we are members of the community. We buy the games. I have a house full of games.”

    George Gomez @ license selection section — Emphasizes that Stern's design team are active players/collectors, not detached from the community

  • “My most successful games, maybe the exception of like Lord of the Rings, but almost everything else has had humor. The breakouts, right? The breakouts in my portfolio have had humor.”

    George Gomez @ design philosophy section — Key design principle: humor correlates with commercial success

Entities

George GomezpersonJosh RooppersonScott LarsonpersonElliot EismanpersonTim ElliotpersonJosh HendersonpersonRandy Martinezperson

Signals

  • ?

    product_launch: John Wick officially launched in May 2024 as Stern's 65th cornerstone title; available in Pro, Premium, and Limited Edition variants

    high · Josh Roop: 'new game release... John Wick releasing' and discussion of live stream on Stern's YouTube channel at 4 PM CST

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Lionsgate imposed all-ages licensing constraint requiring removal of gun imagery from exterior art surfaces (back glass, plastics) due to commercial arcade placement accessibility

    high · George Gomez detailed explanation: 'every one of those toys comes with a disclaimer that says 18 and over... when Lionsgate asked us, is there an American Pinball rating system, we said no... you guys fall into the all-ages category... we don't want to see any guns on any of the art on the exterior surfaces'

  • ?

    design_innovation: John Wick introduces adaptive AI-driven gameplay system that watches player performance and adjusts challenges/enemies served dynamically, inspired by video game combat systems

    high · George Gomez: 'It's essentially – and it's referenced as an AI... the game watches you do certain things, and it makes – it reacts to... It makes the game feel fresh every time you play it and the enemies that it's serving you up'

  • ?

    design_innovation: John Wick features choreography system linking player kills to synchronized film footage of John Wick performing matching actions, creating seamless narrative integration

    high · George Gomez: 'there's a choreography system where you kill three guys, you watch John Wick kill three guys... it feels very connected... feels like incredibly choreographed to the action in the game'

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.263

0:00
Thanks for tuning in to Loser Kid Pinball Podcast. We're on episode 137. I am Josh Roop. With me, my co-captain as always. Scott Larson. And Scott, new game release. New game release, absolutely. So if you are looking to pick up your John Wick, go ahead and reach out to Zach Minney at Flippin' Out Pinball. He can definitely hook you up. And I am excited to see where this game's going. Certainly get in on the ground floor. Certainly, possibly, still have some LEs, premiums, and pros you can get on the list. And if you're looking for any other game, reach out to Zach and Nicole Minney at Flippin' Out Pinball, and they can help you out. Definitely. We have a very special episode today. I know we just recorded a couple days ago. But, you know, with John Wick releasing and kind of a media push for this, we were able to have George Gomez come on. And this man has pretty much shaped the direction of pinball, at least modern pinball, within the last 30 years directly. And he's been in the industry for about 46 years. And, I mean, without George, I don't know if we'd have – we wouldn't have classics like Monster Bash, Lord of the Rings. You know, just these games that have defined what people want in their homes over the last 30-plus years. So thanks for coming on, George. How are you doing? Hey, he also runs a lot of things that start in pinball, just FYI. Just FYI. Thanks a lot, guys. Glad to come on. We live in interesting times. Absolutely. Yeah, so the last couple of days since we launched WIC has been a bit of a whirlwind.
1:42
Game launches are, first of all, they're a buzz of activity in so many ways. You've got the design team, there's a lot of anxiety about how the game's going to be received. But they have a lot of responsibilities relative to – like I'm in my office here at Stern Pinball and 100 feet that way, there's an assembly line cranking out John Wicks. And so those guys have been – they've got to get – they've got to interact with manufacturing, check games, make sure the games are being built right, teach people how to build them, all this kind of stuff. And at the same time, we're dealing with the PR for the game, launching the game, all that kind of stuff. So it's been – yeah, I mean it's just been – we haven't stopped. Tonight at 4 o'clock, tune in. We're live streaming the game. And I think hopefully that will answer a lot of questions for people. Now, we are recording this, so they're probably not going to get this in time. However, tell us when that is, and we'll shoot it out on our socials.

  • Stern Pinball abandoned the Hunger Games license because they could not do it justice within the licensor's constraints

    high confidence · Gomez: 'We had famously, most famously, Hunger Games. We looked at Hunger Games and we said, if we can't do this, we can't do this, we can't do this, we can't really do it... we had an honest conversation with the licensor and we said, I don't think it's good for you and I don't think it's good for us'

  • John Wick includes adaptive/AI-driven gameplay where the game reacts to player performance and presents different challenges each play

    high confidence · Gomez: 'It's essentially – and it's referenced as an AI... the game watches you do certain things, and it makes – it reacts to essentially what it's feeding you something based on what you've done... It makes the game feel fresh every time you play it'

  • George Gomez is Chief Creative Officer at Stern Pinball and maintains involvement in game design mentorship

    high confidence · Gomez: 'I'm the chief creative officer... my part of my job is to sort of guarantee the quality of the product coming out of the studio and to mentor and teach'

    • “It makes the game feel fresh every time you play it and the enemies that it's serving you up and the challenges that it's presenting you.”

    George Gomez @ adaptive coding discussion — Explains the goal of AI-driven gameplay: variable experience across plays

    Jack Danger
    person
    Zach Menyperson
    Nicole Minneyperson
    John Wickgame
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Lionsgatecompany
    LoserKid Pinball Podcastorganization
    The Flip N Out Pinballvenue
    Monster Bashgame
    Lord of the Ringsgame
    Deadpoolgame
    James Bondgame
    Venomgame
    Hunger Gamesgame
    Iron Maidengame
    Sopranosgame
    Foo Fightersgame
    Marvelcompany

    design_philosophy: George Gomez identifies humor as key success pattern in his most popular games; exceptions are rare (Lord of the Rings); influences license selection decisions

    high · George Gomez: 'My most successful games, maybe the exception of like Lord of the Rings, but almost everything else has had humor. The breakouts, right? The breakouts in my portfolio have had humor'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Community rapidly misinterpreted John Wick gun restriction as political stance by Stern Pinball; George Gomez notes this required clarification and dominated early discourse

    high · George Gomez: 'the problem is the conversation went out of control quick... everybody jumped to the conclusion that it was some sort of political statement relative to guns from Stern Pinball, it's not'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Elliot Eisman, lead designer on John Wick after ~10 years at Stern, receiving mentorship from George Gomez as part of newer design talent development strategy

    high · Josh Roop: 'Elliot Eisman was the lead designer on this, and it's awesome that you guys are going with new teams and kind of new blood' and George Gomez: 'I've worked a lot with Tim Elliot... I don't want them to be me'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Stern balances commercial viability with niche titles; John Wick positioned as risk title due to violence/action franchise, but believed to have appeal despite controversy

    high · George Gomez: 'John Wick is a risk. Why is John Wick a risk? Well, John Wick is a risk because of the controversy of violence' and earlier: 'we can only take a flyer that's a niche title... only so often because we're also a business'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Stern abandoned Hunger Games license due to inability to do it justice within licensor's constraints; illustrates disciplined approach to IP acquisition

    high · George Gomez: 'We had famously, most famously, Hunger Games... if we can't do this... we had an honest conversation with the licensor and we said, I don't think it's good for you and I don't think it's good for us'

  • ?

    content_signal: Stern Pinball conducting live stream on YouTube channel at 4 PM CST to answer player questions about John Wick and showcase gameplay

    high · George Gomez: 'Tonight at 4 o'clock, tune in. We're live streaming the game... it'll be on Stern Pinball Inc. YouTube channel... I'm going to join them. When we free up, I'm going to walk into the stream'

  • ?

