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Episode 13 :: The Electric Bat Cast

Electric Bat Cast·podcast_episode·1h 14m·analyzed·Mar 25, 2024
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.028

TL;DR

Electric Bat Arcade shares operator wisdom on pinball bar startup pitfalls and prerequisites.

Summary

Electric Bat Arcade hosts (Rachel and Kale) discuss operating a pinball arcade in Tempe, Arizona, focusing on business advice for aspiring pinball bar/cafe owners. They analyze a Reddit thread where new operators sought guidance, emphasizing that success requires years of hands-on technical experience, reliable technicians, proper maintenance, and realistic financial planning. They caution against over-leveraging (like taking second mortgages) and recommend starting small with routes before opening a dedicated location.

Key Claims

  • Arizona's pinball community has grown significantly over the past 5+ years, with many more machines visible on location now than before

    high confidence · Rachel and Kale discussing the Phoenix area pinball scene development over a decade

  • Building a successful pinball venue requires years of hands-on technical experience before attempting public machine operations

    high confidence · Both hosts emphasize this repeatedly; aligns with most-upvoted Reddit comment advice

  • The pinball community is small enough that word-of-mouth reputation matters significantly for technician vetting

    high confidence · Rachel and Kale discussing how tech reputation spreads in pinball circles

  • It took Electric Bat Arcade 5 years to add John Schaapel as a technician, despite wanting one from the start

    high confidence · Direct statement from Rachel about timeline for finding qualified tech

  • Stern Pinball does not routinely send merchandise for arcades to resell; they primarily provide launch party kits

    high confidence · Rachel and Kale correcting misconception in Reddit comment about Stern promotional support

  • Pinball popularity has grown enough to attract inexperienced novices attempting to enter the business without foundational knowledge

    high confidence · Multiple personal anecdotes from hosts about people inquiring about opening pinball venues

Notable Quotes

  • “If you don't have a skilled tech, they should not do it. 100%.”

    Rachel (quoting most-upvoted Reddit comment) @ ~28:00 — Core advice for pinball venue startup; emphasized by both hosts as non-negotiable

  • “This is a full-time job. If you're getting the kind of play that's going to pay the bills, this is a full-time job.”

    Rachel @ ~32:00 — Reality check on operational demands of arcade venue management

  • “My advice is to not do that because I'd like to sleep at night. And for me, that would create so much anxiety to know that now not only is my business at risk, but if my business fails, my home is at risk.”

    Kale (re: second mortgage for machines) @ ~45:00 — Strong cautionary stance on financial over-leverage in startup planning

  • “You should do something before you decide you're an expert at it and start being a professional.”

    Rachel @ ~52:00 — Broader commentary on novice operators overestimating competence

  • “We make our money off pinball right? That's the first thing.”

    Kale (in response to 'you don't make money off games') @ ~58:00 — Correcting common misconception about pinball venue revenue model; Electric Bat's specific approach differs from token-based bars

Entities

Electric Bat ArcadeorganizationRachelpersonKalepersonJohn SchaapelpersonJarcadepersonMark PearsonpersonMarco SpecialtiescompanyGame Room GoodiescompanyStern Pinballcompany

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Financial risk of over-leveraging for pinball bar startup; potential trend of aspiring operators considering second mortgages on homes

    high · Kale expressing alarm at people considering second mortgages to buy machines for unproven business; both hosts advising against this approach

  • ?

    community_signal: Electric Bat Arcade actively organizing IFPA-sanctioned tournaments and community events; using Stern Insider Connected for March Madness competition

    high · Discussion of Jarcade tournament, Chewy's Bounty Knockout, March Madness badging, upcoming Expo attendance

  • ?

    community_signal: Arizona pinball community has matured significantly over 5+ years, with visible increase in on-location machines; described as decade-long community building effort by hosts and friends

    high · Rachel noting visible growth in 5 years at Electric Bat; Kale emphasizing 10+ years of community development work; mention of increased visitor traffic from spring training season

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Electric Bat Arcade's revenue model differs from conventional arcade bars; they prioritize direct game revenue vs. token/drink promotion model

    high · Kale stating 'We make our money off pinball' in response to 'you don't make money off games'; noting that token giveaways devalue game experience

  • $

    market_signal: Growing popularity of pinball attracting inexperienced people to attempt business entry without foundational knowledge or technical skills

    high · Multiple personal anecdotes from hosts about inquiries from novices; neighbor with no pinball experience since high school asking how to start arcade; Reddit thread from couple with no machines seeking advice

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.223

0:00
what what are you doing i'm making the room smell nice i like it good vibes and you're kind of uh you're cleansing things right you're cleansing the room what's up people we are back again this is we're getting to a more of a regular schedule wouldn't you say yeah we um this having back Having a dedicated area makes it much easier. I like this. We are the Electric Batcast. This is Rachel. This is Cale. And we run the Electric Bat Arcade in Tempe, Arizona. And we discuss operating an arcade, dealing with pinball repair. What else do we talk about?
0:54
Those are kind of, that's kind of what we do. So the people, the good times. Good times. People, I need to give myself a little more monitor there. Oh, now we're talking. I like that.
1:09
Cool. So here we are. Yeah. Before we get into the meat and potatoes of the cast. The balls and rubbers. The ringing rods. The bells and chimes. Bells and chimes. uh we are um we have we have some cool events coming up yeah one of them is uh what's it called jarcade's big adventure uh the jarcade birthday bonanza is it his birthday i think it's for his birthday i think that's the reason he's doing it okay so it's uh jar jarcade strikes back tournament it's uh it's five bucks for the entry um he's having prizes drinks food um usually he brings like some some cool snacks yeah jarred throws one hell of a tournament if you're in arizona come to this thing april 6th that's a saturday at uh manassas in 2024 yeah uh 6 30 pm one uh very amazing thing i just found this out today yeah there is going to be i don't know how he's structuring the tournament we'll talk about that um probably on on our instagram and facebook or you just check out it's going to be on the IFPA site ifpapinball.com or is it just ifpa.com ifpapinball I just found out today a random prize is going to be given away a dinner for two at the STK Steakhouse in Scottsdale last time he did this Mark Pearson won and Mark took us mark took us this was amazing holy crap this is a a a night to remember you put on your good clothes for this you put on your fancy clothes it is a it is a beautiful restaurant with an incredible staff and amazing food yes this was holy crap yeah i want to win it now the whole thing you you have your your what is it called your your beginning course You have middle course and then a dessert.
Stern Insider Connectedproduct
IFPAorganization
STK Steakhousecompany
Chewy's World Famous Bounty Knockoutevent
Pinsideorganization
  • ?

