Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Ep 73: Big Bad Bart with Josh Sharpe
64 Plays4 years ago
Josh Sharpe joined us to talk Cactus Canyon Remake, IFPA, and Raw Thrills!
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Excitement for New Pinball Machines
00:00:07
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in to the Loser Kid Pinball Podcast.
00:00:09
Speaker
This is episode 73.
00:00:11
Speaker
I'm Josh Roop.
00:00:12
Speaker
With me as always, my co-captain.
00:00:14
Speaker
Scott Larson.
00:00:15
Speaker
And Scott, why don't we hurry and talk about our good buddies over there at Flippin' Out.
00:00:19
Speaker
Okay, yeah.
00:00:20
Speaker
I actually just... So I have two pinball machines in my garage waiting to unbox as we speak.
00:00:26
Speaker
And my latest delivery is Iron Maiden Premium.
00:00:29
Speaker
And it actually has internet connectivity.
00:00:31
Speaker
So I believe that the band actually comes and plays live while you play the game.
00:00:38
Speaker
That's pretty much how it works.
00:00:40
Speaker
And if not, the Stern gets to spy on everything you do.
00:00:43
Speaker
But either way, it's a win.
00:00:47
Speaker
You're going to end that.
Supply Chain Issues in Pinball Industry
00:00:49
Speaker
Okay.
00:00:49
Speaker
In all sincerity, contact Zach and Nicole.
00:00:52
Speaker
The best thing is to get ahead of the curb.
00:00:55
Speaker
If you think you need something, please let them know because they know a little bit more about when the release schedule is.
00:01:02
Speaker
Supply chain issues, supply chain issues, supply chain issues.
00:01:05
Speaker
And so just keep that in mind because if you have that game out there, get in line because they need to know
00:01:13
Speaker
Um, because it may or may not be available, uh, immediately, but, uh, they've always been good to work with and, uh, really had a good experience with them.
00:01:21
Speaker
What about you, Josh?
00:01:22
Speaker
No, I, I'm excited.
00:01:23
Speaker
I've got a Godzilla on order and, uh, I can't wait.
00:01:26
Speaker
I know that they've done great for me.
00:01:28
Speaker
Like I was saying on the last episode, we had a friend, Joe Lemire, that, uh, he was having some issues with his pinball machine and Zach many hooked him up, had him a personal circuit board to him within a couple of days.
Josh's Pinball Stories and Technical Assistance
00:01:38
Speaker
And that limited edition Godzilla came back to life and, uh,
00:01:41
Speaker
And Joe is loving his game.
00:01:43
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:01:43
Speaker
And while I have three in, in the route, I guess, uh, I just asked for a guardians of the galaxy pro cause I'm missing my iron maiden and I figured it's nine notes, not the same game, but it has a similar vibe.
00:01:55
Speaker
So I got in line for that.
00:01:58
Speaker
And I have mad Lorraine at some point when that comes out and a Godzilla as well.
00:02:02
Speaker
So,
00:02:03
Speaker
So I'm going to introduce our guest today, a really awesome man.
00:02:06
Speaker
We've had him on before, but not in the context of what he's been announced as lately.
Interview with Josh Sharp: Pinball and Finance
00:02:12
Speaker
You know, this is the man that not only does the finances for Raw Thrills and is El Presidente for the IFPA, but he's like, that wasn't enough.
00:02:21
Speaker
I want to do more.
00:02:23
Speaker
I'm going to help create rule sets with Lyman Sheets and shock the world as we make Cactus Canyon.
00:02:28
Speaker
And now he's here to tell us all about it.
00:02:30
Speaker
It's Josh Sharp.
00:02:30
Speaker
How are you doing, sir?
00:02:31
Speaker
I'm doing fantastic.
00:02:34
Speaker
Be some quiet in my house.
00:02:37
Speaker
Let's go boys.
00:02:38
Speaker
Shock and awe.
00:02:39
Speaker
Let's do this.
00:02:41
Speaker
Okay.
00:02:42
Speaker
I, I want to know.
00:02:44
Speaker
Let's get through three out of the nine questions.
00:02:46
Speaker
Okay.
00:02:46
Speaker
Well, is your dad coming on?
00:02:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:51
Speaker
Yeah, pretty much.
00:02:52
Speaker
I'm like, I have to be to work in, in about four and a half hours.
00:02:55
Speaker
And so maybe we can break it up into three segments.
00:02:57
Speaker
There we go.
00:02:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:00
Speaker
Okay, so this is really interesting to me.
00:03:02
Speaker
So it wasn't too much of a surprise that Lyman was announced as the coder for this.
00:03:09
Speaker
Is that true?
00:03:10
Speaker
It wasn't a surprise?
00:03:12
Speaker
It wasn't to us.
00:03:14
Speaker
I was shocked.
00:03:15
Speaker
You were shocked?
00:03:19
Speaker
When I was told by Chicago Gaming that he was on the project, I was shocked.
00:03:23
Speaker
Okay.
00:03:24
Speaker
Okay.
00:03:24
Speaker
Okay.
00:03:25
Speaker
Well, okay.
00:03:26
Speaker
What I'm saying though is Lyman has designed these games before.
00:03:30
Speaker
He has a track record of these, you know, making rule sets for the last 30 years.
00:03:35
Speaker
And he kind of disappeared from the conversation at Stern.
00:03:40
Speaker
And so we could connect the dots that he was working on something.
00:03:44
Speaker
I guess I'll put it that way.
00:03:45
Speaker
So it wasn't completely out of left field to say, hey, Lyman's going to be involved in this.
00:03:50
Speaker
It seemed to be in the wheelhouse.
00:03:52
Speaker
I want to know how you got involved in this.
00:03:54
Speaker
And they said, you know what?
00:03:56
Speaker
Lyman needs a Robin to his Batman.
00:03:58
Speaker
How can you do that?
00:03:59
Speaker
No, I was I was involved long before Lyman was actually.
00:04:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:04
Speaker
So my relationship with Doug Duba and the CGC team goes way back to like medieval.
00:04:10
Speaker
I mean, he's been a vendor for us at Roth Rills for 20 years and used to build Buck Hunters for us, not just the cabinet, but the complete game assembly.
00:04:19
Speaker
And, you know, I mean, Doug has always seen me as a
00:04:25
Speaker
pinball resource, if you will, the same way that certain people in the industry look to both, you know, I'll put myself and my brother Zach in that same category of just been around the game, been around the business, been around the industry.
00:04:41
Speaker
And we don't mind being brutally honest one way or the other with our feedback.
00:04:46
Speaker
And we don't think take things personal if our feedback is taken or not.
00:04:51
Speaker
So, uh,
00:04:53
Speaker
You know, part of when I found out that they were doing cactus, you know, I kind of warned Doug like, hey, man, you know, you used you did Lyman's big three.
00:05:03
Speaker
And I think you sorted your Excel spreadsheet by resale value instead of by quality of game.
00:05:11
Speaker
And I like it.
00:05:13
Speaker
It's not a great game because it's not done and just sort of taking him through the history of cactus.
00:05:18
Speaker
And it's like, I didn't know how much he knew.
00:05:21
Speaker
It was just like, this game's 20 grand, you know, because that was a lot of the medieval thing was medievals were going for whatever, 15, 18, 20.
00:05:28
Speaker
And you could get a new one for eight.
00:05:32
Speaker
It like blew the market up.
00:05:33
Speaker
It was like in an insane value purchase.
00:05:37
Speaker
And I think, yeah,
00:05:39
Speaker
By the time he had committed to Cactus, which is 11 years ago now, I don't know, 2021, like he was already down the road so far, even by the time that that I was brought in that.
00:05:52
Speaker
You know, there was some work to be done at my feedback to him if you wanted to make a game that was worthy of selling to people to truly enjoy, you know, that classic Williams game experience.
00:06:05
Speaker
And not just, you know, buying something that is worth double in the open market.
00:06:11
Speaker
You know, the game aside, putting the game aside.
Challenges of Updating Classic Pinball Games
00:06:15
Speaker
I say, well, and obviously Doug agreed with you because you guys have now worked on a new code set for that.
00:06:21
Speaker
But how do you approach a classic game?
00:06:23
Speaker
I know it's kind of easier with Cactus Canyon because it hasn't felt like a complete game because it really hasn't been.
00:06:30
Speaker
But how do you approach a code set for a game that has been around for this long and revamp something that has already kind of been established?
00:06:38
Speaker
I mean, I think I know when I got brought in, like the CGC team had it was like 102 page design document of the things that that they wanted to do.
00:06:50
Speaker
And, you know, a lot of research that they had done rewatching old expo seminars of the design team and whatnot.
00:06:57
Speaker
And.
00:06:59
Speaker
You know, putting putting the pieces of the puzzle together, if you will, of trying to finish this game that wasn't finished,
00:07:06
Speaker
And I think, you know, when the opportunity that when Lyman became involved, it was like, you know, CGC had a path that that they were going to take that was going to finish the game.
00:07:19
Speaker
And Lyman and I sort of had this opportunity if he was interested.