    industry_signal: Multiple licensors (Marvel, Bond, Lionsgate) universally sensitive to weapon portrayal; each establishes different constraints (fantasy blasters, archival-only, no exterior art)

    high · George Gomez: 'how guns are portrayed has been universally sensitive with licensors, like I said, all the way back to Deadpool... Bond... there were sensibilities... In the case of Marvel, they said, you know, as long as they're fantasy blasters, we're okay'

    • 2:57
    Yeah, it'll be on the Stern YouTube channel for sure. Okay. And today at 4 o'clock? Yep. Central Standard Time. CST, so they'll start. Those guys will start. I'm going to join them. When we free up, I'm going to walk into the stream. Perfect. Okay, George, we want to – okay, so we know the new game that you guys have released is John Wick. So can you walk us through John Wick and tell us the philosophy behind what you're trying to accomplish in this game and what you're trying to offer the player and the owner in having a John Wick game? Yeah. So, I mean, honestly, the franchise, you know, the essence of the franchise is, you know, this assassin, John Wick, and all of the things that happened to him, sort of, it's a sort of a revenge and redemption game. You know, he's a guy that's retired and he's being brought back in. The films are incredibly popular. So it's an action franchise. And we decided, hey, let's do this. The game pretty much mirrors, you know, the events of the films. We have film footage from all four films. There's been, as you guys know, lots of controversy relative to the gun issue on WIC. So I'll tell you a couple – I mean I'll tell you I'm gladly – I'm happy for this opportunity because it's much easier to discuss these things in this forum than it is to constantly be answering Facebook posts about speculation about what it is and what it isn't, right? So at the crux of this matter, because there's a bunch of guys out there going, well, I see John Wick toys that have guns and I see video games that have guns and John Wick video games. And how come you guys can't have guns? And so at the crux of this is the fact that every one of those toys comes with a disclaimer that says, you know, 18 and over. The video games come from a rating system with a rating system. So when Lionsgate asked us, is there a pinball rating system, we said no. And where do the games go? Well, some percentage of the games go into commercial locations. That means that anyone can interact with them. Anyone can walk by them, 10-year-old or 5-year-old, whatever. And so they said, okay, you guys fall into the all-ages category. So the all-ages category means that we have to adhere to certain guidelines, And those guidelines are we don't want to see any guns on any of the art on the exterior surfaces of the game. Now, once you press start, because there's a lot of confusion about this, because I've said, you know, we've got all the gunplay in the films because we've got film footage from four of the films. so you know how is it possible that you can't have 2d art of a of john wick with a weapon but you can have video art you know video footage from the films of you know people getting shot up so the point is that once you've once you hit start you've made a conscious choice to interact with this thing and so and now if you're if you're a 10 year old maybe your mom wasn't looking and you did it, but the reality is that mom is supposed to have given you permission to do this. So it's not any kind of a political statement on behalf of Stern Pinball relative to guns, even though that conversation has spawned off into the bigger conversation that's happening in our country about guns, right? I'll tell you that, I'll tell you that, you know, in 2017, when I did Deadpool, Marvel said to me, all the weapons in Deadpool must be fantasy blasters. Even though, like when you look at the neck of Deadpool, which I have, which Jeremy Packer gave me when we finished the project, right? He's got real weapons. He's got replicas of real weapons, right? And so, but in the case of the Pimla machine, and all these licensors, by the way, the common thread is they have a sensitivity to how weapons are portrayed, but the rules are different. So in the case of Marvel, they said, you know, as long as they're fantasy blasters, we're okay. You know, and, and Jeremy drew fantasy blasters, go look at a Deadpool game. He's got weapons. They just don't look like, you know, a Glock, you know, a nine millimeter. So we, you know, there's been a lot of questions about, about Bond and we said, Bond's got weapons. He's like, yes, Bond's got weapons. That licensor said to me, you cannot create like a Walter PPK, you know, Bond's gun. You cannot create a toy. You cannot create new art that doesn't come from the film archives of James Bond showing him with a weapon. So it was like if Kevin O'Connor had a little corner piece in the play field and he needed to draw a bond with a gun, the answer was no, you can't do that. So every licensor deals with it however they want to deal with it. We have to comply. And in the case of Lionsgate, we fell into this all-ages category. and by the way it's interesting right when you the game ships with a default plastic for the weapons crate that doesn't have any guns in it but there's one that has guns in it in the cash box do you want to take it out? so you can modify it yourself yeah it's four screws you put it in there so we have to walk the line to what the licensor wants us to do We, I'll tell you that it did surprise us. It took us by surprise because we never assumed that it, you know, the essence of the franchise is John Wick, you know, this renowned assassin, you know, legendary assassin, and he can turn anything into a weapon, a pencil, a car, you know, you name it, right? And he's got, he is constantly, you know, uh, you know, he shoots the guy three times, you know, so when, when we started working on the project, we, you know, we never imagined that, oh, this is like a thing. And I think it was like a, there was a piece of Randy Martinez art that got submitted and he had, he had weapons in it and that started the conversation. And it was like, oh no, no, you guys are all ages. You gotta, you gotta fit into this category. So we did take a step back and said, what does this mean to the game? Right. And the reality is that, I mean, this entire conversation has taken us by surprise because we've been playing the game for 14 months. So we know what the game is. We know how the game feels. And we stopped thinking about it way back when, you know, whenever it's, you know, whatever it was, two, three months into the project, whenever the problem came up, we just sort of like said, we took, we analyzed it. We said, you know, what does this mean to us? And by the way, there have been licenses that we have abandoned when we said we can't do that justice. We had famously, most famously, Hunger Games. We looked at Hunger Games and we said, if we can't do this, we can't do this, we can't do this, we can't really do it. And so we had an honest conversation with the licensor and we said, I don't think it's good for you and I don't think it's good for us. So I think at this point we're going to part ways and put this on a shelf and move on. So, but with, well, with Wick, we looked at him and said, well, we've got all the spoon footage. And once you get into the game, that's what's really, I'm not looking at the side of the cabinet. Right. I'm not reaching over to, like, you know, I'm not, I'm not noticing that, oh, there isn't a, you know, there isn't a, you know, there isn't a pistol on the back glass. I mean, so it's like, so it's not, the very first thing is everybody jumped to the conclusion that it was some sort of political statement. relative to guns from Stern Pinball, it's not.
    11:23
    Both Tim and I, we were joking. I told Joel the same thing. I said, Tim and Joe, this totally took us by surprise. We're both Eagle Scouts. We came up in Scouts. And there wasn't a summer camp in America that didn't have a .30-06 rifle range. Yeah, same. I'm here.
    11:43
    I'm an Eagle Scout too. There was a marksmanship merit badge. Same here. I think Tim's got it, you know. So it's kind of like one of those things where you go, you know, and we're sitting there going, oh, man. It's like I spent hours on the range. I learned how to shoot. I know my way around weapons. It's like I never – it is – you know, I want to assure you it's like we don't – it's just not how we think. You know, we said – the licensor said that. We analyzed where we were with the game. We said, you know, the game's pretty good. And it's like, I don't know. It's like, not going to miss it. Well, to summarize, it seems like you're saying that guns are in the game. I mean, that is essential to John Wick. And so, if I can summarize it and say, you said, well, guns are still in the game. This is still John Wick. He's an assassin. He is killing people. However, they're not going to be incorporated in the art package, but they're still going to be incorporated in the gameplay. Is that fair to say? Yeah, that's correct. Yeah. So, I mean, it's like sort of – the problem is the conversation went out of control pretty quick. Sure, yeah. And as much as – I mean, if you look at my post, I said it in my post. Yeah. There's plenty of gunplay.
    12:58
    We're not changing any of that. Right. It's just simply – it's like, yes, there are no illustrations of him on the back glass. and the plastic with the weapons crate guns is in the cash box and take out four screws and put them in, put it in. So one thought I've had, because I know back in the 90s, I can't remember if it was Mortal Kombat or Area 51, but they used to put like 18 plus on the cabinet. Yeah. Have you guys ever considered doing that to get around this issue? We just talked about that based on this issue, right? We just talked about how do we approach this so that – I have to tell you that we stopped thinking about the problem 20 minutes after – that was whatever it was, nine months ago or something. We stopped thinking about it. And we said – again, I was like, yeah. I mean I remember rolling into the studio one day and somebody said, no guns, no weapons. I said, what do you mean? And then they explained it to me and I was like, okay, well, let's think about that. And so we – and I sat with Tim and Elliot and I said, what do you guys think about this?