    personnel_signal: Concern about technician dependency: recent departure of skilled tech from popular local arcade creating operational difficulty for that venue

    high · Rachel noting 'very popular arcade here in town, their tech is leaving, and they're having trouble'; emphasis that good techs are 'sometimes impossible to find'

    • 3:26
    So he was telling me that the way he's going to do this, once the tournament gets down to the final eight, everybody can bet on, quote unquote, bet on who is going to win with their name on a raffle ticket. Okay.
    3:46
    Including the final eight. They can bet on themselves or someone else. Certainly. Okay. And when that person wins, all the people that bet on that, there's going to be a random drawing for those folks. Very, very cool. That is cool. I like it. Jard is a gamesman. I like this. Look how excited you are. That's genuine excitement. I know genuine excitement when I see it on your faces. This is it. Absolutely. I am so excited about this. Not only that, and you love STK Steakhouse. I do. Yeah, good deal. So we're going to have to bet on different people. Well, oh, yeah, but then we would have twice the oh, gosh, how do we you're gonna have to figure out how to rig this? I'm gonna have to figure out how to what my best odds are, but it's gonna depend on who the final eight are. So again, that's April the 6th at 630. It's a Saturday at Electric Bat Arcade. That's gonna be a lot of fun. Yes, food and beverage and good times. Good times. All that good stuff. Yeah, his last his last party Christmas party was killer. He brings in a killer crowd. Yeah, so Saturday, April 6th, 6.30 p.m. Be there. Five bucks. That's a deal.
    4:58
    And we're going to have some great machines for people to play. Anything else? What else is going on out there? Oh, Chewy. Oh, yeah. On Easter, this Sunday, is an all classics edition of Chewy's World Famous Bounty Knockout. That's at noon. That's right. We did an all-classics one last month, and it was so much fun. It went very quickly relative to that. And there's not enough all-classics tournaments. You know when you go to a show, sometimes there's a classics tournament, and that's always the most fun tournament for me to play. So I am very excited about the all-classics edition of Chewy's World Famous Bounty Knockout. You took the words right out of my mouth. You always excel at classics. I love classics. That's your thing. Classic valleys. There are not enough.
    5:54
    I mean, I can't speak across the nation, but there are not enough all classics tournaments here in the valley.
    6:02
    There used to be at Grumpy's. Yeah. I don't think Grumpy's is operating anymore. That's what I love going there. I mean, all they have are classics, and that was a lot of fun.
    6:11
    This is super cool. Well, you have Pulp Fiction in the classics tournament. No, because it's not a classic. It's not. It's masquerading as a classic.
    6:23
    What about TNA? No, I don't think I will. Also not a classic, although based on the classic Dolly Parton. I will not have Bond 60th in it either. I'm going to go legit. How did you know what I was going to ask you? Because I can see your thoughts. That incense really tied the room together. But what I was mentioning about based on, it's not really based on Dolly Parton, the TNA, but the prototype is a Dolly Parton that was modified. Yeah. That's the inline. You got the inline drops on. The inline drops are the only thing that stayed in position. Maybe the flippers. I don't know. But did you play the original TNA? I did. I played it during Expo, and they had all three at the party at Pinball Life. How cool is that? I still have never been to that party. We might do it this year. Maybe, yeah. We're going to Expo.
    7:17
    Very good. Let me, oh, most importantly, I forgot to put my devices on focus mode because I don't want any interruptions during this recording. Yeah, you get all kind of messages. I don't have to do that. That's right.
    7:34
    And quickly, before we go any further, let's mention our sponsors, Marco Specialties. Yep, we get all your specialty and generic, all the pinball parts. They've got them. MarcoPinball.com. Head over there to get any parts you need. We use those guys every week. Yeah. And I thank you. Also, thank you to Game Room Goodies. That's where we get all of our machines. And, man, they give us a lot of prizes. They gave us a bunch of prizes. We've been giving them out.
    8:01
    We gave them out at the last tournament. Yeah, some of those Stern whiskey glasses with the pinballs stuck in the side. That's correct. Stern apparel. And, man, and then at Zabcon, they gave us a cocktail table, a Namco cocktail table, and our friend Ty won that. Thank you so much, Game Room Goodies. Go to GameRoomGoodies.com for all of your game room needs, not just pinball. These guys do everything, jukeboxes, skeeball, basketball.
    8:31
    What else do they have? Oh, crane games. Like some raw thrill stuff, like the, what is that, the shooter with the deer? oh big big buck hunter yeah you know i i played a big buck hunter with our friend uh kent we played through and i kind of want this um but yeah i'm not so excited about this the subscription model it's 40 bucks a month uh but uh big buck hunter holy crap it was a lot of fun kyle brought it Yeah, they earn. Yeah, and we played the zombie. There's like a Walking Dead package. So if you're not into hunting, you can hunt zombies. Not everybody wants to hunt big bucks. They're not into the five-pointers or whatever. There you go. You're the big old rack. Mule deer and all that stuff. White tail. White tail, all that good stuff.
    9:26
    So if you want any of that good stuff, Game Room Goodies has it. and if they don't have it in stock they will find it for you these guys are great and then once you buy it you can use your stern insider connect insider connected oh you buy a pinball machine yeah that was a segue that was a good one too that was a really good segue it was so good it almost threw me off uh another great sponsor of the show stern insider connected we We've been trying to get all these badges.
    9:59
    Not only that, we've been doing the March Madness. Yeah, we have been doing the March Madness. We're struggling to get Arizona up there on the board. We're doing our best. Yeah, we've got a lot of players in Arizona. We need Eric Stone to come. You know, it would be worth it to fly Eric Stone to the arcade to get our Arizona numbers up. I bet he'd be down with that because he's in the weather, And boy, do we have some beautiful weather.
    10:28
    Hey, Eric, have you heard of Arizona weather? Yeah, yes, sir. We have the extremes. Yeah, come on out. But right now it's mild. It's beautiful. It's mild. He would want to come out for this weather in particular. And tell us about it. Yeah. We've got one week left of spring training. So all the Canadians and the Minnesotans and whatnot. God, we have had. Okay, so for those of you who don't know, and I didn't know this before I moved here. Yeah. Right now, we have this baseball thing going on called spring training. If you've heard of it, it's a baseball thing.
    11:02
    Spring training, you say? It is amazing. All of the pinball fans from all over the world, they're in town and checking out with the family, checking out some baseball, a little ball and bat.
    11:18
    They come in and play in tournaments with us or just dropping by to say hello and have a good time. We've probably met like 40 people from the north specifically. Yes. Just in the last couple of weeks that have come and said hi to us that they're in town for the baseball. Yes. Good. Good deal. So inside of connected, log in, get your badges, do some March Madness. And, you know, we've been chatting with them or I have about doing something like March Madness, but a little bit different. Yeah, I'm excited about the thing that you guys have been talking about. Yeah, and I hope they can work that into the program. We can't announce it. No, no, we can't talk about it. Because it's still in the works. But if it sees the light of day, we'll make sure that you know about it. It'll be fun. Yeah, everybody will really enjoy this. Yes. Good thing. Anything else? Nope. You want to get right on to it? Let's move on. I got some stuff going on here. I thought this would be a cool podcast to talk about this one thread I read on Reddit. I read it on Reddit on our pinball. Okay. And it's about – basically it's about – it was started by someone who has some – a couple who wants to start a pinball bar, a pinball-centric bar slash restaurant.