00:07:25
Speaker
And if if Doug was interested to to take something to the next level and really.
00:07:32
Speaker
really go back like i was able to steal my dad's rolodex and and talk to all of the design team members outside of like hey i saw your expo seminar in 2003 and and i could read the i could read the statements you made from you know the pinball news article that was in this cgc document but like what like let's like what's the story here because
00:07:56
Speaker
It's interesting.
00:07:58
Speaker
Like, it's an unlicensed game.
00:08:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:00
Speaker
But for what Lyman and I were doing trying to attack it, it was really a licensed game.
00:08:07
Speaker
It was just the license was created by this team of people at Williams that they created this world.
00:08:13
Speaker
So, you know, every character that that John Yowse drew was.
00:08:19
Speaker
he had to be triggered by something like, you know, he's drawing someone that looks a certain way, you know, who is this person?
00:08:25
Speaker
You know, what's their story?
00:08:27
Speaker
You know, what's this, you know, this, this artwork on the play field.
00:08:30
Speaker
And I, I mean,
00:08:32
Speaker
it's weird to have had a game that I've been aware of for 20 whatever years.
00:08:36
Speaker
But when you really do a deep dive into like, what is the artwork on that plastic?
00:08:42
Speaker
And it's like, well, you've not like, I've never noticed it in the past, but all of a sudden it's like, there's a story there and a story that can then drive a rule that can then get into the game where you're just, you're really looking to pull as much out of the game as possible, as much of the story that you can into pinball rule form and,
00:09:00
Speaker
if you will.
00:09:01
Speaker
So that was a very unique challenge of of this one.
00:09:06
Speaker
Now with this, the story, just to catch everybody up, this was when Williams was losing market share, really.
00:09:14
Speaker
And the pinball was really winding down.
00:09:18
Speaker
So they did a Hail Mary.
00:09:20
Speaker
They cut this short and they produced Pinball 2000.
00:09:23
Speaker
And we know the story on that is that shortly after the debut of it, they decided to shut everything down.
00:09:32
Speaker
So this was the last gasp, but it still is a retro game.
00:09:38
Speaker
I mean, if you look at the play field, it feels very much like the 90s games, which are so different than the games today.
00:09:46
Speaker
And so what is the thought process of trying to engineer a rule set?
00:09:50
Speaker
Because it's hard to...
00:09:51
Speaker
it would be hard to retrofit a walking dead rule set or something like that on one of these older games.
00:09:58
Speaker
And so how do you approach doing a game that was originally designed in the nineties today, 20 years later?
00:10:06
Speaker
You do it in, you do it the way it should have been done was the, the choice that, you know, the CGC team had.
00:10:14
Speaker
And then, you know, what Lyman and I have chosen to do beyond that.
00:10:18
Speaker
I think, um,
00:10:20
Speaker
And I, the internally I've, I've, I call it the Williams charm.
00:10:26
Speaker
There's, there's something about the games from whatever, even, even throwing in system 11, like there's, there's, there's something, you know, the, the charm of these games, like they were made, uh,
00:10:40
Speaker
the games were made to make money on location to casual players, right?
00:10:44
Speaker
So, like, I often describe it as, like, modern games today allow you to play a story that's, like, 1 to 10, and you're playing every chapter there in between.
00:10:58
Speaker
And the Williams games are really, you know, you're making some shots on a playfield that kind of gets you from, like, 1 to 7, and then you're entering a mode that is, like,
00:11:08
Speaker
starts at seven and takes you to 10.
00:11:10
Speaker
It's it's quicker.
00:11:12
Speaker
It's like a bite sized Snickers bar where it's really made to entertain you, entertain you quickly and then move on to the next thing.
00:11:22
Speaker
So I think that's a big difference between like what I see as as
00:11:26
Speaker
someone who tries to understand games that are of the modern persuasion and, and games from the nineties that tend to be a little bit more digestible.
00:11:37
Speaker
You can look at the game and, you know, you make a shot.
00:11:41
Speaker
It's like on cactus, you make, you know,
00:11:44
Speaker
a shot three times and like the inserts are literally telling you the story as you make it and the modes that were added for the the the shot inserts the the shot modes or whatever if you will like those were an extension of the story that was already being told by the design team on the play field so it was just like finishing these little modules of entertainment for the player it's really about story and entertainment and
00:12:09
Speaker
It's like I think I've talked about it in the past, but like pinball rules, a rule is a rule and a rule is kind of nothing unless you dress it up to entertain the player.
00:12:22
Speaker
So, you know, most of my favorite rules in pinball are really stupid.
00:12:28
Speaker
You know, like the Addams Family has a ton of my favorites.
00:12:31
Speaker
Twilight Zone has a ton of my favorites.
00:12:32
Speaker
Like I love Seance.
00:12:35
Speaker
What's the rule in seance?
00:12:37
Speaker
Shoot three ramps.
00:12:38
Speaker
You know, I love clock chaos.
00:12:40
Speaker
If you can get it going forever and the thing's going crazy, it's like that rule is shoot the center spot target as many times as you can.
00:12:48
Speaker
The rule is stupid.
00:12:50
Speaker
But the way that, you know, the sights, the sounds, the lights, everything, it's it's like the emotional connection to what you're doing is paramount to the experience of those games back in the day.
00:13:05
Speaker
And I feel like it's it's less important now.
00:13:09
Speaker
The good games still do it.
00:13:11
Speaker
But like it was necessary and how things were made back then.
00:13:16
Speaker
Even the Williams games back then tended to do a good job of that.
00:13:20
Speaker
You know, get you in, get you entertained, get you out, move you on.
00:13:23
Speaker
Right.
00:13:24
Speaker
It was kind of a high fructose snack as opposed to a meal.
00:13:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:28
Speaker
So it gives you the buzz quickly, but it was never really designed for someone to sit and play 45 minutes straight.
00:13:37
Speaker
That was never really elite players would, but that really wasn't happening on location.
00:13:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:41
Speaker
Well, and I think, you know, of the questions that you guys sent over, like the first question that you list of like what makes a good game.
00:13:50
Speaker
And that question is really so dependent on the person that's answering it.
00:13:55
Speaker
But like, you know, when working with Lyman, the idea of the goal is to make a game that is
00:14:06
Speaker
as wide of a demographic, you want to be able to hit as wide of a demographic as possible.
00:14:10
Speaker
And oftentimes that's, that includes stuff that for me as a player, wouldn't be,
00:14:18
Speaker
focus on and i remember talking to the stern guys about this over the last 20 years of going in there and it's like you know don't make games for me i'm gonna play anything because i'm a crazy pinball nerd you know it's like pinball's like pizza like i if if the only thing left in a room was a thunderbirds in the corner i'd be playing it all night because it's still pinball man so focus on doing the things that
00:14:41
Speaker
someone like her can enjoy when she steps up to a game and can
00:14:48
Speaker
have fun, be entertained, be challenged and want to do it again and again.
00:14:54
Speaker
And I feel like if you focus on people that are more like her and less like me, you have a better chance at selling way more games than than to a highly focused niche group of people that maybe maybe are more prominent of a group out there, but certainly aren't the most important when it comes to really wanting to sell games in large quantities.
Pinball's Appeal Across Generations
00:15:16
Speaker
Right.
00:15:16
Speaker
And that's exactly like medieval madness.
00:15:19
Speaker
My kids still like I can never sell medieval madness because the first thing they say is I want to, you know, they love seeing the castle explode and even any the first time someone comes down to my game room, that's basically the first game I point them to.
00:15:34
Speaker
And I was like, it's a pretty self-explanatory game.
00:15:37
Speaker
Shoot up the middle and the castle is going to explode.
00:15:39
Speaker
And they find that so cool.
00:15:41
Speaker
It's that it factor.
00:15:43
Speaker
But you're right.
00:15:44
Speaker
It's not that difficult, but it's something that it scratches that itch for the entry level player, which brings them coming back.
00:15:52
Speaker
Yeah, it's not it's necessary, man.
00:15:55
Speaker
It's necessary if you want to sell a lot of games, you need to be able every decision you make has to please as many people as you can.
00:16:03
Speaker
And I know that's something Lyman's always preached about for all of his games.
00:16:06
Speaker
It can't just be about, you know, putting things in for tournament players.
00:16:10
Speaker
It has to be about entertaining as many people as you can with what you're doing.
00:16:14
Speaker
Well, it reminds me of I've been playing Ripley's Believe or Not a lot this week.
00:16:19
Speaker
And I watched the tutorial from Keith L when they did for Papa.
00:16:23
Speaker
And it's one thing that you have to understand.
00:16:25
Speaker
That's like a player's game.
00:16:27
Speaker
I've never really thoroughly enjoyed it until I realized that you have to dig a little deeper into that game.
00:16:33
Speaker
It's not your medieval menace.
00:16:34
Speaker
It's not your attack from Mars where you destroy stuff.
00:16:36
Speaker
It's like you got to figure out these modes.
00:16:38
Speaker
You got to complete the modes and you got to stack stuff with it.
00:16:41
Speaker
And I guess to the basic player,
00:16:43
Speaker
you know, they just don't, they don't want that.