    14:13
    No, I think we're okay. Can we do this, that, the other thing? You know, it's like there's so much, you know, there's so much interesting fiction in, you know, that's part of the franchise, right? The notion of the administration, the factions, the high table, the contracts, all that stuff's in the game. And so, you know, there's and there's some really cool stuff like related to Insider Connected. You know, you're going to get in-app notifications about new contracts and that there's all of that stuff persisted. So we were like, yeah, I don't know. It's pretty cool just the way it is. So it's kind of like, you know, I mean, I'm not you really want me to pull a plug on this because I can't draw guns on the side of the cabinet or on the backless.
    15:01
    So the other question, too, because this has come up in the conversation and it's made me curious because we know that you've had a relationship with Disney over the years. because you're doing Marvel product and whatnot. But some of the narrative has been you guys are appeasing the Disney overlords because they somehow control what Stern decides to do. I doubt there's any truth to that, but can you give us maybe some insight to the relationship and if Disney is involved with you guys at all? No. I mean, their relationship is licensor to licensee. so basically when we do it you know the way so I believe strongly that the designers the developers the people the artists the people that are working on the franchise it should be a thing they really want to work on just based on my own experience right it's like I don't want to make games about things I'm not interested in so now I have a studio with 50 people in it I have another 30 people on the outside. I can't always match everyone with everything. But whenever possible, I try to get people working on things they want to work on. So there are some people in the studio that wouldn't have raised their hands for John Wick. There are also some people in the studio that wouldn't have raised their hands for Jaws or whatever, right? So I try to get – I try to match people. But the licenses that we pick are company-wide decisions based on what we think is going to be popular, what's going to appeal to an audience. A lot of times, most of the time, it's the broadest audience. Sometimes it's a niche audience. WIC is actually a niche audience for us as opposed to jobs, right? And so you can imagine that even with the sanitized artwork, there are some people that aren't going to bring Wick into their house.
    16:57
    And, you know, there are other people that, you know, might not bring whatever, Deadpool into their house. You know, maybe the – so I think is there a relationship? there's a relationship from the standpoint that after you've done however many Marvel titles we've done, they actually like us and they say, hey, do you guys want to work on this or that? That's really the extent of the relationship. Now, Marvel obviously has gained some trust in us.
    17:34
    We've done justice to a lot of Marvel properties. Yeah. That was a learning process for them and a learning process for us. Right. A lot of people, you know, have every time we tackle a new licensor, there's a learning curve for both parties. We have to learn what, you know, what their, you know, what are their limits? What you know, where where are the guardrails relative to these guys? And what what are the touch points that they're going to be sensitive about?
    18:37
    The gun thing, Bob, by the way, has – how guns are portrayed has been universally sensitive with licensors, like I said, all the way back to Deadpool.
    18:47
    On Bond, it was – there were sensibilities and the only leeway was the fact that, hey, if you're using a Bond poster from 1962 from the Dr. No sell sheet or something, it's OK if he's got a weapon. But don't go drawing one. Okay, so what I want to know about as Stern, when you're looking at licenses, or I guess if you're looking at themes to do, what goes into making a theme a good product for pinball? Because we know that there are tons of things that sell wildly worldwide, but may not actually mix with a pinball audience. So what is your what do you consider when you're trying to to generate these titles? So not not everything translates. I'll tell you that. So, you know, I'm I'm the chief creative officer. So clearly my voice is a lot, you know, carries a lot of weight relative to the stuff we select. Right. And what I'm bringing to it is the fact that I've actually experienced making a game. right a lot of the other people in the room you know they've experienced selling a game they've experienced marketing again they've experienced the business aspects of a game they've experienced manufacturing again but they haven't experienced making a game so they don't know or they have a different perspective on it so the the the conversation is always first of all does anybody you know will anybody in the studio actually You know, we're presented with licenses from all kinds of people call us with licenses. And now, because of who we are, you know, the largest pinball machine company in the world by far. And we have a blue chip portfolio of licensors, right? Unlike anybody else's. Yeah. We work with everybody. And so people look at our products and they say, I want them to make our thing, right? So people are constantly calling us. Video game companies call us every day. It's just different people are just constantly lobbying us. So we take the list and some combination of, you know, we send people to the licensing show and they get pitched at the licensing show. And we bring all this information back and we say, what does anybody care about? Like what is, you know, and I was telling Joel that one of the things that you have to remember is that me and my studio, while we may be slightly different members of the community, we are members of the community. We buy the games. I have a house full of games. You know, I buy them with my own money. I you know I trade them collect them play them clean them tweak them modify them do all the things you do We do So the product development studio buys more games from the company than any other area of the company So what does that mean It means that we want to make themes that we interested in. We want to make, you know, we raise our hands for things that are, that would be cool to do. Why don't we do that? So we talk about, we talk about stuff all the time. Now we don't, We have to temper that with the fact that we can only take a flyer that's a niche title and take that chance only so often because we're also a business and we're a big business. And so we have to sustain the business. That means that if you guess wrong on your niche title, it might hurt you. So you have to – so we try to – we like broad audience appeal. We like humor. We like – my most successful games, maybe the exception of like Lord of the Rings, but almost everything else has had humor. The breakouts, right? The breakouts in my portfolio have had humor. so I think humor plays a role something that's culturally relevant plays a role something that has broad appeal plays a role so I think that those are the things we think about and like I said that's not to say that we can't what are the outliers when we did Iron Maiden And we thought – we know Europe is going to like it. Yeah. Yeah, right there. Yeah. We said – but we knew Europe is going to like it. We don't know how America is going to respond.
    23:47
    We were pleasantly surprised. But that was considered a risk, right? When we did WIC, WIC is a risk. Why is WIC a risk? Well, Rick is a risk because of the controversy of violence, right? The notion of violence. So it's a risk we took. But at the same time, we also said, I think, you know, and it's got nothing to do with the fact that the art is sanitized. We just, you know, we said, and like I said, it's not a political decision from the company's perspective. It's just simply a matter of, hey, that's a cool action title. Let's do that. it's a weird line to toe too i know that like recently i was talking to a gentleman that loves cactus canyon but he said he'd never own one because it's got the six shooters on the bottom of the apron so it's it's kind of a weird line to toe when you are dealing with these niche titles uh just because you don't know how your audience is going to react so right and and by the way I think you can extend that back to the licensors they don't know how will that work this all ages thing is really sort of what we have based on this entire episode we've thought about maybe we should put disclaimers on these things um in when i worked in the when i worked in in the video game business um there's a thing called the esrb you know which is essentially like like when movies are rated pg or whatever it's for video games and i'll tell you that i worked on an nba licensed basketball game and um my game had to have a e rating with no disclaimers what are disclaimers well there's an e rating e is for everyone. And then, you know, I forget what they were. They were E for everyone, you know, M mature. I forget what they were. There was, you know, something in between. And the disclaimers were things like for everyone with mild violence, like, you know, like mild, what's mild violence? Mild violence is, you know, roadrunner cartoon. Yeah. Right. So that, so, and I could not be, I couldn't have any disclaimers. That was the NBA told me that you must be E for everyone, no matter what. So the ESRB would essentially rate the games. They would give you the rating, but they weren't a