    12:50
    And he was asking for some help, some tips and what have you. On their behalf. And, you know, as I'm reading these things, I was like, man, some of these people are just off base. I don't think they're purposely giving out disinformation. You know, it's just, you know, on the Internet, you get a lot of what? I don't think it's just the Internet in the world. There are people who have various opinions that might not be spot on for a certain industry. So you're telling me that there's people giving advice on the Internet that don't have the experience or know what they're talking about. No, it's not just the Internet. It happens in the real world, too. Most definitely. It's amplified on the Internet. Yes. Because I think people, they're willing to say more when their face isn't behind everything or in front of everything. So I have not read this thread, but you mentioned it to me the other day because it's something that's been coming up in real life as well. Yes. We have all kinds of people coming to us more than ever saying, hey, I want to start, I want to do what you do. And in the past, this has been people who have been collectors and people who kind of were already on the trajectory to expand and go into doing either operating or opening something. And it's always made sense. And that was part of the reason that we did this podcast, because we wanted to share our experiences to maybe help others. But now, me and you are seeing, I mean, just in the past couple of weeks, several people who have no experience at all. One of them is my neighbor, who as far as I know, has not even played pinball since high school, which, you know, we're talking decades ago. But he decided, he just sent me a text saying, hey, I'd like to basically do what you do.
    14:55
    How do I do it? Fascinating. This is the weirdest. And my biggest takeaway from this is, wow, pinball's really taken off. Right. To where you have people who have, you know, he's asking you, where do I find these things? You have people who have no idea about the industry, about the business, about any aspect of this going, how do I get involved in it? Right. They have no idea what they don't know, but they're so excited about it because they see it everywhere. and it looks like so much fun. So, hey, I'd like to do it too. Right. And that brings us to a few questions and comments.
    15:38
    I want to go into, and I think I'll just briefly summarize the post on Reddit. I would like some advice for some friends opening a new pinball cafe. Hey, guys, some family friends of mine are opening a pinball cafe. on our town's downtown main street soon, and they asked for my advice to help them pick out some good tables that their distributor had available. Their model will be to charge $1 per play, and they'll offer canned bottled beers and non-alcoholic drinks. That's smart. As well as ice cream. I like ice cream. Snacks and sandwiches from other local businesses. This is kind of smart because we might get into this, but the kitchen, the overhead on the kitchen is just insane. Unless you're really into kitchens. So that's the smartest thing. Yeah. They already know what's going on here. Plus there's some cross-promotion available there. That's right. I'm not sure the demand will be high enough to actually make a profit from machines and concessions, though. I'm a little worried for them.
    16:48
    And that's basically it. And then we get into the comments. Okay. Okay, so my first question for this, and we don't know, so unless you happen to know from the comments, is it sounds like they have no machines. Is that your interpretation? It looks like they're trying to acquire machines, but they currently have none. It's not clear, but it does kind of seem like this. And I'll read the last paragraph. For those curious, the machines they'll start out with are Jurassic Park, Venom, Deadpool, Foo Fighters, Stranger Things, Spider-Man, and Terminator 2.
    17:31
    They'll start out with those. So I don't know if they already have those, but they want you to get more. But anyway, so there you go. So a bunch of – Those are all new Sterns plus T2. Yeah. Okay.
    17:43
    Spider-Man is not – Medium Stern. Oh, medium Spider-Man. I like Spider-Man. That's a good game. Sure.
    17:52
    So did you have any from right there? From Jump. The way I interpret this is that they perhaps don't have a lot of experience with machines if they're looking to buy all new ones or many new ones. Right. And this is the biggest caution that I have for people that are really excited about doing this.
    18:24
    If you don have experience fixing them you really need to know somebody that does Even new sterns break It a pinball machine as you like to say It a steel ball rolling around hitting a bunch of breakable parts Correct. At high velocity. That's right. And it's funny that you mention that because the most upvoted comment opens up with that.
    18:56
    I own an arcade bar. And the best advice is if they don't have a skilled tech, they should not do it. 100%. Hopefully they are experienced and know how to fix games. And if they do and they keep their games well maintained, then they can potentially make it work. I'm going to upvote that from like here. Can I upvote that? I already did. So that's good advice in your opinion. That is. That's the best advice. Because here's the thing. Like, you, I believe that you need to have years of experience under the hood before you can maybe embark on the stress on having games on public play. Because if you don't know how to fix things quickly, then you're going to have games that are down. And that looks bad. And people, it's not fun. Like, you don't want to go into a place with seven machines and three of them are down. Sure. Right. And also, like, if you don't know how to fix them, like, that's just a lot of stress on you. If, oh, like, I don't know what's wrong. How do I do it? Quick, let me FedEx the parts overnight. And then it's the wrong parts. Right, right. All that stuff.
    20:20
    And it takes a couple of years of hands-on experience, you know, to get to that point. I believe. What do you think about that? Yes, I concur with all of that.
    20:34
    Excuse me. And also, to add to that, this is a full-time job. If you're getting the kind of play that's going to pay the bills, this is a full-time job. Even just cleaning, like the simple stuff anyone can do. You know, cleaning the glass. It is so important. We've been to some arcades that have like the most expensive machines in the world and they are just like filthy. Yeah. Well, you can like rub your finger across the glass and there's just residue on it. I mean, just like this. This is a full time job. Yes.
    21:18
    Clean both sides of the glass. That's I still see operators that don't do that. Yeah. And I think they think it takes too long. It is worth it. Please do it. You pull the glass out, flip it over, pop it back in, clean the bottom, flip it back over, clean the top.
    21:39
    So important. All that coil dust, the rubber dust, all the stuff that's on the play field is not just on the play field. It's floating around in that world under glass, and a lot of it sticks to the underside of the glass. That's right. And I see experienced operators not doing that. And you can see it because there's a reflection of the LEDs or incandescent lights that are hitting the bottom of the glass. You can see it kind of fan out. Yeah. And there's all kind of like shit under the glass. Like, clean that. That stuff gets dirty, too. Yeah. And you don't have to clean the bottom every time you clean the top. Correct. It's not that often. Right. But if you open up a game, clean both sides, or if you start to see it, in Arizona for us, it's very dusty. We clean the glass every day. We'll say six times a week. Sure. Every single machine, top of the glass is clean. When you can really notice the underside of the glass getting dirty is with spotlights a lot of the time. The spotlights on certain machines, you just have a streak of light. You know, it's reflecting off of the dust and grime on the inside. Yeah, you shouldn't be able to see that. You should only see an illuminated play field. It should look like a window, like clear, even if it's not invisiglass or any of the other high-end non-reflective stuff. 100%. What if you had somebody or even a couple, like I think this is, it sounds like it's like a married couple doing this. Don't assume marriage. Yeah, living together, cohabitating. A permanent fixture couple. And they want to get into business. A pen lawyer would probably say, don't do that. But here we are.