00:16:46
Speaker
They want to have something fun to shoot.
00:16:47
Speaker
And that game, I don't want to say it's not necessarily that, but it can kind of be that.
00:16:52
Speaker
So I guess the point of the statement is, though, is like you've definitely got to look at everyone that's in the room versus just specifically one person.
00:17:00
Speaker
Because if you want to sell in this market right now, you've got to appeal to a broad audience at this point.
00:17:06
Speaker
Yeah, and that's hard because it's hard because the people that you interact with the most,
00:17:13
Speaker
are people that farm or they have a higher pinball IQ than a random person.
00:17:19
Speaker
So the, I mean, when, when I am telling people,
00:17:24
Speaker
you know, Lonnie, when he's making some game in 2008 to not worry about what I think for me, it's like, I truly mean it because I know the importance of like, I know how not important I am to please.
00:17:38
Speaker
And it's hard.
00:17:39
Speaker
It's hard to balance that pinball fame fellas of people that like, if you're able to do something that pleases the people that are the most vocal on the internet or in real life, like it's,
00:17:51
Speaker
It's hard to do things for the greater good for the mass market, but I do think it's the most important.
Complete Code vs. Incremental Updates in Pinball Games
00:18:00
Speaker
Now, I want to bring up that this is what was announced during the reveal, is that this is not going to be incremental releases.
00:18:11
Speaker
And we're kind of used to these, okay, code 0.83 is out.
00:18:16
Speaker
Okay, code 0.89 is out.
00:18:18
Speaker
Go download it and install it.
00:18:21
Speaker
From what I understand, this is going to be, okay, the code is done.
00:18:26
Speaker
Here it is.
00:18:27
Speaker
That does affect how you design something because if you get one shot at it, how much more difficult is that?
00:18:36
Speaker
Or is it a little easier to say, okay, this is what it is.
00:18:40
Speaker
We don't have to worry about tweaking it.
00:18:43
Speaker
I think you have to.
00:18:45
Speaker
I mean, I think if you ask most people, they would prefer to ship a game finished.
00:18:51
Speaker
You know, I think everyone's enjoying their Godzilla updates that like no longer crash the game or whatever.
00:18:56
Speaker
But like, I think if you asked everyone that works in the industry, they would love to have the time to present to the world their complete vision of the game and be judged based off of that.
00:19:09
Speaker
And if there's any changes beyond that, you know, they can possibly do that if needed.
00:19:15
Speaker
I think, you know, with Cactus, especially at least with what Lyman and I are doing, like we are hopefully with my experience and Lyman's experience and the few other people that we've had play it, you kind of do the best you can and
00:19:32
Speaker
go with what you feel works best and just be confident that if we're enjoying what we're doing, which we are, that we're confident people are going to enjoy what we put out.
00:19:43
Speaker
And if there are bugs or whatever that, I mean, Liva joked with me the other day, like there's a bug and attack, you know, 25 years later.
00:19:52
Speaker
I think the most important thing, though, is that
00:19:54
Speaker
The game, obviously, as it sits now, like attack is completely functional in the universe for what it is.
00:20:01
Speaker
So I think we're hoping to land on the same thing with Cactus as we have something that's the complete vision of of what, you know, the CGC team, the game that they're shipping now is a complete, fully functional game that's going to have everything in it.
00:20:17
Speaker
And if there's any changes to be made later, like I don't even actually know how that works with the CGC system, but the plan is for hopefully the world to enjoy what they've done and then what we've done when our stuff comes out.
00:20:32
Speaker
I guess that kind of leads me into the next thing I was going to ask too is, and if you can't confirm or deny it, it's totally fine.
00:20:37
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:20:38
Speaker
We're going to get a couple of those in here.
00:20:43
Speaker
How is this going to be updated?
00:20:44
Speaker
Because I know in the older games, like with Attack from Mars,
00:20:47
Speaker
They just sent me a new chip when we need to do some updates and stuff like that.
00:20:51
Speaker
Can you, can you download this wirelessly?
00:20:53
Speaker
How are they going to prevent fraud?
00:20:55
Speaker
Cause obviously they've talked about putting a price tag on this, but what's what prevents someone from buying it?
00:21:00
Speaker
Imagine it's like the color chip for the chip.
00:21:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:03
Speaker
Like, and I remember like I got my medieval color chip when it came out and it was whatever in some UPS envelope.
00:21:08
Speaker
And I mean, that was the card, you know, that I put into the game and then it was like, okay, now I have color.
00:21:14
Speaker
Like,
00:21:15
Speaker
Obviously, there's probably something security related on that thing, or else I would just like, hey, Scott, Josh, you want this card?
00:21:21
Speaker
I'm done with it.
00:21:21
Speaker
It's on my game, and it's done.
00:21:23
Speaker
Clearly, that didn't work for people.
00:21:27
Speaker
So they've... I mean, that's really a question for, like, Sam at CGC of just, like, how the stuff logistically works, but...
00:21:36
Speaker
That's not even a... I don't know.
00:21:37
Speaker
I don't know.
00:21:38
Speaker
You don't want to get congratulations?
00:21:40
Speaker
You sold one copy.
00:21:42
Speaker
However, it's on a thousand machines now.
00:21:45
Speaker
I know that when Lyman comes over every week for us to play the newest code, he brings me a flash drive, we put it in the game, and then we go.
00:21:53
Speaker
Nothing downloading online or anything like that.
00:21:55
Speaker
Gotcha.
00:21:58
Speaker
This game is a little different than, especially with the topper integration.
Design and Integration of Cactus Canyon's Toppers
00:22:04
Speaker
So CGC is known for having over the top toppers.
00:22:09
Speaker
I mean, they are
00:22:10
Speaker
Really, the only one I can imagine competing with that maybe would be Black Knight's topper because of the interactivity and the 3D of it.
00:22:20
Speaker
However, every other topper I've ever seen kind of pales in comparison to the quality and the integration that CGC has done.
00:22:29
Speaker
So tell me about that.
00:22:30
Speaker
Like whose idea was it to do the topper?
00:22:34
Speaker
It feels very.
00:22:35
Speaker
Doug Duba.
00:22:36
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:22:37
Speaker
Doug did.
00:22:38
Speaker
Okay.
00:22:38
Speaker
Brain child, this topper thing.
00:22:40
Speaker
Okay.
00:22:42
Speaker
Yeah, man.
00:22:42
Speaker
He's a game designer at heart or a topper designer at heart.
00:22:46
Speaker
I think.
00:22:48
Speaker
Yeah, that thing was.
00:22:50
Speaker
Well, I think they even had a sample done by the time I came on a couple of years ago to help with this thing.
00:22:57
Speaker
They kind of knew the direction they were going, and Doug knew what he wanted out of it.
00:23:02
Speaker
And yeah, man, he just... He was into it, he had an idea, and he's the boss, so he's able to do what he wants.
00:23:11
Speaker
Yeah, it looks like there's going to be a lot of integration, especially with the new code that's coming out, where...
00:23:18
Speaker
In the past, it was like video modes, but this feels better than a video mode because it's visual and you're going to be able to do stuff.
00:23:27
Speaker
And I'm really curious to see where that direction will go and will it be implemented like one, two, or four different ways?
00:23:36
Speaker
I guess you can probably neither confirm nor deny, but I'm just wondering how you're going to integrate that into the new code.
00:23:42
Speaker
I think it's in the base game that's out there right now that CGC will be shipping.
00:23:48
Speaker
So I think there is whatever, the shootout video mode, which is a lot like Raven's Bar from Indiana Jones.
00:23:56
Speaker
And there's also, there's definitely interactions with Boss Bart up there in various parts of the game if you're starting the quick draw feature or the gunfight feature.
00:24:06
Speaker
So all that integration, I think, doesn't even, I mean, there's
00:24:11
Speaker
There may or may not be additional things that Lyman and I are doing with the topper, but it is certainly, you know, people who don't buy or update will enjoy their topper a ton.
00:24:26
Speaker
There's a lot of integration to the gameplay as you are shooting and lights changing and, you know, helping set the mood and whatnot.
00:24:35
Speaker
So you talked about you got out the old role, your dad's old Rolodex and started talking to these people on the original design.
00:24:41
Speaker
do you feel like you kept to the heart and soul of what they originally tent intended?
00:24:45
Speaker
Or do you feel like you and Lyman are like, we, we're going to go whole new level with this.
00:24:49
Speaker
No, we, uh, you know, we zoomed with Matt Coriel and we actually had Rob Barry do some new music for us.
00:24:57
Speaker
He was the guy who did the original music on the game.
00:25:00
Speaker
And, uh,
00:25:01
Speaker
The even talk to Eric Pripke with Cactus Canyon continued to try to to grab some of his nuggets and his games that we thought fit within the world really well and kind of merged with the stuff that that Matt and Rob were talking about as they were reflecting on the game that they were putting together.
00:25:20
Speaker
Like our goal was to it's the game is still called Cactus Canyon remake.
00:25:27
Speaker
That's what's being sold.