censor. So when – I'll tell you a story. I had a – we had a commitment to have games on the shelves at Walmart and, you know, GameStop, all the big retailers. And in some of these big retailers, when you do a deal with them, if they promise you an end cap at Target or Walmart or something, and you don't deliver your game on time or you don't have your product on that end cap, there are penalties. and some of those penalties get crazy. It could be $100,000 a day for being late to have your product on the shelf. And I'm working on this basketball video game, and my ratings are coming from the ESRB, and they're like E with mild violence, E with sexual content, all this stuff. And I'm like, what the hell? What is this? And time is running out. And so they won't tell you why they gave you that rating, They'll just tell you that's a rating because they said, we're not a censor. And so I'm like playing this guessing game. I'm analyzing my game and I'm saying, oh, man, what is it? What is it? Maybe it's that. Take that out. And, you know, resubmitting. And every time you resubmit, I'd fill out all these forms. We'd send them a check. You know, they'd put it in front of a group of moms or whatever. And then my rating would come back. one day I got a call from the CEO of the company and he said, you are on the shelf in three weeks. If you don't have your E rating, you're not going to be on the shelf. It's a hundred thousand dollars a day at this retailer. It's $50,000 a day at retailer. Get your ass on a plane in New York today and come back with an E rating. So I, you know, here I am in Manhattan at the offices of the ESRB going, please, please help me. tell me whatever it is, whatever you want. And the guy says to me, he goes, I can't tell you, but I can give you some clues. And I'm like, okay, tell me the clues. And he says to me, he goes, your game is, is rated by some moms in Westchester. And if, if they think something's risque, maybe you know and I'm like and I realize I've got I'm not you have to put this in the context of what it is right sure and at that at that particular moment in time was a playstation 2 it was video art on a playstation 2 and uh and it was cheerleaders on the side of the court and the cheerleaders you know were like a little bit too risque but risque in the notion that they were you know pixel images of cheerleaders so you know imagine you know it's not like an xbox today right you can't you know it's like an xbox today you could replicate a perfect image right in those days it was hardly that but you know honestly i'd pick up the phone call the studio talk to my art director and said get every cheerleader in eternal night right now and he's like why I got my rating. Well, OK, so I'll actually point out that for people who remember when Mortal Kombat came to the Genesis way back in the day, they actually it came at a default rating of mild violence. And you actually had to enter in a code, which was hilarious because you physically had to call a number. And the first code they gave you was wrong. And you had to wait and listen. And they gave you the real code later. And so you actually had to enter in the code. So for all the youngsters out there who don't realize how big a deal this was, this was like in the 90s. and this was this was not that the this was maybe a long time ago for you but not not long time ago for me maybe i mean it's you know it's interesting it's an interesting conversation i wonder if i went to lionsgate and they said you know hey if i put a sticker on it says for 18 years only you know because i don't know i don't know that that would i get it across the the finish line because of the fact that you're still putting them in arcades yeah yeah yeah their issue is that you don't know where it's going and it may end up you know it will end up in commercial locations and maybe that's not enough. And so, you know, I'm still at the mercy of, you know, that judgment. So is that why you guys still kind of do family-friendly modes as well on most of the games? Yeah, well, family-friendly modes are pretty obvious, you know, meaning that if, you know, Soprano is right, I had a family-friendly mode. And, you know, it's like, but, you know, Lyman and I were sitting around one day, you know, thinking, hey, wouldn't it be funny if? And I was like, yeah. And so we came back. The Sopranos family game? At the time, I was like, Gary's like, I love it, but that means you got to put on an adjustment. Okay, yeah, we do that.
    31:47
    Okay, now we've talked about the controversies surrounding John Wick. Now I actually want to know about the game. Why is this a – because you guys have done some things kind of like Venom where you're trying some different things that you haven't done before. In this game, you actually have some adaptive coding. And so I want you to talk – lead me through the game. Lead me through why this would be a good game for me to buy. It's really that particular element that you're referring to. It's essentially – and it's referenced as an AI.
    32:23
    It's very much out of video games, and it's like a combat system in a video game where the game watches you do certain things, And it makes – it reacts to essentially what it – it's feeding you something based on what you've done in a – maybe in a more sophisticated way than the obvious. And so it's really just – I mean when we do that stuff, we're just trying to innovate. We're trying to create something. And the biggest impact it has on this game is that it may not make it feel the same. So it makes the game feel fresh every time you play it and the enemies that it's serving you up and the challenges that it's presenting you. And so you may or may not, you know, and hopefully you'll notice it. You know, you'll notice that, hey, every time I step up to this game, I'm getting, you know, it feels different. and that was the intent for that there's some other cool things in there like there's a choreography system where you kill three guys you watch John Wick kill three guys you know so it's very linked and he's done a masterful job with that by the way I can't describe it in words you have to kind of experience it but it really feels very connected it almost feels like the even though it is all film footage from the films, it feels like incredibly choreographed to the action in the game.
    33:56
    And so, you know, we try to innovate. It's like that's a thing that, you know, it's kind of like the level up system in Venom, right? And it's like, you're going to see that again. You know, we create something and you're going to see in this game, you're going to see in app, I see notifications for contracts and, you know, we'll use that. Now we have a piece of technology, and now we know how to create content for that technology, and so we're going to do different things with it.
    34:27
    So one thing I want to point out too, this is a new designer. I know he's been at Stern for a decade now, but Elliot Eisman was the lead designer on this, and it's awesome that you guys are going with new teams and kind of new blood. my question is though because looking at john wick and and foo fighters because that was jack danager's first corner so not um there is a lot of elements that from what you'd like to put in your games and i i see elements from john borg so do these guys pretty much get free reign to do whatever they design or do you have almost like a gomez's a institute of playful design that you Well, clearly, look, I mean, I part of my part of my job is to, you know, sort of guarantee the quality of the product coming out of the studio and and and to mentor and teach. And so I've worked a lot with Elliot and and I've worked I worked a lot with Jack. So it's sort of like I don't want them to be me. I don't, you know, I think that, but the reality is that, you know, a designer doesn't have a style until he's done a bunch of work. He won't find his style. You know, he won't, even if he tries, right? Style is a thing that comes to you from, you know, from exercising your profession, right? From doing the work you do. And eventually it's like you begin to think a certain way and the thinking translates into the thing you're building and all of a sudden you have a style. So Jack's next game will have elements that may seem familiar, but it will have a bunch of new things. and Elia's game is maybe influenced the first influences of a designer are typically the games he liked. If you talk to Elwin he'll tell you that he loved games like Funhaus, that he loved the Lawler games and so now is there a connection between Elwin's games and Lawler's games? Maybe, but it's evolved, right? It's like now it's his own thing. Now it's Elwin's thing, right? And Pat's thing is over here. And so I think that, you know, there's different, you know, Jack's open cross shot thing. Well, you know, stare at a Deadpool, right? That cross shot, you know, when he loves that game and so he played that game a lot. So he said, what else can I do with this? So he put his own twist on it. Right. So, so, and when I, when I first started, you know, you look at Johnny Mnemonic and I was playing a lot of Terminator 2 and, and I, and I said to myself, this feels fast. These shots connect. There's some element of flow. And so I started thinking along those lines. And so, but, you know, Johnny Mnemonic is the second game I ever made. I didn't have a style. I was trying to figure it out. you know now i eventually you know dialed into things i i try to reinvent myself i don't like to you know i don't like to repeat myself even though i do have certain things that are stylistically you know mine i don't i try not to make the same thing over and over again you guys be bored with that yeah i think and that's what i like about seeing these designs is you guys do take familiarity that we are accustomed to but then you put your own twist and maybe add a couple new elements that we haven't seen before. So we still get the, the, the feel goods of the nostalgia with the dopamine hit of, of new mechs or new, a new little twist. So. Yeah. I mean, I, look, I, I worked, um, I, you know, I did, those guys were jammed up with a lot of things. I sculpted a little car in WIC. Um, and you know, it couldn't be a Mustang. It couldn't be a Barracuda. It couldn't be a, a Chevelle because you know, which one am I going to make? And on top of that, I would have had to license whatever it was. So I said, no, I'm going to make a generic muscle car. I'm a car guy. I think I can style something. And I said, Elliot, I got this. I'll do the body of the car. You work on the mech.