    23:29
    So it worked for us. But we love spending 24 hours a day together. Together we're a unicorn. It's kind of rare here. Not everybody can say that.
    23:39
    Some couples do better with a few hours apart. There you go. What if you had people that wanted to get into this, into like a pinball-centric bar, and they have a tech?
    23:55
    Now, what would scare me is like, what if that tech moves? We've seen this happen. We've seen this recently. Very popular arcade here in town, their tech is leaving, and they're having trouble. Good, good pinball and arcade techs are sometimes impossible to find. It took us five years to add John Schaapel to the mix.
    24:22
    And it wasn't because I didn't want, you know, I would have wanted him from the get-go. Right. And plus, there are a lot of people out there that call themselves techs who aren't really at the level to be able to do this stuff. and you kind of have to vet these people. And usually a pinball is such a small community. It usually happens by word of mouth. You know, that guy blew up one of my boards and cost me $1,000. That's true. Yeah. Now I don't have a transformer, all this stuff. Yeah. Okay. Cool advice. So here's another thing about that. If you are lucky enough to have access to a great tech and you're starting a business and there's seven pinball machines, and you're selling sandwiches and soda, beer, and ice cream. I'm thinking about you're paying rent, you're paying insurance on the business, you're paying for all of the costs that go along with that, plus the cost of those pinball machines. So all of that, plus it has to presumably pay their bills unless they're just independently wealthy, and this is a fun project. And then you have to pay for the tech on top of that. so that's that is already off the top that is a lot of overhead right my advice to people going into this is always to start smaller start with like a route or put machines into an existing place you don't want to have to pay the rent on the business um you know there's people that worry about well if i put my machines into this bar or whatever like what happens if they shut the doors overnight and my equipment gets locked in there, all of those types of things. What happens if you get into this lease and you have on top of that all this equipment and on top of that the loans or however it is you acquire all this stuff and then it doesn't work out? That's a whole lot more money. Certainly. You can insure your property.
    26:21
    Right. And recently, some people who wanted to start a pinball bar talked to us and talked more to you. I directed them to you because I was a little busy trying to fix some stuff. They were talking about like getting a second mortgage on their home to buy a bunch of pinball machines. My eyes must have like just fallen out of their sockets with that. You would you would advise people not to do that. My advice is to not do that because I'd like to sleep at night. And for me, that would create so much anxiety to know that now not only is my business at risk, but if my business fails, my home is at risk.
    27:01
    That's why, again, it makes so much more sense for someone who's already in the hobby, who already has a few years behind them, has several machines that they own free and clear in their house.
    27:14
    There's just so much less risk. And that's me personally. I am very risk-averse, especially, you know, that's just not my style. But find me a person who says it makes sense to get a second mortgage to start an unknown business for which they have no experience but think it sounds like a cool idea. Sure.
    27:37
    Okay. What's next? Let's carry on. We're still in this thread from Reddit. Let me go to the next. Boom.
    27:49
    This is the next comment. The second highest uploaded comment. Have them join IFPA and set up regular tournaments and try to build a scene.
    28:02
    Those are good games to start with. I guess talking about the games in the beginning, the Sterns and those are. Sterns plus D2. That'd be a cool little tournament. I'd like to throw a few classics in the mix.
    28:15
    Stern will send them swag to sell as prizes, but I'm not sure how to get that going. Make sure you have Insider Connect up and running. Make sure the location is on Pinside's map. That's some good advice. I don't know if Stern is going to send them swag to sell as prizes. Those two things don't make sense. Are you selling it as prizes? But either way, Stern's not going to send it to you except for a launch party generally. They do send you like a launch party kit. Yeah. But that's not like something they always do. No, you don't just say, hey, Stern, I've got an arcade. Please send me $1,000 worth of your stuff. I'd like to sell it. Right. That's not their business model. Unless you know somebody there. Yeah, that's not a thing that happens. But the first part of that I agree with. I think you should set up some regular IFPA tournaments. But now, just so the terminology is known here, you don't join the IFPA. Well, I mean, I guess you would sign up. You would make an account, like a player account, and also create tournaments. But, yeah, it's not like a membership model. Right, right. No. You just sign up. So you create a tournament. Create IFPA-sanctioned tournament, is I think what they mean. this is and we've talked about how much in the weed you can get as far as tournaments go and how to run a tournament and how to get the most whopper points out of your tournaments i think the best thing to do is to make a discord account and um join the electric bats join the electric bats discord if you want to join our discord go to electricbatarcade.com and click the podcast link and you can get in our discord ask us questions you know we we respond within like a couple of minutes um but join the is it the ifpa discord yeah they have a discord as well um and if you want to know how to get there uh join us and join our discord we'll let you know um but that would be that's a great the tournament directors discussion is a great place to learn i would i would read it every single day if you want to get start to get into running tournaments uh A great place to learn about setting up tournaments in the different formats. Well, and also once, like you said, really getting into the weeds about different rulings. Hopefully this is something you've participated in many IFPA-sanctioned tournaments before you try and run one.
    30:51
    There's kind of a common thread that I'm seeing my advice here. Like, you should do something before you decide you're an expert at it and start being a professional. We are seeing this now. And actually, I used to see this when I first started working at Marco's Specialties. Like, people all of a sudden calling themselves pinball experts. I think because maybe they read a couple of pin side threads and they did one flipper rebuild and now they're experts so this actually is not new but because the popularity has grown we're just seeing more instances so you think it's still the same like 2% of people but now it's on a 2 million person base instead of a 100,000 person base 100%. And I think this happens in any field or hobby, even automotive. Like, you know, dudes, you know, somebody buys a Subaru and starts racing it, and all of a sudden they're a Subaru expert. And they're racing with people who have been doing it for 20 years, you know.
    32:04
    Yeah, so I don't think this is unique to pinball. I agree. People are enthusiastic about any hobby. I can see how you would want to thrust yourself from novice to expert because it's something that's really, really cool, right? Right. You wish that you had all that. You want the experience, but sometimes you have to deal with linear time. Right, right. And we know how much we don't know. Yes. And we'll tell people – we're not afraid to tell people, oh, I don't know. I'm going to have to look at it, do a little research. Beats me. But there's a new blood of people who are like, oh, I know exactly what's up. And I'm going to open a call bar. Yeah, steer clear of these folks. Let's move on to the next comment.