00:25:29
Speaker
So.
00:25:30
Speaker
I think there's probably some future marketing material that will come out where I reference what the design team did is like the tree trunk back in the 90s.
00:25:45
Speaker
And what the CGC team did was add some branches to that.
00:25:49
Speaker
And what Lyman and I have done is...
00:25:51
Speaker
filled in every leaf possible on that tree, so it is extremely luscious and beautiful to look at.
00:25:57
Speaker
But it's all building on top of itself in the spirit of...
00:26:03
Speaker
Really wanting to make the design team, that original design team, proud of the finished product, the extended finished product that Lyman and I do.
00:26:13
Speaker
So it has all been in the spirit of what those guys created and what 90s Williams Pinball was all about.
00:26:22
Speaker
Now, the designers on this, Matt and Tom, I find it very interesting that this is really the...
00:26:31
Speaker
the only known design from them.
00:26:32
Speaker
They've worked on other projects, but from my understanding, they've never taken the lead on something else.
00:26:39
Speaker
Is that correct?
00:26:41
Speaker
I think so.
00:26:43
Speaker
I know Tom, and unfortunately, Tom's at Stern, so I wasn't able to hit him up on this project.
00:26:49
Speaker
Yeah, I see the IPDB, and it lists a lot of stuff that he worked on with Stern.
00:26:56
Speaker
You know, Elvira, Game of Thrones, Star Trek and the Beatles, Rolling Stones.
00:27:01
Speaker
So, you know, all these things.
00:27:03
Speaker
But it's never a, hey, he took lead design on something else.
00:27:06
Speaker
I find it interesting that this this game seems a lot like an outlier.
00:27:11
Speaker
I think there's a story and Lyman could tell it better than I could.
00:27:16
Speaker
But there was something where whatever was going to be cactus or something else was.
00:27:23
Speaker
all of these engineers had an opportunity to pitch a game.
00:27:29
Speaker
And it was sort of this like we're moving on to Pinball 2000.
00:27:32
Speaker
So, you know, all of the resources are being put to this future huge thing, but we need something to fill the line.
00:27:39
Speaker
Does anybody have any ideas?
00:27:40
Speaker
And it was like a science fair time of like me, pick me.
00:27:44
Speaker
And I think part like Matt was a programmer and I think he may have been the only design team, if you will, that pitched a game idea where he
00:27:57
Speaker
It was because he's the programmer.
00:27:59
Speaker
They actually had something that was like way further along working than like, I have a game idea, guys.
00:28:05
Speaker
Let's do a Harry Potter pinball.
00:28:06
Speaker
And here's my napkin sketch.
00:28:08
Speaker
That doesn't make any sense.
00:28:09
Speaker
Like, I think a lot of how Cactus happened was, you know, between Tom and Matt, they physically had the skills to be able to, like, present something that was more than...
00:28:20
Speaker
three paragraphs of information to green light a game.
00:28:24
Speaker
So that's kind of how this happened for those guys.
00:28:27
Speaker
So they had a chance to live the dream, I guess, for eight months or however long they had on this thing.
00:28:34
Speaker
Not enough time.
00:28:34
Speaker
Not enough time to finish, unfortunately, for those guys.
00:28:38
Speaker
I'm sorry, you brought up Harry Potter pinball, and I'm like, all I can think of is, did you hear that Joe Kamenkao got beat out by Homepin for the new license?
00:28:46
Speaker
What, are you serious?
00:28:47
Speaker
That was a rumor?
00:28:49
Speaker
That was...
00:28:51
Speaker
Wow.
00:28:52
Speaker
We'll leave it at that, huh?
00:28:54
Speaker
Okay.
00:28:54
Speaker
All right.
00:28:57
Speaker
Like to see that happen.
00:28:58
Speaker
All right.
00:29:01
Speaker
Sorry.
00:29:01
Speaker
We'll bring it back.
00:29:02
Speaker
Bring her back.
00:29:03
Speaker
Wow.
00:29:03
Speaker
You've worked with Lyman before, right?
00:29:04
Speaker
This isn't like a new relationship you're building.
00:29:06
Speaker
You guys have been in
00:29:08
Speaker
league together over the years and stuff yeah like i certainly i mean it's funny i could probably go back to pre pre-pandemic but every every stern game when i get a chance to play there's usually you know i'll email george and the designer and the software person of like you know
00:29:28
Speaker
Tron dot dot dot.
00:29:29
Speaker
My thoughts, you know, paragraphs of information.
00:29:32
Speaker
So like the the relationship I've had with with those guys has been the same as it's been for ever.
00:29:40
Speaker
And so like, obviously, there was a little bit more of, I guess, explicit working together with Lyman on this than there was in the past.
00:29:48
Speaker
But yeah.
00:29:49
Speaker
Lyman and I share a lot of beliefs about what we think is important in pinball, and that's kind of always been the case.
00:29:57
Speaker
I've known him since I was 13 years old.
00:29:59
Speaker
He's kind of my competitive pinball mentor.
00:30:02
Speaker
He was at my wedding.
00:30:05
Speaker
I've known the guy forever, and we talk pinball a lot.
00:30:10
Speaker
This has been no different, except we actually get to kind of control what ends up happening.
00:30:14
Speaker
you know, as rather than just talking about things that Matt and his team should have done in cactus.
00:30:20
Speaker
It's like we've gotten the chance to like solve the puzzle and really do the research together to to make the best cactus that we feel can be made, knowing that if a dozen different design teams had the chance, you'd get 12 different versions, I would imagine.
00:30:40
Speaker
Yeah, I will say the the super interesting part sort of along the lines of like this puzzle solving was all of the sounds that are not used in the ROM and like the CGC document that I ended up getting, like has the list of every possible speech quote.
00:31:00
Speaker
And it's it's crazy to think like that.
00:31:04
Speaker
There's so much content that wasn't used, but when you start, you know, you talk with, with Corey Al about a rule that they were talking, thinking about or whatever.
00:31:12
Speaker
And, and the stuff just like fits like a glove into places where like, of course this has to be the rule because, you know, this person has these speech quotes and they're talking to this person.
00:31:23
Speaker
And it's like, you end up solving these little riddles and then you put it, you know, by the time Lyman puts everything in with the speech and with the animation, it's like, you know,
00:31:33
Speaker
I feel like this is what it had to be, you know, based off of kind of the answer key was there.
00:31:38
Speaker
You just didn't know which answer was which question.
00:31:40
Speaker
So that was that was cool.
00:31:42
Speaker
You're like Indiana Jones, the pinball archivist you're recreating.
00:31:47
Speaker
Definitely.
00:31:48
Speaker
It's different than having a blank canvas and like being able to come up with any kind of crazy stuff you want to come up with.
00:31:54
Speaker
It was a very interesting and challenging part of the job.
00:31:59
Speaker
So did you end up recording new lines and stuff for the game as well to add into it or nothing yet?
00:32:04
Speaker
I think Rob, because, you know, back then everyone was on pinball 2000.
00:32:10
Speaker
It was like a shoestring budget.
00:32:12
Speaker
Like Rob was the voice of most of the people in the game.
00:32:17
Speaker
And he has volunteered to do some pickups if we need it.
00:32:20
Speaker
And so there may be some stuff in bionic part that we may tell him to throw a couple of new lines on there, but yeah,
00:32:27
Speaker
Really, there was a wealth of riches of stuff that was already in the game.
00:32:31
Speaker
It just wasn't applied anywhere because stuff wasn't finished.
00:32:34
Speaker
OK, so the IFPA.
00:32:36
Speaker
Let's talk more about this.
00:32:37
Speaker
I mean, you have been such a driving force of this since, well, basically since you decided to resurrect it.
Competitive Pinball and Pandemic Impact
00:32:47
Speaker
This has been an interesting few years, really, where we've seen this happen.
00:32:50
Speaker
this incremental increase in interest in competitive pinball, which probably brings a lot more of the casual players who want to level up or to be a little more competitive.
00:33:02
Speaker
I've noticed a lot more in Utah where people are interested.
00:33:06
Speaker
They start off as casual players, they buy one or two games, and then they get into the competitive scene and they get the bug.
00:33:12
Speaker
So
00:33:15
Speaker
Walk us through the last three years.
00:33:18
Speaker
You're on this ascent.
00:33:20
Speaker
Things are going really well.
00:33:22
Speaker
And then a global pandemic happened.
00:33:25
Speaker
So, okay.
00:33:27
Speaker
So walk us through the last couple of years.
00:33:30
Speaker
It's depressing.
00:33:31
Speaker
I mean...
00:33:36
Speaker
I don't, you know, we were on, it's one of these things where if you were a business, the growth that we've had in both, you know, players and events was just year over year, every year, you know, not skipping a beat.
00:33:49
Speaker
the game of pinball, I mean, I've always felt it's so special that it's really tough to not like it.
00:33:56
Speaker
So, and I think it's inherently, you know, I think as Gottlieb said in the seventies, it's more fun to compete.
00:34:03
Speaker
There is something special about playing games.