    38:50
    So I think we collaborated on stuff like that. We collaborated on the illuminated city, the edge-lit city, stuff like that. We worked together on things like that. I shot his game. I'd say, I think you should move this. I think you should do this over here. But I do that with everybody. Even the guys with experience.
    39:14
    Sometimes Owen says, hey, take a look at this. What do you think? Or I don't know what to do with this. What should that be? Yeah, he attributed the ramps on Godzilla to you. They were coming back too fast. And he said, if you just kind of make them swirl a little bit, slow down that ball. I love the visual of the ball path on that. It's amazing. Yeah. So, I mean, you want, you know, you want, I think that I, there's things I preach, right? Like I preach, you know, I preach ramps are a toy. So, you know, try to make them interesting. Try not to just, you know, come straight down the side and bring the ball back to the flipper. so you know there's a bunch of different things I mean these guys make fun of me I'm sure they hear me say you know give me five good things not 18 mediocre ones and you know behind my back I'm sure they've got a whole list okay so on John Wick there are there are four movies and there's going to be another one coming out it seems like what is the pathway if I walk up to the game do they cross over between all the different – because you've done this before. With Lord of the Rings, you had all three movies, but you could kind of pick a little bit of a path. So with John Wick, do you try to pick, okay, I'm going to focus on movie four. I'm going to focus on movie three. No, because you're in the world of John Wick, but you're not playing the film per se. So a little bit like Jurassic Park where you're in the Jurassic Park world, but you're not actually going through the films. There's contracts and factions and enemies and different assassins and what you choose to do will drive you through, but it's not a logical path through. um there are some uh what would you call it uh like uh theme setting moments but that to the franchise kind of thing you know but uh but there but there's way it has you know games have to be designed games will never be played the way a designer designs them games will be you know and and and therefore they have to be played they have to be fun regardless of how you play them. It's like when I meet new designers, they think that a game is going to be somehow played in this progression in their head, and that's just not the case. And licensors are, by the way, that's one of the biggest education points with licensors is when we worked on Star Wars, they were like, well, no, you can't go to Hoth. You haven't been to Tatooine. And we're like, no, no, no. you don't understand he can do anything he wants anytime yeah it would become quite boring if you were yeah if you were plowing the same path on every game yeah absolutely so it brings up two questions uh that we've had and on the pro for john wick uh you did talk about that car does it move at all or is it just stationary kind of right there it reacts to hits but it doesn't it doesn't swing out.
    42:35
    The other question I have too is in the red circle room, obviously on the premium the balls drop from top because it's a physical ball lock, but on the pro there isn't that. Do you just hit the balls in there? Do they trap up behind the drop target? How does that work? I'm trying to visualize what he does with them. I think he gives you a virtual lock. I think that's what he's doing. I can't remember now. I've played the other one more than I have the pro.
    43:02
    We were just curious on that, and I did see a picture where the ball – there was a drop target in front of that, and there was a ball behind it. I think he holds the ball there. He can hold the ball there, but he's got to switch back there. Okay. So definitely behind the drop target, he's got to switch there. Cool.
    43:19
    So how did – now, Elliot, did he do other small projects to audition for you? How did this come about? Because you do three cornerstones a year. It's not like you're handing those tokens out very readily. Right, right, right. You know he got lucky in that there were some assignments in the schedule that left that opening And so that helped He a mechanical engineer by trade He a degreed mechanical engineer and he been you know he has worked on a lot of games at this point. And, you know, he raised his hand and said, you know, I want to try. I want to try this.
    44:04
    And the good news about a guy like him is that I don't have to teach him how anything's made. And I don't have to teach him some fundamental things that, for example, Jack had to learn.
    44:19
    Because Elliot has been in it and executing on a designer's vision for a long time, and he's worked with numerous designers. so um you know i think that because of that i there was he had a big you know he had a huge advantage on somebody else here's a guy i don't have to teach him how to mock something up i don't have to teach him how to try something i don't have to teach him anything about the technology i don't have to teach him anything about like you know why the ball guide rests on the post and not behind it i you know all that kind of stuff right so he knows all that and so you know now I'll tell you that you know I balled up his first two whitewoods and threw them away so you know and so you know his game was under some pressure because you know his first two were you know not so good so I think that but that's you know that's part of the process right it's like you know the only people that haven't failed at something are people that haven't done anything so so i think you know he's he he failed he failed quickly and and then i said i said look i said you know we're running out of time this next one's got to count you have to pay very close attention to the things i say and and we got to get there And so, you know, we worked to, you know, get to a place very fast. And then, you know, we started once you have the structure of something, refinement is easy. You know, you can refine it if you are at a place. But if you're in a horrible place, I'm just throwing it out. You know, I don't need to see, you know, it's like, what's your special toy? It's a mini play field. I'm like, no, no, it's not. so is it safe to say that this isn't going to be elliot's last game designing is he going to be a designer from here on out or is this kind of like a one-off well so you know it's look i have right now i have an overabundance of designers so it may be a little while before you see another elliot game and he may you know he might have to he might have to focus on some other you know there's i I mean, there's no shortage of work around here.
    46:48
    So you may have to focus on something else. I'm not entirely sure. I haven't moved all the chess pieces around yet for the next batch of stuff. There's a bunch of stuff in flight, right? Jack's in flight. Keith's in flight. Orgy's in flight. So those are projects that are moving. And so now it's a question of where does Elliot plug in and how does he work? If you don't see anything from him for a while, it'll be because, like I said, I have a wealth of designers right now. Yeah. Really talented, amazing designers. It's amazing to see Elliot designing when you've – I mean, granted, Jack is beginning. His first design was amazing with Foo Fighters. I mean, you got Elwin. I thought the Jurassic Park home panel actually was fun. It was great. But you've got Eddie, Elwood, and Borg. Yeah, you haven't seen the end of the Jurassic Park home turn. Nice. No, it's a fun game. Actually, I have considered it, but I have the other Jurassic Park over here. Well, that's interesting because didn't you guys announce last year that you were discontinuing the home pins and whatnot?
    48:00
    Yeah, I don't – Maybe for a season. It's the Black Knight conversation. Our interview is running together in my head with Joel's interview. so if you guys didn't ask me about Black Knight did you guys ask me about Black Knight? No, we didn't but Joel said to me, he goes so what's this about this Black Knight? The funniest part to me is these conspiracy theories online about you know like things must be on fire they're pulling out Black Knight no somebody, you know like we build games on demand meaning that if there's enough demand and somebody comes in and says, hey, we could probably sell another X of those. All right, when can you fit them in the schedule? Can we still have a license for that? Yeah, let's fit them in the schedule.
    48:52
    Hey, I just heard on the phone that there are 2,000 to 3,000 people wanting a vault of Lord of the Rings.
    49:02
    That's the toughest vault. It's like not only is it – so Joel asked me the same thing. So it's kind of like the – yeah, Tron. You want me to tell you what they are? Yes. No, we don't. Tron. Lord of the Rings. Tron. Ghostbusters. Simpsons Pinball Party. Yeah. So we – if we have the part or we can get the parts, if we can – if the license is in place or we can – or it's not a complete pain in the butt to extend the license. if we have a slot in the schedule. I mean, there's a lot of things that play into it, right? But when dealers and distributors call and they say, hey, you know, I see Black Knights going for crazy money. I think I could sell some Black Knights. Then you go, okay, all right, what do you think? And they're like, give me a number, okay? And then two weeks later, another guy calls you up and says, hey, I see a demand for Black Knights.