    33:00
    This comment – and I'm not mentioning any of these Reddit usernames just to – If you want to find it, go to Our Pinball, and you can scroll back a week and find this whole thread. I don't feel right without asking them. Sure. Because some of these people are well-known folks in the pinball game. I see. Like this particular comment, and this is what kind of threw me off because I don't know this person personally, but they have been in the business for a while. and here's the comment you don't make money off of games you make it off everything else they should consider doing some paper entry times like Monday nights is free play with a $15 cover whatever the slow nights are just to get some good business in the door we make our money off pinball right
    34:04
    That's the first thing. When I saw this, I was like, and I even jumped in and commented. But the first sentence, you don't make money off games. You make it off everything else. I've heard this from people locally also.
    34:20
    Okay, go. What's your opinion on that? Well, I think that there's a lot of people that maybe are thinking about it that way, that are using the pinball to make the regular spot, like to liven up their regular bar and restaurant. Right.
    34:49
    For us, that is not the case. So for some people, I'm sure it's the case. I mean, this is the model that we see a lot with the handing out of tokens, like buy a drink, let me give you a bunch of tokens. But what we have found, and a lot of people also would agree with it, that devalues the value of your games. Not the game itself, like for resale, but it devalues the experience, right? because it's a bunch of free stuff. You can just... Right.
    35:26
    I guess ultimately I don't agree with that, that you can make money off of the games. I think for us we're also a unique case, not like the only people, but we have an amazing community that is really into pinball. Yeah. And it took a long time for a lot of people to build this fantastic Arizona pinball community. 100%. And you're not, just to be clear for the audience, you're not just talking about the electric bat community. You're talking about the Arizona. Yeah, I'm talking, it was the Phoenix area pinball community. Yes, and that was a lot of us over a lot of years, more than a decade of working kind of towards building this. And I've noticed it just, how long have I been here? Five years? Five years. I've noticed it in five years. There are way, way more pinball machines on the streets here now than there were. But you actually, you and friends, started promoting arcades and pinball many years ago. And this is the long tail, where we are right now. This is not an overnight success. This is a decade in the making. Yes. And there's other places. The Pacific Northwest comes to mind as a place that has just a huge pinball community. And they, I think, can support this sort of stuff. If you are in a small town that may not have a community then maybe it does make more sense for you to assume that your patronage your financial stuff is going to come from other things and this is the beginning of that long tail to introduce the people to pinball.
    37:23
    I guess I want to be sure and say it is definitely possible to make the money off the coin drop. 100%. I've seen it. I've seen what you're doing and with proper budgeting and most importantly marketing, these machines can make lots of money. Marketing is a huge part of this too. It's not if you build it, they will come. You don't just open a sandwich shop with seven pinball machines and then all of a sudden everybody flocks to you because they saw the Roger Sharp pinball movie.
    37:55
    That's just not how reality is or in any other industry. And I think that's what happens sometimes. People buy some very nice machines, put them into a bar, and they are wondering why they're only making $20 a week. Right. And then when that happens, they go, oh, this doesn't work. Right. The money is on the beer and the tacos. Right. Yeah.
    38:24
    Yeah. Okay. Fantastic. I love your opinion on that. Also, you know, I want to add, I did make roughly $11 on selling potato chips yesterday. So, I mean, I don't want to say, like, I don't make money off. You have to diversify. You've got to diversify. We sell chips. You bought a chip rack. I bought a chip rack. And then chips and cookies assortment. Mostly for myself because I love chips so much. You really are a chip expert. And you love, you have many different chips. Some chips I've never even seen. Chips Ahoy, even. Chips Ahoy, Oreos, and there's little pandas filled with chocolate. Yeah. Yeah, that's cool, and that's working out. Chips and desserts. But I think the takeaway from this comment is, I mean, this guy has experience. Just to tell people you don't make money off games, that is just 100% not true. Yeah. And I'm sure there are a ton. I mean, we know people who only operate. Think of Next Level Pinball up in Hillsboro, outside of Portland. They've got a couple hundred machines there now. To my knowledge, they don't sell any food or drink. They may have a chip rack as well. Sure. But I believe 100% of their money comes from... Is that Rob Burke's? No, no, that's Jordan and Fred. Oh, Jordan and Fred. Next Level. Yeah, but, I mean, these are like wealthy people, right? Well, I don't – I would not consider them wealthy beforehand. Okay, so that's actually – that business is operating on its own. I don't know their financials, but I don't know. But no – How do you become a pinball billionaire?
    40:10
    A millionaire? You start out as a billionaire. That's right. Yeah, and that's – I don't think you're going to become a millionaire doing this stuff, but you can make a living and have a hell of a lot of fun.
    40:22
    So there you go. Let's see what other comments we have here. Oh, this is good because I was going to ask you about the coin drop or what's it called where you pay one price and you – the free play? Yeah, the free play model. Okay.
    40:44
    This is the next comment. I've always liked the option of paying $20 for at least two to three hours of playtime. That's expensive, isn't it? Well, it depends on your skill level.
    41:01
    But our friends at Wedgehead, don't they pay like under $20? I don't know how much Wedgehead. We talked about it on the podcast with him. I think it's not quite this expensive. okay this guy likes paying $20 for at least two to three hours of playtime anyone staying that long is bound to have a few drinks and make it a dollar will make me stop playing when I run out of coin but for three hours I'll force myself to stay there longer and consume to get the most out of my playtime while I eat and drink consider this option maybe on your slower days uh that's so they're saying just do the free play model i don't and somebody else in a comment mentioned this way you flip-flop like like one day it's this and the next day i i do i don't think you you should do that no i think i think you should me and you operate by the by the kiss principle yes yes i want people to know what to expect whether it's monday at 5 30 tuesday at Midnight, I believe in consistent hours, consistent pricing. Because I know that's one of the things that the card system, people that use the swipe system,
    42:20
    when they're trying to sell you a card system, they say you can do happy hour pricing or do variable pricing. Wendy's tried to do something recently. How'd that work out for them? They got blasted on social media. Wendy's, the beloved social media users, got their ass handed to them for, yes. But again, because I always think about operating electric bat as the arcade that I want to go to, and I don't want to have to think about, like, let's say I was going to go to the grocery store and buy some bananas. I know that I go to Trader Joe's between the hours of 8 a.m. and 9 p.m., and bananas cost 19 cents each. I don't want to think about, well, it's 4.30 on a Monday, so they might be 25 cents. But if it's Tuesday, I can go and get five bananas and just pay one. It makes no sense to me. I don't like it. Right. That's a fact. It's a fact that I don't like it. Well, it's a fact. It doesn't make sense. I want the same thing all the time. People have a lot to think about in their daily life. So whenever you're thinking about adding yourself to their life, don't make it hard. Right. Boom. There you go. I like that. Let's see if we can find some more comments.