00:34:07
Speaker
It doesn't have to mean that you're playing for like, you know, any sort of serious championship.
00:34:12
Speaker
But the idea of even standing around a local monthly tournament or local league night where you're hanging with friends and you're playing a four player game of pinball, there's something really fun about that.
00:34:24
Speaker
And yeah.
00:34:26
Speaker
you know, the only way we get, we grow the player base is literally only new players.
00:34:31
Speaker
Like everyone who's found it already, they've already been counted in our player count.
00:34:35
Speaker
So we rely on that bug spreading to people and them catching it and coming along for the ride.
00:34:44
Speaker
And like the pandemic just railroaded the train off the tracks.
00:34:49
Speaker
I mean, it, it sucked.
00:34:50
Speaker
It sucked.
00:34:51
Speaker
And we're, I think if I look at the numbers now,
00:34:55
Speaker
We're at about two-thirds of where we were pre-pandemic in terms of average monthly player count, event count.
00:35:04
Speaker
And that makes sense.
00:35:04
Speaker
I mean, I don't even know if Australia is open or closed right now.
00:35:07
Speaker
I think it changes by the day down there.
00:35:09
Speaker
But there's certainly...
00:35:10
Speaker
They're on their 30th lockdown.
00:35:12
Speaker
So yeah, there's, I mean, there's areas of the world where clearly, well, I mean, I didn't go to expo.
00:35:18
Speaker
It's like seven minutes down the highway from my house and I didn't go.
00:35:22
Speaker
So there's clearly a batch of people still not getting back out there like myself.
00:35:29
Speaker
And it also impacts the events that I organize.
00:35:32
Speaker
You know, I'm not organizing Jack right now, guys, just hanging out in my bedroom every day for the last 18 months.
00:35:38
Speaker
Like,
00:35:40
Speaker
I'm not worried at things picking up where they left off.
00:35:44
Speaker
It's just the long pause has been a long pause, but I'm not I'm not worried long term.
00:35:54
Speaker
I feel like we're going to get back on the tracks and the train's just going to start chugga, chugga, chugga, chugga again.
00:36:00
Speaker
It would seem that with Stern and JJP and this increased demand for people buying machines...
00:36:12
Speaker
They've really, if you look at the pinball prices as any indication for supply and demand, it seems that there is going to be this pent up demand for a product to compete when everyone feels more comfortable to go all the way out and to actually compete.
00:36:29
Speaker
Go to these tournaments, go to expos.
00:36:31
Speaker
And so it seems if I'm looking at my crystal ball, it seems there is going to be an explosion when everybody finally is able to get out and re-interact with everybody and start competing to the same level because there is a hunger out there that has been untapped for a while.
00:36:50
Speaker
Yes, I feel that's how I feel personally.
00:36:54
Speaker
Like, I can't wait to get back out there.
00:36:57
Speaker
So I imagine there's a lot of people that feel the same way.
00:37:02
Speaker
Like, let's go, you know, messaging, messaging Zach about like, you know, like planning a trip for in disc in, is it whatever, three months, two and a half months.
00:37:13
Speaker
And it's like, it's we haven't looked into flights yet because it's just I can't I haven't gotten back in the mode of like, I'm going to book a flight.
00:37:19
Speaker
It's so weird.
00:37:21
Speaker
Like, I just, I'm not there yet, but I'm really excited to get to that point again.
00:37:26
Speaker
So the real question is, are you training your kids up to start dominating the tournament scene after watching Escher and Z-Mac go after each other at Expo?
00:37:36
Speaker
And the next youngest guy is Ray Day at like 29 and all of us old fellas are like... Right, the old grabber Ray?
00:37:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:45
Speaker
I haven't.
00:37:47
Speaker
I have not...
00:37:49
Speaker
pushed my kids at all ever to play.
00:37:52
Speaker
So that's all, uh, that's all on them.
00:37:55
Speaker
If they want to, if they want to join the league, they'll let me know if they don't know big deal.
00:38:00
Speaker
And we'll, I'm just kind of, I like to watch them and I'm just curious as an observer, just to see if they, uh,
00:38:07
Speaker
take to it on their own.
00:38:09
Speaker
My three year old likes to spend a ton of time in the basement by himself.
00:38:13
Speaker
All of my games now have credit dots and they're all broken because he just goes game to game to game, plunging, flipping, just chimp flipping away, breaking all my stuff.
00:38:24
Speaker
It's OK, but didn't he get to portal on Tron?
00:38:28
Speaker
Didn't you say that?
00:38:31
Speaker
It's coming for you, Escher.
00:38:33
Speaker
He refuses to go to the bathroom and the toilet, but he's coming.
00:38:38
Speaker
Also, his new plunging style too.
00:38:39
Speaker
Doesn't he lay on the glass and use his foot to use the plunging?
00:38:42
Speaker
Oh, that's right.
00:38:42
Speaker
I think I used to give a video to our Facebook group.
00:38:45
Speaker
Yeah, man.
00:38:46
Speaker
He is...
00:38:47
Speaker
He wants to see the ball on the top, so he engineered a way to do that.
00:38:50
Speaker
Yeah, he'd crawl up, lay on the glass, look at the top, and then use his big toe to launch the ball from the plunger.
00:38:56
Speaker
That's pretty awesome.
00:38:59
Speaker
My daughter, she will start up turtles, turns turtles, and make sure all the balls drain so that way she can listen to the outro music and dance around.
00:39:09
Speaker
She'll flip a ton, but as soon as it's done, she dances around the basement as she does Ninja Turtles.
00:39:14
Speaker
There you go.
00:39:15
Speaker
So Josh, you had said that you're not there yet.
00:39:19
Speaker
So I'm wondering what actually would it take for you to get back there, like going to these events, feeling comfortable going to these big tournaments?
00:39:29
Speaker
For me, like my older kids are, it's really more about making sure that my wife and I feel strongly about needing to sacrifice the way our kids are sacrificing right now.
00:39:42
Speaker
So like my older two kids want to do stuff and, you know, they're now closer now that they have their, their first shot in, but yeah,
00:39:52
Speaker
the you know, my wife and I just decided like if they can't do stuff like it's a way for us to bond with them that like, hey, like I'm not I didn't go to Expo.
00:40:02
Speaker
And it's like I usually bring my kids the last day of Expo and it's like they wanted to go.
00:40:06
Speaker
And it's like you guys can't go.
00:40:09
Speaker
But I'm also not going to guys.
00:40:10
Speaker
So it allowed me to sort of share in their misery, if you will, rather than like sucks.
00:40:16
Speaker
You guys can't go.
00:40:17
Speaker
I'll see you Sunday night.
00:40:19
Speaker
I'm out of here.
00:40:20
Speaker
But that's just the way that we've handled it.
00:40:22
Speaker
And I don't know.
00:40:23
Speaker
We feel good about that decision.
00:40:25
Speaker
And we're close.
00:40:27
Speaker
If they're their next shots right after Thanksgiving and then it really comes down to Amanda and I will have another discussion about like.
00:40:35
Speaker
You know, the three year old won't be vaccinated yet.
00:40:37
Speaker
But do we do we go out as a family of four now and leave the little guy at home and start to do things?
00:40:44
Speaker
And I think we are probably likely to do that.
00:40:47
Speaker
It'll be the Ben don't break strategy of, you know, I know she wants to.
00:40:52
Speaker
Where's my daughter?
00:40:53
Speaker
She wants to take my daughter to Disney, which is a surprise trip that's coming.
00:40:57
Speaker
Shh.
00:40:58
Speaker
I'm taking my son to a Bulls game, hopefully in January.
00:41:05
Speaker
So we're planning on doing things that just don't include the three-year-old.
00:41:10
Speaker
Right.
00:41:11
Speaker
Hopefully they don't listen to Lose Your Kid.
00:41:12
Speaker
We don't want them to spoil the surprise.
00:41:14
Speaker
Yeah, they're huge fans, I'm sure.
00:41:16
Speaker
I heard.
00:41:17
Speaker
Needed to hear anything.
00:41:18
Speaker
What are you talking about?
00:41:19
Speaker
Okay, so when you go to Disney, do you go to land or world?
00:41:22
Speaker
I mean, you're kind of halfway.
00:41:24
Speaker
We go to Orlando.
00:41:25
Speaker
You go to Orlando.
00:41:26
Speaker
Because normally, I mean, actually, we would have just been there this week.
00:41:28
Speaker
So because I have IAPA every year for work that I've missed this week, normally we spend...
00:41:37
Speaker
The we fly down the weekend before I app we do Disney.
00:41:42
Speaker
I go to work and my wife, my dad, my wife's dad.
00:41:46
Speaker
Yeah, that's right.
00:41:47
Speaker
My wife's dad and a bunch of her dad's family is all down, not in the Orlando area, but Tampa, which is whatever, not far.
00:41:54
Speaker
So we'll do Disney.
00:41:57
Speaker
And then when I work, they'll go see family.
00:41:59
Speaker
That's been like the yearly tradition for the last 10 years.
00:42:03
Speaker
Yeah, we well, last year, because we were kind of pent up and and going crazy, we actually went to Disney World over Christmas last year.