    50:05
    Now all of a sudden you start putting this together The sales guys show up and they go, hey, can we make more Black Knights? So that's really how it is. A lot of times a game is sort of underserves the market.
    50:19
    I think Black Knight was like that. Stranger Things was that way. Yep. A lot of love for the pro, not so much for the premium. And so it was like, okay, we'll make what people want. Hey, we're blessed. The back catalog. I mean, we're going to make Deadpools again, and we made them, and this game we launched in 2017. We have lots of games like that, which is where if there's demand, we'll make it. We've got to figure out where to fit it in relative to the cornerstones and all that. So I do have a follow-up on all those because the one thing that you have dipped your toe into the market on, which is great because obviously I buy them, but like toppers and accessories. So this is the fan side of me that I do not work in pinball. I don't work in manufacturing. I do have a mechanical engineering degree though. So if you're looking for an extra person, I'll quit my job and move out.
    51:18
    I've always wondered why isn't there like a designated division that that's all they do? Like they build toppers or they even go back in time and build toppers for other things, but have them simultaneously launched with the game because I guarantee that is when – if people are like, ooh, I'm going to get the Elite. Oh, I'm also going to get the topper. I want the shooter rod. I want the expression lighting kit. I want the shaker motor. I want the hovercraft. I have $25,000 burning a hole in my pocket, and I definitely want everything it wants. Look, we're not ignorant to that. We absolutely understand that. And it is a thing that – I just told Joel. I said it's a thing that they told me I have to do. It's a thing that I have to deliver that stuff when we offer the game. And I completely understand that. Now, remember that toppers sometimes go – they have to – not sometimes. All the time they have to go through the same process as a game. So like the Star Wars one that came out like three years later? A year later, right? So that was sort of difficult in approvals.
    52:32
    And that blew on R2-D2. So you have the licensing component, you have a manufacturing component, and of course you have the game team is focused on delivering the game. and the last thing that they want to do is mess with the topper at this point. So we are totally aware of it. It's a thing I've got to fix. It's a thing we don't do well.
    53:00
    And I've got to – the more – there is so much demand for that stuff. So now I'll tell you that you're going to see the WIC topper sooner than you think. It's going to be really cool. I'll give you a clue time is involved but yeah no I mean I think I hear you and yeah it's a thing we gotta fix we do look we do lots of things right we do lots of things wrong and We've got to get better at this launch coordination thing. We've got to get better at the successories at launch.
    53:55
    We're far from perfect. I want to rewind just part of the conversation because we were talking about remakes there for a second. and back in October 2021 at Expo, you announced Spike 3 is coming, that you're working on it and it's coming. And we're starting to hear rumors and rumblings of Spike 3 and a possible remake from a D&D era game. I guess my first question is, how close are we to seeing Spike 3? And the second question is, are we going to start seeing remakes and does the Spike 3, I guess, have any feature? I guess one of the biggest things I've heard online is the screen going to be bigger? Are we pretty much just going to get the same old LCD? I guess that's three or four questions.
    54:44
    So I can't talk too much about Spike 3 because I don't want to steal the thunder or the launch and all that. But you're going to get better everything, more of everything. it's an opportunity to look at all the things you didn't do right and do them right. So it's an opportunity, you know, what are you going to get? You're getting more horsepower, more processing power, more ability to, you know, cooler everything. That's really extensions into areas that, like, you know, you're complaining about now and you're saying, you know, I don't like that. And, you know, so it's an opportunity to fix it. um are you going to see it soon you are going to see it um you you know you may see it before the year is out and and there's um and you'll you know you'll see it it when you see it elements a lot of it is going to be very familiar to you um and meaning you know um i would guess that the node bus is going to remain and the node bus architecture and you know that you know maybe uh Maybe it's – there's lots of things that you're going to look at and go, oh, yeah, it's definitely a Spike. It's a Spike.
    56:07
    It's an evolved Spike with more horsepower. Cool. Now, are you – oh, go ahead. What was the second half of your question was about Vaults or – Kind of are we going to see remakes coming with the new Spike 3s? You'll see remakes, but remakes aren't going to be driven by can we make them on Spike 3. They're going to be more driven by what's the demand and what can we do with it. And so if we see an opportunity – and it's no secret I've talked about some of the stuff you guys want, right? Like everybody wants a Tron. You know, there's challenges. We don't have a Tron license. We have to go get a Tron license. There's challenges. You know, what do you do with the display?
    56:59
    And at some point, you know, you have to be sure that the amount of development work that you're going to put into it stands a chance of being profitable. because if you say to yourself, if I build it on Spike 3, unless I emulate the dots and just use the display as a dot emulator like that – The CGC, like Monster Bash. That's what I have. That's right. So if you do that, it's a little different. It's maybe less work. but then you say to yourself, I don't know if I got this cool new display. Do I really just want to do that old stuff? So then the conversation quickly evolves. Right. And so, um, it's, it's more, you're going to see some cool stuff, but it's not like we're going to, I don't think we're going to have a cadence of, of like every old game is going to be remade or anything like that. Yeah. I guess more of a 2.0 version because we've talked about Tron a couple times so it's like you've got a lot of room there you've got film assets who wouldn't love seeing Jeff Bridges on that display screen you say okay so what would it take to do that and then if you say at the back end if you talk to the sales guys and go could you sell this many of them and then they work the math back and you go okay yeah you can pay for development you can pay for parts You can pay for manufacturing, the overhead, all that stuff, right? Yeah. So I want to get into – you guys have moved to a bigger facility with bigger manufacturing capabilities, which is great. It's also a blessing and a curse because in many ways, you still have more operating costs when you're actually going to a bigger area. and what justifies that and what makes that a successful move because you have to sell more units to justify the bigger real estate.
    59:11
    Yeah, I mean, it's a little bit of – it's not quite as simple as that, meaning that if the business was hamstrung because you couldn't manufacture enough games in the old facility and in the new facility you can, then that overhead isn't – I mean there's an overhead, but it's not – it's like it's not – you're not going backwards.
    59:39
    The math economy that I've seen online is not – like I see guys speculating about the new facility is a burden, et cetera. you don't understand the new facility is a facilitator it's it's hardly a burden you know we've got like you know we have two buildings we have one that's got four cnc machines crank and play fields um the you know the this this building everything's everything is uh we have more space everything's nice and clean my shops the whitewood lab all that stuff is better We have the opportunity. I just bought a bunch of new 3D printers, and we're growing.
    60:29
    It's kind of like if you want to reach the next level, you have to make some investments. The cost of things isn't necessarily always passed on to you. The company reinvests in the company.
    60:41
    And that's the part that nobody understands this. the growth when when you have a self-funded company the success of the company funds the next growth step of the company so it's sort of like it is just like your personal economy if you got a raise because you did really good work or you did more work last year than you know that you did the year before and your revenue you know your personal revenue went up, you can make choices. You can say, hey, I was, you know, I needed this other thing in order to do more of what I was trying to do. And so I probably need to buy some of those, whatever that is. So that, that's really our, our scenario is like that. It's not to say, look, there's, when everybody, everybody talks about the price of the games and I don't, we don't like that the price of the games is what it is either. We have, we, in the price of a game, everybody talks about the bills of material. It's not just about the bills of material. There's millions of dollars spent on development. There's millions of dollars spent on, you know, on manufacturing a labor force that can build the games. That all that stuff has to be amortized. So, you have, right now, you're getting all of IC, server costs and everything is free to you.
    62:05