    43:48
    What's up? I like this guy. Okay. So they have the plans and money to open this place but don't know what pins they should have on location. i would think anyone who knows pinball enough to want to open a business would have all of them on lock done i i need no like just check mark agreed next right what the fuck it's like then you ask it well okay this is this is this is the friend trying to help him out but the it's a family friend so he's close to him but he's also like these people don't know what they're doing i need could go ask reddit but he's worried he's worried about him but that's true when when the friend is like i don't know guys let me go ask the reddit of all places like when when the dog looks at your food and kind of cocks his head like i don't know but actually you know um our pinball on reddit is not that bad it's not pin side yeah but this is this is also again yes we're talking about this particular Reddit thread, but you and I can both think of several recent examples of real life people talking to us in person, asking very similar questions. So we know this is, this is in the air right now, which is why we're doing this podcast today.
    45:11
    Yeah. You should, you should know. You should. Right. And I think this is also a great piece of advice. pinball's hot so people and that's not the advice uh done pinball is hot right now so i think people are like i need to strike while the iron's hot yeah right without let's quickly mortgage the house let's quickly do that um don't don't get in on it like bitcoin it's really moving up like love this hobby, love this sport, love this industry, get into it, spend a few years researching it, owning a machine. I know people who want to get in the pinball business that don't even own a machine. You know, like you just have to own a machine, break it, fix it, play the shit out of it. Enjoy it with friends. Accidentally use Novus three in your play field and destroy this part of it. That's right. and then do a play field swap.
    46:15
    We didn't do that, by the way. That was not us, but we know somebody who did. Get into the culture, the tournament culture,
    46:21
    and really understand the people that enjoy these games. Mm-hmm. You know, like pump the brakes. This should already be your community because then you have built-in marketing. Right, right, right. Cool. Let's see if there are any other comments on here. maybe maybe not well let's just jump into it there's a bar with six pinball cabinets near me they have they have weekly tournaments and generally operate as a bar they charge 25 cents per play man that's a freaking deal i don't care i don't care what game that is that's So they're awesome. And this is in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
    47:11
    25 cents a play is going to be really hard to make money on because parts are, you need to buy them and they cost money. Pinball requires regular maintenance. Yeah. So you can't, 25 cents is too cheap. Right. Like some places do that, and they think it's going to keep people in there playing them more, but they play the machines more. They're breaking the parts. These parts are very expensive. Yeah, all that stuff you said. And again, I think you need to find a medium between where somebody values it. Like it's fun, but I want to try really hard at getting better because that's hard to do off a nickel. Yeah, and this guy. This guy has a lot to say.
    48:01
    His opinion is he would make a cafe that people, cafe, bar, restaurant, whatever he says, cafe, make a cafe that people want to go to and let the pinball be more of a decoration. Because that's probably how it's going to end up. Wow, that's a real downer. Yeah. That is, they have no faith in the OP. At a quarter a play, I'm fine playing a bit of pinball with my drinks, but at a dollar, I personally wouldn't have the same interest. This is not a pinball player. That's not a pinball player. But it's interesting because this is – Yeah, why is that person in our pinball? Yeah, what the – I'm going to downvote that. Do it. Okay. What an interesting thing that there's somebody who doesn't care enough about pinball to pay more than a quarter a play that reads our pinball. Yeah. Why? The comment right underneath him is $1 is pretty much the norm now, unfortunately. Unfortunately, for a dollar, you're playing a $9, $10, $12, sometimes $15,000 machine.
    49:08
    Yeah. I mean, I don't think people think of it like that. No, they don't know. They don't understand that. Oh, and now... Which is possibly a reason to... The very next comment, modern games warrant $1 or $3 for two. 25 cents doesn't even keep them well maintained. Upvote that. Let's upvote that. You log into your Reddit account and upvote it also. I don't think I've been on Reddit in like two years. Really? It's a good time. I don't really. Well, it depends which subreddit you go to. You know, like Public Freakout is good. I don't think that's good for you.
    49:44
    I follow RBJJ. That's a good one. A lot of people worried about ringworm and how you deal with it. You know, I said it's a good one, but maybe I should check it out before I give the thumbs up. Okay, let's move on to another one. Okay. Here's another comment. Not a whole lot of upvotes, but it's still valid. Okay, let's see what they have to say. We find validity in all of these folks. Wonderful comments. Yeah. Well, it might be just for comedy. Okay. Knowing a couple of people who do or have operated pinball cafes. What is this pinball? I've never even heard of pinball cafes. What is he talking about? I think it's like European. You get a croissant. Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah, and enjoy your pinball.
    50:31
    Speaking of croissants, we saw the world record largest chocolate croissant. It was like. We go to a great French cafe. 18 inches. Would you call it a French cafe? I would. and they have JL Patisserie oh it's good let's give them a shout out but she made Central Phoenix she made a birthday a chocolate croissant oh yeah that is I was about to say the size of a football but it's bigger than that much bigger it's much much bigger it's like 18 inches whew I'll tell you what pinball cafe knowing a couple of people who do or have operated pinball cafes my advice to you would be to not open one at all that's not bad advice eddie uh goes on to say lol yeah that's the entire comment basically after financing and maintenance the pinball machine themselves are not going to make you money the money is made on the cafe well we've already touched on that that's not entirely true if you do it right. But machines take a lot of space. So lots of pins equal more space, equal higher rent and rates or less desirable location, less equal, less profitable cafe. Long and short, you probably need to find a great location or be based within a very active pinball scene to make it add up. Regular events and leagues on your quieter days are an absolute must. This turned out to be very good advice. So we were having a conversation with some other owners of pinball bars about this very thing, about do I expand, do I not expand? The increase in rent versus the increase in square footage, where is that sweet spot? And that's going to be different for everybody, but that's a very true statement about it. pinball machines do take up a lot of space.
    52:36
    And so, like, just a very quick backstory for us. We owned these pinball machines. I owned them when we first opened up, and I partnered, you know, Mark Pearson has several machines in there that he owned. We did not finance any machine that went into this. To this day, between the two of us, we've got 7,500 machines. We own them all free and clear. If we had to finance that, that does eat a huge amount into the money that you have to make. And also, we should state the other thing about us is we have no children.
    53:21
    We don't have the expenses that most families do. I bought this very modest home a long time ago. I paid it off a while ago. We own our cars. We don't have the personal overhead that requires us to make massive salaries. Our lifestyle is great fun, but we're not riding first class to the Bahamas every weekend.
    53:49
    So I think people need to look at – we don't have student loans. Like all of these things that people have with their monthly bills, their monthly expenses are probably a lot higher than what ours are just because of the way our lives ended up.