00:42:12
Speaker
Nice.
00:42:13
Speaker
Because we're like, well, we have masks and we've been like I had just barely started being vaccinated.
00:42:19
Speaker
So I was at the front of the line.
00:42:21
Speaker
But we were like, so anyway, we did.
00:42:25
Speaker
It was great.
00:42:25
Speaker
So I.
00:42:27
Speaker
Hopefully you'll be able to get back to do those family things because, you know, those memories as a family, I'm sure we'll remember forever.
00:42:34
Speaker
So my kids are so spoiled because I think my parents, we went to Disney once and it was like a really special thing.
00:42:41
Speaker
And I feel like that's more the norm as you go like once or twice.
00:42:45
Speaker
These kids go every year.
00:42:46
Speaker
They're just spoiled, spoiled, rotten guys.
00:42:49
Speaker
They don't know what they got.
00:42:50
Speaker
Yes.
00:42:51
Speaker
It's almost like as a kid growing up, if you had like two pinball machines in your bed.
00:42:56
Speaker
Right.
00:42:58
Speaker
I always tell my son that I'm like, you know how lucky you are.
00:43:00
Speaker
You have a full arcade in your basement.
00:43:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:03
Speaker
He's like, I don't have a twilight zone in my bedroom.
00:43:07
Speaker
So still not that special.
00:43:11
Speaker
It's in Zach's bedroom now, I think over there.
00:43:13
Speaker
Oh, there you go.
00:43:14
Speaker
My mom, my mom, it was in my bedroom.
00:43:16
Speaker
My mom took over my room.
00:43:17
Speaker
It's like her meditation room.
00:43:18
Speaker
Now there is no, nothing pinball related in that room.
00:43:21
Speaker
It is a pinball safe zone these days.
00:43:24
Speaker
That's too bad.
00:43:27
Speaker
She needs some square footage over there that doesn't have pinball in it, because it's everywhere over there.
00:43:33
Speaker
So what's on the horizon with Raw Thrills?
00:43:35
Speaker
What's going on there?
00:43:38
Speaker
Man, it's the same backlog issues that Stern has, just not as insane
Raw Thrills: Supply Chain and Market Expansion
00:43:44
Speaker
as theirs.
00:43:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:46
Speaker
We're, we're thousands of units behind just trying to, to keep up every day is, I mean, I got an email today from like, our apologies.
00:43:55
Speaker
We know that the normal lead time for this part is four to six weeks, but it's now three and a half to four months.
00:43:59
Speaker
And it's like, Oh my God, like what's next?
00:44:03
Speaker
Like it's triage mode every day.
00:44:07
Speaker
And, uh,
00:44:09
Speaker
If we could find a way to just keep the line going, it's a win.
00:44:13
Speaker
So it's the good.
00:44:15
Speaker
The good news is that the business is back because our business was dead, like flatlined dead, like dead carcass.
00:44:22
Speaker
Go kick the horse if you want.
00:44:24
Speaker
So.
00:44:25
Speaker
These are all wonderful problems to have compared to whatever, a year ago, a little over a year ago, where we didn't have any problems because we weren't doing anything.
00:44:34
Speaker
But it's tough.
00:44:36
Speaker
It's challenging.
00:44:38
Speaker
The pricing on everything is just crazy.
00:44:41
Speaker
We've had to do a couple of price increases just to try to stay at the level financially that we need to to keep the enterprise going.
00:44:49
Speaker
But I'd say...
00:44:53
Speaker
I hope by the end of next year, we're back to normal.
00:44:56
Speaker
But every three months, I seem to just keep pushing it back three months of how long it's going to take for us to to get caught up and and not be having these daily emergencies like we have been.
00:45:08
Speaker
But it's all good.
00:45:10
Speaker
No complaints.
00:45:11
Speaker
No complaints.
00:45:12
Speaker
It's it's it's it's tough, but we're business is good.
00:45:17
Speaker
Thank God.
00:45:18
Speaker
No more updating the resume, boys.
00:45:20
Speaker
No more updating the resume.
00:45:22
Speaker
I know that when we were with Keith Elwin and a company, when they were doing their seminar there on Godzilla, they'd said like four weeks out before they were supposed to release the thing, one of the circuit boards became like obsolete and they had to like redesign to...
00:45:37
Speaker
and it was like round the clock to redesign the circuit board so that way they could get it to work with what they needed for for godzilla i'm like that's insane and that's just what we're running into as a as a weekly occurrence it sounds like our poor electrical engineer got kevin at raw thrills it's just like you know i can see emails with our board houses of like any substitute parts available this lead time is 65 weeks and it's like okay great wow
00:46:02
Speaker
Now, you guys dipped your toe a little bit into the home entertainment market.
00:46:06
Speaker
I mean, considering Raw Thrills has basically taken over all of these entertainment areas that used to be dominated by arcades.
00:46:14
Speaker
And you go into any sort of fun area, either like a skating area, you know, a roller skating rink or a movie theater.
00:46:22
Speaker
And you go into the arcade and I would say 80% of it is Raw Thrills-esque games.
00:46:28
Speaker
and that they're they're bigger than life but you guys pivoted a little bit and you guys did release a game on the switch we did and so that and that seems a little and i actually played it i thought it was a lot of fun cool um but uh how i how and how do you balance that when you have your market so dominate dominated by everything else
00:46:52
Speaker
You give people, you know, when your market is dead and you don't want to fire, fire, that's the wrong word.
00:47:01
Speaker
You don't want to lay off everyone, furlough people.
00:47:03
Speaker
Redistribute, yeah.
00:47:04
Speaker
Eugene is the nicest person on planet Earth.
00:47:09
Speaker
He committed to keeping the business running for, it was like 18 months at least, we're going to keep this thing going.
00:47:17
Speaker
So nobody needs to worry.
00:47:19
Speaker
You know, we had some pay cuts and stuff and the...
00:47:22
Speaker
Bonus is all gone because that's all based on company profits that didn't exist.
00:47:25
Speaker
But like everyone had their job, which was, man, a lot to say at a time where a lot of people were for a lot of our competitors furloughed everyone and just paused development.
00:47:35
Speaker
And the cruise and switch deal for us just allowed our guys to be able to work on something that could make the company some money.
00:47:44
Speaker
But, you know, in a world where continuing to throw money at a market that doesn't exist currently didn't make a whole lot of sense.
00:47:52
Speaker
So it was a fun to do project and it got us to the point where we were able to see if our core market came back or not.
00:48:00
Speaker
And it has.
00:48:01
Speaker
So we're I would say we're not going to be a a switch developer.
00:48:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:07
Speaker
for years to come.
00:48:09
Speaker
It was fun and it was the perfect game to do it with, you know, it being that original Nintendo IP that Eugene had worked on back in the nineties.
00:48:18
Speaker
It was kind of just kismet for this to happen the way it did.
00:48:22
Speaker
And I think we're happy to sell as many copies as we can and get back to making, you know, the craziest experience games that we can.
00:48:32
Speaker
You know, and I picked up a copy of it myself.
00:48:34
Speaker
I was impressed because it was on the top 20 for a while.
00:48:37
Speaker
I mean, it was, it hit pretty high up on the switch charts there for a bit.
00:48:41
Speaker
And, uh, uh, it's a really good game.
00:48:43
Speaker
Um,
00:48:45
Speaker
my only feedback on it, or at least my wife multiplayer is no, actually it's not in my feet.
00:48:51
Speaker
Feedback.
00:48:51
Speaker
It's my wife's feedback is you've got to change the, the screen, the choose your stuff screen song.
00:49:00
Speaker
Cause it was driving her insane.
00:49:03
Speaker
The, uh, the testing area is right under my office at work.
00:49:08
Speaker
And a lot of that stuff is from the arcade game too.
00:49:10
Speaker
And it's just, yeah, that's it.
00:49:14
Speaker
When you have a game experience that's designed to last two to three minutes, you hear the two to three minutes a lot.
00:49:20
Speaker
Yes.
00:49:21
Speaker
What was even funny, her best friend's over and I complete the level, I go back to the main screen, I check, choose the next race or whatever.
00:49:28
Speaker
And finally she's like, can you please like either turn the sound off?
00:49:32
Speaker
Or pick a different game because I can't hear that song one more time.
00:49:35
Speaker
She even had to, what is this, like cruising or whatever?
00:49:38
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:49:40
Speaker
Okay, it makes me smile because I played it all in Hawaii after the kids went to sleep.
00:49:43
Speaker
So that's what I did.
00:49:44
Speaker
Oh, nice.
00:49:45
Speaker
So, okay, so my next question is, what are we going to do about getting big buck hunters into the same zone as pinball machines have become and people buying those and putting them in their house?
00:49:58
Speaker
It's interesting.
00:50:00
Speaker
Our sales guy, one of my dear friends, Brandon, has really worked hard to focus on new markets for us, which is the home market.
00:50:14
Speaker
Yeah, it's the home market, yeah.
00:50:16
Speaker
5% of our market is home sales years ago, and most of it was Buckhunter.