    And, and so, You have the, you know, there's a lot of things like investments in future growth, investments in efficiency. You know, there's so, so all these things impact the price of a game. And there's things that we do not control, lots of them. So the majority of the material in the pinball machine is not generated from scratch by our, you know, in other words, I don't make steel and I don't form steel. I, you know, we do, you know, so it's so the extended enterprise of companies that support us, they have, you know, if, if, if the cost of, you know, their raw material goes up, it gets passed on to me. And, and I, and our costs, by the way, also in the cost of, of, of, of our pinball machines is the fact that we have to, we have to essentially sell through a dealer distributor network. the largest dealer distributor network in the business, but those guys have to make it. Their life has to be profitable.
    63:13
    They take the product we sell. They need a markup. They need to sustain their businesses and their families and all that stuff. They mark it up and it ends up being the price you have. We control some prices. We decide to some extent. There's a guy in the thread, in the John Wick weapons thread. He says, you know, why doesn't Gomez address the elephant in the room? It's a $13,000 LE price.
    63:38
    And, you know, in the process, of course, he had to insult me and say that, you know, we were greedy.
    63:46
    And so it's like, you know, I don't – I wish I could take that. I wish I could really, you know, show that guy what goes into the games and how much we keep because he doesn't know. He's just making some assumption that we're all getting wealthy on this greed.
    64:09
    I'll tell you what I hear. I hear that pricing is an issue. We know this, and we have had – there is across the world. There is essentially a post-COVID reality, a readjustment to normal life. And so during COVID, you weren't spending all this money on all this other stuff, so you decided you could afford a pinball machine, and you got a pinball machine. We want pinball machines. When you see us talking to non-industry press, what's that about? Well, that's about getting the pinball word out to people that wouldn't normally get the pinball word. because the industry, the community within the press within the community is going to cover the game no matter what, and they're going to address the community we have. We want to grow the company. I want people – I don't want to hear ever that do they still make those things, right? I want that to go away. I want people to – I want growth. I want people to say – and yeah, you can say, well, it's not going to grow. It's $13,000. Well, the game is priced based on what we have to do to make the – we're a business. We have to be profitable and the dealers and distributors have a right to their profits and they do an they do a work you know they do an element of work and dealing with customer directly delivering the games making you know promoting the games all that kind of stuff. So, um, but the reality is that there's a bunch of people out there that are potential customers that are not aware. That's when you see us at CES, when you see us at Comic-Con and you guys, you know, I hear the community go like, what are they doing there? it's got nothing to do with us well it may not have anything to do with you but we want more of you we want everyone we want everyone to embrace pinball so that we never hear that again it guarantees the sustainability of the product and our livelihoods and our future I will push back on two things and you can choose or not to address them. With gas prices, it goes up and down depending on the season. So summertime gas prices go up. So with COVID, we had significant cost issues and things escalated in price very quickly. However, you could argue that's fine, but it was like a new set point. Things typically didn't go down after the things became more available. And you could even argue, and I've made the argument before that and this is again me talking as a pure fan i am i i don't manufacture i don't sell anything yeah um so the black knight topper i bought it when it first came out and it was under 500 and now it's significantly more and and you could argue like i hey i bought the topper for rush too you know so there are things that are you know that there are toppers that you could argue are more expensive and less expensive. Yeah, some of those. And that's not to say that there isn't some on-demand pricing, right? If you have a shortage of something, and you can get more money for it, then sometimes people do. But I don't know that.
    67:50
    The thing about buys, right? Like when you buy 250 parts, it's significantly different than when you buy 1,000 parts. Sure. Right. So it depends on where and when you plug into the cycle, right? So if those guys come back and they say, we can only sell 250 of these, we got to have a really hard discussion about is it worth it to build 250 of these? because the price that you pay for those 250 parts that you order is going to be a heck of a lot different than when you ordered 5,000 of them. You know, and so I think that the other thing about things like the Black Knight Topper is that you've got a bunch of those parts are tooled in China. And when there are political issues between our countries, those prices get affected. And that's a fact. So you can go back there and you can say, well, what about this? Sorry, that's what it costs now.
    68:55
    I will point out, though, the one thing I have really appreciated that Stern has done, even with, I would say, more than – okay, I'll put it this way. The accessories can be expensive. However, you can get a functional, fun pinball machine for what I would consider a very reasonable price because the gameplay, it does sell, and that is what interacts you with a game. It's kind of like a car. You can buy a car that's an entry level that will still do most of what you need, and if you want the extra stuff on top, yeah, you're going to pay more for it if that's important to you. But I've appreciated that Stern has been able to focus on getting a reliable machine that's fun, that still has a reasonable entry-level price. Yeah, we have – you touched on a couple of things there. One of the things that I tell people in this entire crazy conversation about the guns thing on WIC, some people approach it from the standpoint that no one's holding a gun to your head, no pun intended, to buy the product. And, you know, I always tell people, buy what you like. Don't buy what you don't like.
    70:20
    I mean, it's one of those things where – and accessories are something that they're not a must-have. You know, the game is really solid without it. It's a way to trick out your game. I also believe that accessories, there should never be a situation where like toppers are priced at X because toppers are priced at X. You know, it's like, you know, topper, this topper is complex. It's got a lot of stuff in it. The price of that topper should be a lot more than pricing a simple top. And there's going to be both. There's going to be simple toppers. There's going to be complex toppers. You know, there's going to be, and just like games, right? the, you know, you look at a Deadpool play field, what's on a Deadpool play field? Not a lot, but it's fun. You know, I don't think anybody will argue that point. So it's kind of like you, I don't think putting more stuff in a game is necessarily any guarantee that it's better.
    71:22
    God knows I've seen, you know, some of the competitors games with like, you know. A lot of stuff. Folds down into a chink.
    71:34
    I can't tell you that there's like some equivalent amount of play value associated with this stuff. Right? And anybody who's – I think – look, I think if you're serious and you truly do the analysis, I think that what you have to – we deliver product consistently. We deliver reliable product. I think we deliver fun product. Our games – and this is not braggadocio. Our games are the highest earning games in the world on location. In terms of pinball machines, our games consistently out earn. Our games are, if you talk to operators, they'll tell you they're the most reliable.
    72:23
    And I'll tell you that in the not too far distant future, the largest footprint of operator pinball machines in the world is going to be Stern Pinballs. And so I think that, you know, I look, you have things like Insider Connected. And it's transformed the way people interact with pinball machines. And it's going to continue to, right? I mean, we're just about to introduce in-app notifications with Wix. You're going to be getting contract notifications on the phone. You can turn them off, by the way. They're not going to hassle you. But it's going to add an element of play that you haven't had.
    73:02
    And there's some really cool twists tied to it. And so there's a lot of stuff like that where you say, where else can you get this? Because you can't get anywhere else. You can't get the depth of breath. You can't get just the constant barrage of stuff we do.
    73:22
    With the data that we're getting back from IC, I know – look, I'll tell you that one of the highest earning film machines on location today is – take a guess. Star Wars.
    73:37
    Venom. Really? Actually, I actually understand that. There's a Venom here locally, and I've gone and played it, and it is interesting. I would love to see the premium on location because I've only played the pro on location. But absolutely, it's bringing a different audience to the games and to the arcades that would not go otherwise. so I would say it actually is really better for location Venom would be than maybe even Home Environment I'll tell you another Venom stat in the home it gets played more than other games in those homes and so for whatever reason now is it in as many homes as the Godzilla absolutely not right But that's – I think that's – Godzilla is a fantastic game, but beyond that, it's also a theme that appeals broadly, right? Yeah. So you have these thematic niche is a problem. And so every once in a while, you take a flyer and you say, I think now I know for a fact that Venom is going to play a role, a bigger role in the MCU. And so you say, well, maybe down the road, more people will be aware. yeah hey just a a theme option there's also another deadpool coming out in a deadpool wolverine would be a great theme you know and you never know yeah i'll leave you with that i i've actually got two questions that we've we've been talking about this and it clicked to me one of them was you're talking about you're privately funded and whatnot one of the rumors in the last two months or three months is Stern's looking to go public. Can you comment on that or anything to that nature? No, I mean, I'll tell you that, I'll tell you that some of the speculation is really fun to watch.