    54:04
    So if you have to start adding financing pinball machines on top of your student loan, on top of your new forerunner, God, that's expensive. Right. Stress. Sounds like stress. And the reason that people want to get into this hobby is because it is so fun, right? And you don't want to turn something that's fun into something that keeps you up at night. So think about that when you're thinking about starting a pinball business, too. Like maybe you're better off just buying a couple of pinball machines and enjoying them at home and having some great parties. Yes. Inviting your friends over, and they will love you for it, right? It's so much fun. Host tournaments at your house. you don't have to make money off of a sandwichery and and and spider-man pinball yes um so i guess like maybe ask yourself why do you want this is it because it's very popular right now and you would like to be very popular and if that's the case nothing wrong with that buy some machines Put them at your house. Home arcade. Invite people over. We know plenty of people with home arcades. Two are home arcades. And they are having a blast, and they're not worried about turning a profit. Yeah, and you know what? If they break down, it's no big deal. No stress. You fix it when you have time, or you can hire somebody to come over and fix it when they have time. Now, I've heard you say this in the past, and I want to see if it still is true. you have suggested that well you have machines or maybe like acquire a few machines but then then partner with a bar Yeah And instead of doing this all all your own doing every aspect of you know the overhead of running a kitchen is a gigantic pain in the ass and all that stuff do you still say that that's where people should start? Like find a bar that doesn't, where there's a hole in their entertainment and fill that. To me, that makes sense, right? Because owning an arcade is one set of skills and expenses. Owning a bar is a second set of skills and expenses. And owning food, kitchen, whatever, is a third set. Those are three different things. So, and having an arcade and a bar, there's very little overlap in that except you're going to be paying the same rent. Like the rent part overlaps. But the skill sets, not necessarily the same. I don't know much about operating a bar. I wouldn't want to jump into that. I would like to find somebody that already knows and that's their passion and they're good at it. Right. And a lot of the successful people that we know are partnerships that way. In a lot of the different arcades, barcades that people have heard of, it's not usually one person that owns the bar part, the pinball machines part, fixes the pinball machines, all of that. I think it makes sense. And it's, again, low risk. Yes. Can you have a successful arcade without alcohol? That is a good question.
    57:36
    What do you think about that? You think no, right? Well – Or weed, but that's not possible for us yet. I don't know because I know arcades that don't have alcohol that are successful, but it's a different business model. they're not they sell a lot of chips they sell a lot of chips, they sell a lot of snacks but they're not open all the time, just open on the weekends and it's a completely different business model really well locally Starfighters is that way but I don't believe that Starfighters is paying for itself but many of the people that are in that community also have other jobs So that's a hobby business. I don't want to say it's a hobby business in a derogatory way, but they don't rely on it to pay five people's bills. Right, right. Sure.
    58:40
    Now, what about food? Can you have an arcade without food? I don't think you have to have a kitchen. I like the idea of partnering with a locally successful sandwich, like somebody who already does something well. I believe in that. And I also really like the idea of these pinball collectives that are starting, and I'm seeing that crop up more and more. We are five different people that have small to moderate collections, and we'd like to put it together and then have ours. And that's really what Starfighters, how they started out. And maybe for some of these other people, that might be a way to start a successful arcade. Make sure you get along well and have similar visions because that can go sideways. And if you have an event, you get a food truck. Food trucks. Right? Yeah. Yeah, have a good time.
    59:35
    I am – I think people in the restaurant business, and it's easy for them. They probably have a different view on this than I do. But I would stay away from a kitchen or partner up. Our friends at Transmission Arcade in Columbia, South Carolina, they partnered up with the Smokey Loggins. And those folks make some amazing food. And they wouldn't agree to do anything until it was like a partnership. They didn't just want to lease space to them. Right. They wanted to have an investment.
    60:11
    So smart. And I've run kitchens. Back when I was a kid, my father had a pizza shop in San Diego. So I have some experience.
    60:26
    Pizza shop's actually great because there's actually really low overhead in pizza. If that's all you have, pizza, that's good. Do some pizza. But still, you need big good ovens and all this stuff. I would say like like just get a hot dog roller and call it a night you know yeah I think it's important to have some kind of food because you don't want people to leave oh you have to something so but not a full-blown not necessarily a full-blown kitchen no I think I think having but but I like what you said about transmission arcade about how they they insisted on that partnership because if someone is just like leasing out your kitchen for I don't know a thousand dollars a month i have no idea what what that would be and then and then providing food well they might up and leave and then all of a sudden you have like you want people with with a very vested interest that want to market your business as much as you want to market your business you want shared success yes uh thank you very much let's move on to the this is kind of funny um i don't know if it's good advice or or what have you uh if they're going to serve food avoid finger foods oh well you know what remember our brief stint with the popcorn machine oh my god that was insane so uh this was during covid yeah and what was it maybe it was right before i don't know we had a popcorn machine okay so anybody running a business during covid knows like counties cities had just like fuck the stupidest fucking rules it was um and so part of the rule for playing pinball was if you wanted to have a beverage like of course people want to have a beer or a mixed drink while they play, glass of wine. They had to have some food. They had to be seated. So you had to bring them a stool.
    62:33
    And if they did not have a stool, they couldn't have a beverage in front of them. You had to be sitting down. It was just like the dumbest shit. It was crazy. But long story short, we had a popcorn machine for a very short amount of time because, wow, was that a mess. Of course it was, right? There was grease all over everything. Duh, duh.
    62:56
    Yeah. We have lots of hand sanitizer all around the arcade. I think there's like seven or eight bottles just spread out everywhere.
    63:09
    Right, right. Now, this comment, somebody just had, it's just a suggestion. get Godzilla, Iron Maiden, Toy Story, Jaws, TMNT, Rush, Mandalorian, Deadpool, Attack from Mars, and Foo Fighters. Okay, that's a nice modern... He's directly answering the question, and that was good. Except for TMNT, if you just want to piss people off, that's a hard game. It's a very hard game, but I think the license is attractive to casual players. It's a beautiful game. In the right environment, that's a game that makes sense to have. All of these people are foregoing the classics, which is, again, why I'm so happy to be having Chewy's All Classics. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Next comment. To be honest, a buck a play would make me not want to go there.
    64:01