00:50:22
Speaker
But he has worked with, you guys know him well, Mr. Zach Manny.
00:50:28
Speaker
Mm hmm.
00:50:51
Speaker
Brandon's done a great job of bringing in those home retailers that sell to consumers and try to get this on their line card, so to speak.
00:51:02
Speaker
And, you know, I think Chris at Kingpin Games has been really good.
00:51:07
Speaker
Zach has been really good.
00:51:08
Speaker
And being able to sign up these people that speak to that same audience of like, hey, I know you got a bunch of pins, but what about a Buckhunter?
00:51:15
Speaker
And we've seen that with our Buckhunter sales for sure.
00:51:18
Speaker
Like, I know we built...
00:51:20
Speaker
you know, it was, this was the first year where sometime over the summer, there was the talk about, we need to get some stuff into production for the holiday season for these home retailers.
00:51:33
Speaker
And it was like, what, what are we to, what, you know, this was not, we don't, we don't sell to the home, like who cares?
00:51:41
Speaker
But Brandon's been really fighting the fight for us.
00:51:44
Speaker
And it's, it's, it's worked.
00:51:46
Speaker
We're selling, you know, I think,
00:51:48
Speaker
We built like 50 games a few weeks ago and I saw Bill Alading go to Kingpin Games.
00:51:54
Speaker
It was for like 20 out of the 50 games.
00:51:57
Speaker
And it's just like, what's going on?
00:51:58
Speaker
And Brad is just like, yeah, man, these guys are selling games into the home.
00:52:02
Speaker
It's crazy.
00:52:03
Speaker
How does that make it cost effective?
00:52:04
Speaker
Because I know that with at least pinball machines, the challenge is, hey, at least currently, you buy the machine, you have the machine.
00:52:13
Speaker
But with Big Buck Hunters, you're dealing with licensing issues because it's kind of like an online game almost where you're paying for a subscription model or there's a standalone model.
00:52:25
Speaker
And so I guess where's that balance of being able to get people into it?
00:52:28
Speaker
It's like, hey, you can buy the Big Buck Hunter, but you have to sign up for a subscription.
00:52:31
Speaker
So I think it depends on, I mean, really, it's a good question for our sales guy who will take you through the best way to do it.
00:52:38
Speaker
But like we, the online content and that monthly fee, we heavily subsidize the price of the game that you're getting in order to make that work.
00:52:50
Speaker
So it's really, it's easy to say like, man, you're paying month after month.
00:52:56
Speaker
Yeah, dude, but you're getting this $9,000 game for $5,000.
00:53:00
Speaker
Right.
00:53:00
Speaker
And that's what it seemed like to me is like when I looked at the price of it, I was like, that's actually a it looks actually pretty close to cost almost.
00:53:10
Speaker
So what Brandon will usually tell, you know, because we'll get emails from people that are looking, you know, they'll come directly to us asking and then he'll connect them with Zach or he'll connect them with with whoever.
00:53:20
Speaker
But.
00:53:22
Speaker
The way that he sells our online model is, hey, listen, you can buy this fully loaded car for nine grand or you can buy the base car for five grand and rent all the content, play as much as you want for whatever, 30 or 40 bucks a month.
00:53:44
Speaker
And, you know, think of it as like play everything for a year and
00:53:49
Speaker
That's like 500 bucks.
00:53:51
Speaker
So your $5,000 game is 5,500.
00:53:53
Speaker
You get all the content.
00:53:55
Speaker
You get anything we update during this 12-month period.
00:53:58
Speaker
And at the end of the 12-month, you may determine like, man, there's a lot of this stuff I don't play.
00:54:03
Speaker
And you can buy the individual a la carte parts and take your game offline at any time.
00:54:10
Speaker
So that's kind of the best way of like sampling the menu and then saying like, well, I don't need the Terminator game.
00:54:16
Speaker
We played the crap out of that.
00:54:18
Speaker
And it's like a...
00:54:19
Speaker
you know, a 40 minute level and I'm kind of done.
00:54:21
Speaker
But, you know, the traditional Buck Hunter experience is something I want to keep or this zombies game is something I want to keep because that seems to have some longevity to me.
00:54:31
Speaker
So really, it's we put it in the power of the consumer to ultimately tailor the game for exactly what they want.
00:54:38
Speaker
And if new content comes up, they can buy that content separately.
00:54:41
Speaker
How's that?
00:54:42
Speaker
You guys going to buy Buck Hunter now?
00:54:44
Speaker
I actually want one.
00:54:46
Speaker
No, I have been eyeing my downstairs game room and I have an Area 51, which is great.
00:54:55
Speaker
And I played it to the end a billion times.
00:54:58
Speaker
And I'm the guy who just keeps hitting continue, add more quarters because I'm not really interested in beating it on one quarter.
00:55:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:08
Speaker
But I'm like, actually having a big buck hunter would be, I really eyed that area to say, maybe I can swap that out and put that in because it's good because there's no barrier to entry.
00:55:19
Speaker
People show up for a big buck hunter.
00:55:21
Speaker
They know what to do.
00:55:22
Speaker
Pick up the gun, shoot things.
00:55:24
Speaker
With pinball, I have to lead them through an hour.
00:55:27
Speaker
And how many times do you go down to your game room after you've had an entire event and every single game is started and there's always a ball and a shooter is off.
00:55:38
Speaker
100% of the time.
00:55:38
Speaker
And music is going 100% because that music does not shut up.
00:55:43
Speaker
But there's no one down there.
00:55:44
Speaker
And so you have to go and you have to plunge every single ball and turn off every single game.
00:55:48
Speaker
And then you power up the one game you want to continue to play.
00:55:51
Speaker
That's right.
00:55:52
Speaker
So I've actually always looked at that.
00:55:53
Speaker
And so I think that the big Buck Hunter experience is a really good one.
00:55:59
Speaker
And and even cycling in and out is like, oh, I'll get this prescription for a while and I'll turn it off for a while.
00:56:05
Speaker
And I'll just just when I'm planning on playing it up, I mean, it seems like a good model.
00:56:10
Speaker
So, yeah, I think it's a good game.
00:56:12
Speaker
I mean, I would say.
00:56:14
Speaker
if we didn't heavily subsidize it, it probably wouldn't be as good of a deal.
00:56:17
Speaker
But like the fact that we are allowing people to get in cheaper and then feel that out that, I mean, we feel like we're giving good value to the customers with the model that we have.
00:56:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:29
Speaker
Seems like it too.
00:56:31
Speaker
I just want to know, you know, if Stern's redoing these themes that they've already done once or twice and when we're going to get another big buck hunter, I think Ellen would slay that, you know?
00:56:41
Speaker
Oh, you mean a pinball version?
00:56:42
Speaker
Yeah, let's do a pinball.
00:56:44
Speaker
It's so funny because the pinball rules nerd that I am, I remember when I found out that Gary was going to license Buckhunter for us.
00:56:54
Speaker
I spent the weekend writing up designing a game because why not?
00:56:59
Speaker
That's what I do for fun.
00:57:00
Speaker
So it's like, I went into Eugene's office, you know, after the weekend on Monday morning and I'm like, Hey man, you know, I was just playing around over the weekend and you know, here's like a five page document of some rules that I would do.
00:57:11
Speaker
And I don't even know what the play field looks like, but I would do stuff like this.
00:57:14
Speaker
And like none of that shit was used.
00:57:18
Speaker
It was a lot of fun to think about.
00:57:21
Speaker
And, uh, yeah, we're cheap date.
00:57:23
Speaker
Maybe they'll circle back around to us and, uh,
00:57:26
Speaker
We don't want to listen to that.
00:57:27
Speaker
And you thought, I'm never going to design a game rule, so why not give this a shot?
00:57:31
Speaker
That's right.
00:57:33
Speaker
My notebook of pinball design rules and play fields is tucked away under my bed still.
00:57:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:57:40
Speaker
It still makes me laugh when you finish that game and the cow pie, shooting the cow pie is the replay.
00:57:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:57:50
Speaker
It's a fun game, you know.
00:57:52
Speaker
It is from an era.
00:57:53
Speaker
Let's say that.
00:57:54
Speaker
It definitely is.
00:57:55
Speaker
It's a time capsule.
00:57:56
Speaker
It's a time capsule.
00:57:58
Speaker
Well, it makes me chuckle.
00:57:59
Speaker
You know, you look on Pinside now, they go for like five grand is the average.
00:58:05
Speaker
It wasn't even a couple of years ago.
00:58:06
Speaker
I felt like you couldn't give them away for two, you know?
00:58:08
Speaker
Hey, if you got a Pulse right now, and I've got my Tron I'm willing to sell for $15,000 for anyone who wants that.
00:58:16
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:58:16
Speaker
Pro or L.E.?
00:58:19
Speaker
It's a pro.
00:58:20
Speaker
However, it's heavily like I sent it out.
00:58:23
Speaker
I bought it for a certain amount and then I sent it away and had it customized and I put more into the customization than I did into the base model of the game.
00:58:34
Speaker
Oh, my goodness.