    75:47
    Um, yeah, I don't, I, you know, I don't think there's, I don't think we're going public anytime soon. Um, I think that, um,
    75:58
    you know, the company, the company is growing, right. And so when you grow, people become interested in you, right? And so you say – but at the same time, I think that that's really natural. It's just a really natural thing. It's like you say, wow, those guys are doing really well. I wonder what they – but it's a privately held company, so it's like the ownership has to decide that that's the thing they want to do. Yeah, for sure. And then the other question I had too is, as I noticed through the marketing push that you guys have done for John Wick, you guys said that there's a studio in Los Angeles and one in New York. Is that something that you guys own or is that just something that was pushed for the marketing?
    76:47
    I don't know that we said studio. We said we did a tour, a press tour. we did a press tour in the East Coast, one in the West Coast, and one in the Midwest. Okay. And that was – we invited non-industry press to try to get eyeballs, non-industry eyeballs, right, or non-community eyeballs. That's what that was. We don't have anything. We don't have a presence on the West Coast. It's actually – look, back in the day when I was – earlier in our conversation, I was referencing my time at Midway Games when I worked on Xbox and PlayStation stuff. And back in the – and that's very common in that business that you're going to launch a game and you do a press tour.
    77:42
    But it's really – it was really – that press tour was about we know you guys are going to cover it. We know the community is going to get hardcore industry coverage on the stuff. And even that said, I think we're looking to invite a bunch of people. We invite you guys to come and see us. Oh, we got the invite. Yeah, we did. Yeah, we'll be there. Yeah, so it's going to be an opportunity for us to show you around and give you a little bit of glimpse behind the curtain and just show you. And honestly, I don't ever want somebody to imagine that we don't hear and that we don't listen because we do. And I also think that I – you don't have to like everything we do. You're entitled to your opinion. You can say I don't like it. This one is not for me. It's OK. It's for somebody. um you know it it it's i this uh you know that i'm glad i i'm glad you guys have given me this opportunity because it's very difficult to have these conversations you know three sentences at a time texting on a facebook post and you know so i think that uh i hope people listen and i hope I hope they listen. They really listen to what I've said. Yeah. You know, the frenzy of the frenzy of, you know, what about this? I saw I saw there was a gun and James Bond. Yeah, there was. And, you know, this is why.
    79:34
    OK, Jordan, we're go ahead, Josh. I was just going to say probably you're going to say, yeah, we're getting close to to the end of our time here. The one question I have is what is something that you would like to bring up that we weren't smart enough to think about?
    79:55
    I think that I can tell you that we do this work from our hearts. we don't you know we don't you know I don't like it when people imagine us as the evil empire even though that's really common for the biggest company in a given business you know we're the 900 pound gorilla you just have to understand that the people that make up the 900 pound gorilla are not a hell of a lot different than you are they have a different skill set. You know, they have a very specialized skill set. They know how to make pinball machines, but, um, we're, we, we are in the community. We suffer those prices just like you do. And we are aware of it and we are trying to figure out a way to not raise prices and to, you know, if, if we could drop prices, we, we probably would. Um, uh, so I think, yeah, I mean, it's, uh, I don't know what else to tell you I think that I hope you I hope people understand I'm being absolutely honest when I tell you the things I've told you it was not you know taking guns off the art on John Wick was not any kind of political statement it was the fact that we are an all-ages product when we're on we're considered an all-ages product when we're on location can't guarantee to the licensor that we're not going to be on location and therefore the constraints that come with that are you know can't have guns on the static art once you press the button and you're in the game you've made a conscious decision to play the game and that's a different story well Well, George, we really appreciate you coming on. Like I said, I don't know. I wish we had Wayne's Rose. We're not worried.
    82:09
    You're such a legend in this industry, and we appreciate everything that you do for us. And honestly, I think speaking directly to the community right now, I think we take for granted how plugged in a CCO of a company is to this community. It's amazing that there's all these different industries, but it seems like you guys actually listen to the community. And like you said before, there's some things you guys do amazingly well, and there's stuff that you fall short on. And you guys acknowledge that. And I think that's the most you can ask for from a company. And I think another thing people need to realize, too, is if you're driving a small boat, it's easy to pivot, right? But you guys are like a cruise liner. And so every time you have to pivot, it takes a few extra steps. It's a bigger pivot.
    82:58
    But we do. We appreciate you coming on and clarifying a lot of this stuff because it's a lot of questions even us as pinball media, as we like to put it, had. And I think you've answered all of them, and I appreciate you doing that. Look, I'm not that unavailable. So it's like feel free to hit me from time to time, whatever. and if I can clarify something, I'm happy to. I'd much rather tell you the truth on something than have it spin into the conspiracy theories that I read online. So it's kind of like there's a bunch of people out there speculating why I kept Elliot out of the limelight and all this kind of stuff. I'm just like, Elliot and Tim are going to be on tour. They're going to do all the interviews. They're going to do all this stuff. his name he signed all the LEs it's not a military secret he happened to be on vacation when we did the video shoot and we didn't think it was a big deal so it's like yeah you're going to get plenty of Elliot FaceTime and he's done a nice job and everybody's got to cut him some slack he's new but other than that I mean the game's amazing considering I would like to have Elliot and Tim on and pick their brains on the physical design and the code design because it would be a really interesting discussion echo your words get in front of a game go play these games are online right now I can't wait to get mine online I'm going to join them if someone wants to get a hold of you do you want them getting a hold of you George? is there a place they can get a hold of you at? I mean, I think a lot of people – Facebook, I'm on Facebook. When you friend me, I usually accept. A lot of people PM me on stuff, and I try to – I monitor and I spend time in pinball, in Stern Pinball Enthusiasts.
    85:09
    Some of the forums for my games, I look at those a lot. I look at forums for new games. You know, I just got, you know, I jumped into the WIC forum.
    85:20
    And so I, you know, I think that's probably a good place to reach me. I listen to opinions. I may not always engage. I may not always answer, but I listen to opinions. I watch.
    85:35
    And certainly you guys can have a direct line to me. And, you know, you can certainly, you know, feed it back through your show. Definitely. We're going to be there soon and we're going to bring some hats. We have new hats coming out, so we'll hash those out to people. I'll have to get on that. You guys are shooting me in my office. I was just thinking about the community is going to be doing the NSA analysis. Oh, yeah. It's back here.
    86:07
    I see. Well, I see the next game in the corner behind the chair. I see the next game. You can't see it because it's cropped, but it looks really good. That's what made me laugh. You guys did the Stern Factory Tour last year for Expo, and people walked away from that. Falcon, what's Falcon? That's the code name of their next. No, that was Foo Fighters, and it's already out, guys.
    86:30
    Hey, I'll be there in two weeks. If you have an Iron Maiden topper, I'll buy it because I have a spot. See?
    86:36
    Yeah, you've got a spot for it. You need one. Yeah, yeah. It looks a little naked right now. Well, if you want to get a hold of us, we are Loser Kid Pinball Podcast at gmail.com. We're on all the socials at Facebook.
    86:49
    Or at Loser Kid. We're on Facebook, Instagram, X, Threads, all that jazz. So if you want to get a hold of us, you can contact us that way. We do appreciate the positive response that we've been receiving from our recent episodes. And we love hearing from you. and thanks again, George, for coming on and I guess we'll see you in two weeks. Thanks, George. Appreciate it. Go play and stream now. Yeah, I'm on my way. Okay.
    87:32
    you