    Free play here. And he has a link. I'm not going to click on it. It must be some arcade he goes to. charges $12 for an entire night's playing, unlimited play, including all the new sterns. They're not here to make money off the machines. They make money from the bar. There's more to this, but I want to stop right there. We know operators, popular arcades that do this model. We just talked to some guys, and they are making money off of that. Yeah. They told us, you know, we talk numbers. and so i mean i think this person is just assuming a lot of people are just assuming stuff and not knowing how the sausage is made you we see a lot of sausage we see a lot of sausage um but that that's for a different cast yeah um so the no pineapples here yeah yeah uh So he goes on to say, if you're doing a bar, that's your cash cow, not the machines. That's just not true. This person doesn't know what they're talking about. I think it can be true. It can be. Think of the machines as decorations, stage acts, or ambience. A way to get people in to eat or drink. Don't look at them as a revenue center other than the basics. This guy's completely off base. I think that offends my heart whenever I hear people say, think of the pinball machines as decorations. That's why so many people... Your mom's a decoration. Oh. How about that? Yeah, there you go.
    65:41
    I think so many of these people have experienced pinball machines that don't work properly. In that case, it is just a decoration, right? You've got flashy lights and pretty art. a like that's that's that that's like the i don't know what you'd call them the big box operators yeah the guys with the the trucks yeah that go around and put one or two machines and as long as the coin slot works right and then they'll the machines wobble that's maybe what this guy's got one clipper and three light bulbs yeah that's not what a pinball machine should be you should always strive to have your pinball machines working 100 percent um and yes there is certainly a way like um i'm not going to argue that somebody shouldn't open a free play style arcade because of course there's value in um having because people are going to want to get their 12 or 20 dollars worth and they're going to stay for those three hours and they are probably going to drink whatever they're going to drink in those three hours or however long they have um but man that's like to think that that's the only way and that the pinball machines you should just think of them as decorations right those are not people who think that way are not people that should be operating um pinball arcades because that if that's your mindset about it you don't care enough to treat them with the respect they deserve and to build communities around them that are going to support you over time. What you're trying to do is get some Dave and Buster's kids in there once every six months to drink five beers and get your flippers all greasy.
    67:34
    F that. That's not the only way to do things. Certainly. And this next comment touches on something you've already brought up. I've thought about how I would do this for a while. Now I think I would go in the more private slash co-op direction than a public bar.
    67:57
    Charge a few members a monthly fee to have 24-hour access. That's cool. Like a gym. Yeah. And blah, blah, blah. Have a few beers on stock. I think that's great. That's cool. Because if you do that, depending on your liquor laws, you could have a monthly membership, and you could have a BYOB. Yeah. You could have a building that would sustain itself, and you would have people. This is assuming that you have enough people that know how to fix machines. You have people that you can pool resources as far as parts and knowledge, and I think that's a super cool thing to do. You have built-in league support. There's all kinds of reasons why that is, I think, a great thing to do. Yep, good deal.
    68:48
    And I think the rest of the comments are more or less the stuff we've been talking about. You know, there's a lot of the machines don't make money, which is just and and that's that's one reason i really wanted to bring this up just the the idea that that these machines don't make money i mean they they have coin doors for a reason you know these these things are are built uh to to sustain their initial cost right there to recoup that it's like saying that skeeball doesn't make money we would love to have that The footprint's too big. Yeah. I mean, like, that is, like. Jukeboxes make money. Yeah. This coin, you know, I was reading an article where just, like, the coin-operated stuff makes money. Laundromats kill it. Yeah. You know, vending machines. And here's another cool thing about it. Let's say you buy a machine for $7,000. You make $7,000 in coin drop. Guess how much that machine is still worth. I mean, depending on where we are in the market, it's going to be worth somewhere between $6,000 and $8,000. Certainly. Very probably. Right.
    70:16
    So there's so many things that there's a lot of people that have opinions that they don't have any basis for having. Just kind of some abstract thoughts.
    70:29
    But don't fret because we're here to fix that. on the electric bat cast the electric bat um cool i think that's a enough pinball talk we um if you have any other questions or comments about that especially if you have experience yeah we want to hear from from people or i would love to hear comments from people that have no experience and say like hey i have no experience and i think this or i thought that um just i think it's a really interesting discussion to be having right now when pinball is so popular that everybody wants a piece of it which is great for us absolutely how can people get in touch with us they can email us at electric bat arcade at gmail.com they can find us at electric bat arcade across social media um and they can go on our website electric bat arcade.com and find links to the Discord. Yep. In the podcast tab. In the podcast section.
    71:32
    Shout out to sponsors of the show, Marco Specialties. Go to marcospcialties.com to get all your pinball parts. Stern Insider Connected. If it's not a stern, it doesn't earn. Right? I think if you wanted... If you wanted to earn, make it a stern. But also, Classic Bally's are cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Also, Classic Bally's. And System One got me. Me lord. We're still in that Renaissance Festival kick. I was listening to some weird Renaissance Festival music before we started. That's what kind of set the vibe for this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Also, thank you to Game Room Goodies, always supporting us and hooking us up with the latest machines. And shout out to all of the other operators and arcade owners that are doing it and doing a great job taking care of their machines. Yes. And of course, like a bunch of those that that did it before us and set us up to have this this hobby turned.
    72:29
    And after you are. That's a good point, Rachel. And after you are done listening to us change the channel, head over. You know what I've been listening to recently? The Wormhole Pinball Podcast. It's good stuff. Cool. On the latest one, they had a Tom Graff. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and they had a really great – I like Tom. Yeah, these are short. They're really good, and these people are so knowledgeable. Go check out them, and then fade to the Wedgehead Pinball Podcast. We love those folks. Yes. We joined them for two episodes.
    73:02
    It's a lot of fun. And the cool thing is they're both operators. They're both podcasts. and the wormhole the most recent one talked a lot about streaming because of course they were talking to tom graph he's like one of the top yeah fox city streamers of competitive pinball we really appreciate all that he has done and it's fun to hear from him finally without all of the guys from triple drain over talking him so go check that out wormhole pinball podcast um i think we're out unless you have any anything else to add no i think that's great we want to hear from you we very much want to hear from you please write in we'll uh let us know if you other operators have had these experiences too of people coming up to you with these um somewhat ludicrous ideas right yeah and if you have pinball machines in your arcade and they don't make money we really want to hear about that uh it's we want to know if that's true yeah because some of these people might know what they're talking about and we're Egg on my face. Egg on our face. Okay, thank you all for joining us. We are headed to the bat to play some more pinball, and we hope to meet you there soon. See you soon. The bats are out. Bats out.