00:58:35
Speaker
And it's actually I will I will say the way the way that they customized it, it is better looking than any any Ellie.
00:58:44
Speaker
And you're asking that a 15 is a bargain.
00:58:47
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:58:48
Speaker
You should buy two of them.
00:58:49
Speaker
Come on.
00:58:51
Speaker
It's a beautiful game and I have enjoyed it.
00:58:54
Speaker
But, you know, it's one of those where limited space, right?
00:58:57
Speaker
I sold mine.
00:58:58
Speaker
At some point, it's worth more to the world than it is to me when things get crazy.
00:59:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:59:04
Speaker
So, so, Hey, I, it, for me, I just threw it up on pin side.
00:59:08
Speaker
I'm like, Hey, if someone really, if someone wants it, it is a premium game.
00:59:12
Speaker
I'm, I don't feel like I'm setting it too high considering all the things I did to it, but, uh, you know, for sale ads where it's like, you know what, please don't buy it.
00:59:20
Speaker
Cause I kind of don't want to get rid of it.
00:59:22
Speaker
But if you want to email me, PM me, man.
00:59:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:59:26
Speaker
And that's pretty much it.
00:59:27
Speaker
So anyway, good times.
00:59:29
Speaker
Well, I talked to an operator back from the nineties and it's funny cause he was talking about like everyone knew Adam's family was going to sell well, but like everyone laughed at like twilight zone cause it didn't, the, I guess the vibes back then I was like, this isn't going to sell.
00:59:42
Speaker
And then he's like, I wish I would have known back then what was going to happen.
00:59:45
Speaker
Cause it went insane, you know?
00:59:47
Speaker
Would have bought five of them.
00:59:48
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:59:49
Speaker
So yeah.
00:59:52
Speaker
It was a Bitcoin era 20 years ago.
00:59:53
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:59:55
Speaker
No.
00:59:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:59:57
Speaker
All right, man.
00:59:58
Speaker
Well, thank you so much for coming and spending time.
01:00:00
Speaker
We are super excited for Cactus Canyon.
01:00:03
Speaker
Oh, no.
01:00:04
Speaker
Hold on.
01:00:05
Speaker
Before we wrap this up, I have one more question.
01:00:08
Speaker
And I'm going to call this segment still.
01:00:10
Speaker
I don't know if I'm ticking these guys off.
01:00:12
Speaker
But if you had to choose between Martin Robbins and Jeff Tealus on a boat, who are you throwing overboard?
01:00:18
Speaker
Or who are you saving?
01:00:20
Speaker
So, like, I feel like I would throw Jeff over.
01:00:27
Speaker
And then I would ask Martin to hand me like the life preserver.
01:00:31
Speaker
And then I would like almost throw it to Jeff and like almost throw it to him and then almost throw it to him.
01:00:39
Speaker
And then he drowns.
01:00:40
Speaker
But he thinks that I was trying to save him.
01:00:42
Speaker
You'd like throw it and pull it back.
01:00:43
Speaker
The whole time.
01:00:44
Speaker
Yeah.
01:00:45
Speaker
Oh, man, just reach.
01:00:46
Speaker
Almost there, man.
01:00:48
Speaker
Oh, you're dead.
01:00:49
Speaker
And you're secretly throwing chum in the water.
01:00:51
Speaker
That's right.
01:00:52
Speaker
That's right.
01:00:53
Speaker
Just in case you get to heaven, St.
01:00:54
Speaker
Peter's there.
01:00:55
Speaker
And he's like, and Jeff's like, he's the gatekeeper, right?
01:00:58
Speaker
You just want to keep, keep a good relation.
01:01:01
Speaker
He's a good relationship.
01:01:02
Speaker
I tried.
01:01:03
Speaker
I tried.
01:01:03
Speaker
Yeah.
01:01:04
Speaker
Man, look at the replay.
01:01:06
Speaker
It's totally there.
01:01:11
Speaker
Well, Josh, we are super excited.
01:01:14
Speaker
Obviously, we don't know when the new code is going to come out, but we're looking forward to it.
01:01:18
Speaker
And when it's all done, when it's all done, let us know.
01:01:22
Speaker
And we'd be certainly interested to know more about the finished product.
01:01:26
Speaker
I'm
01:01:28
Speaker
Cool, man.
01:01:29
Speaker
Apologies, Lyman couldn't join us.
01:01:30
Speaker
But as he says, he actually has to do all the work.
01:01:34
Speaker
I just get to play and send him messages of thoughts.
01:01:37
Speaker
I don't actually have to work.
01:01:38
Speaker
It's like the easiest job ever.
01:01:40
Speaker
You're the show monkey.
01:01:41
Speaker
Yeah.
01:01:41
Speaker
Well, even like you told us when you were announced, you're like, I don't know why they announced me.
01:01:44
Speaker
I only get coffee for Lyman.
01:01:46
Speaker
I don't know why.
01:01:47
Speaker
I think it's you are the eye candy.
01:01:49
Speaker
I think that's what it is.
01:01:49
Speaker
That's right.
01:01:52
Speaker
It's like office space.
01:01:54
Speaker
I work with the customers so the engineers don't have to because I have people skills.
01:01:58
Speaker
Yes.
01:01:59
Speaker
That's such a great show.
01:02:01
Speaker
I'm that guy from office space while Lyman's slaving away.
01:02:04
Speaker
Yeah.
01:02:05
Speaker
No.
01:02:05
Speaker
Okay.
01:02:06
Speaker
But now I envision Lyman as the guy who they kept moving around.
01:02:10
Speaker
He actually works out of his basement.
01:02:14
Speaker
So yeah, it's pretty cool.
01:02:15
Speaker
I'm going to go, I'm going to get him a red stapler for Christmas.
01:02:17
Speaker
That's what I knew.
01:02:18
Speaker
I got to do that.
01:02:19
Speaker
Oh, wait, wait.
01:02:20
Speaker
Oh, you're going to pull one out.
01:02:23
Speaker
Oh my goodness.
01:02:24
Speaker
Oh my goodness.
01:02:25
Speaker
Swing line, red stapler.
01:02:28
Speaker
And they actually re, uh, they reissued it after that film because they had so many requests.
01:02:33
Speaker
Yeah.
01:02:35
Speaker
Awesome stuff, boys.
01:02:37
Speaker
Well, thanks.
01:02:38
Speaker
I appreciate it.
01:02:38
Speaker
Looking forward to, uh, the IFPA getting back online, looking forward to you, uh, rejoining us and hopefully, uh, seeing us in the future.
01:02:48
Speaker
Yeah, man.
01:02:49
Speaker
Totally.
01:02:49
Speaker
Next expo for sure.
01:02:52
Speaker
Yeah, I'd definitely go to Expo again.
01:02:54
Speaker
I don't know why there's people out there saying they wouldn't, but I enjoyed it.
01:02:57
Speaker
It was pretty cool.
01:02:58
Speaker
I thought it was great.
01:02:59
Speaker
We had a good time.
01:03:01
Speaker
It's all that matters.
01:03:02
Speaker
It's all about the pizza.
01:03:03
Speaker
Like, honestly, half of that's like, I'm coming back up for the food.
01:03:05
Speaker
I don't know how.
01:03:06
Speaker
Don't let Chris.
01:03:07
Speaker
I'll get you down.
01:03:07
Speaker
Don't let him get you down.
01:03:08
Speaker
It surprised me how skinny some of you Midwesterners were considering how good the food was.
01:03:12
Speaker
Like I'd always be eating this Italian beef and pizza.
01:03:15
Speaker
Your body gets used to it, so it digests it in such a way.
01:03:18
Speaker
Ah, gotcha.
01:03:18
Speaker
Well, in Teolis, man, trying to eat, we get a small pizza, one of those deep dishes, and he's like, I'm going to finish this whole thing myself.
01:03:25
Speaker
And we're all like, he's going to die.
01:03:27
Speaker
Good luck with that.
01:03:28
Speaker
It's a good, it's a good thing.
01:03:29
Speaker
I'm a doctor.
01:03:30
Speaker
I can do CPR.
01:03:32
Speaker
Yeah.
01:03:32
Speaker
Well, even like Raymond Davidson, like, are you going to come to dinner with us?
01:03:34
Speaker
And he's like, where are you guys going?
01:03:36
Speaker
And I was like, well, Teola said this place like Gia.
01:03:38
Speaker
He's like, oh, not there.
01:03:39
Speaker
He still has leftovers in my fridge from the other night.
01:03:41
Speaker
But well, Raymond was too busy competing anyway.
01:03:47
Speaker
So that's right.
01:03:48
Speaker
That's right.
01:03:49
Speaker
Too busy being grandpa to all these kids.
01:03:51
Speaker
I know.
01:03:52
Speaker
When did we get a daycare and why are we letting these kids play the pinball?
01:03:55
Speaker
Yeah.
01:03:57
Speaker
You know, we laugh, but they'd all kick our butts at pinball now.
01:04:00
Speaker
Yeah.
01:04:00
Speaker
Okay.
01:04:01
Speaker
If he, if he's the grandpa, then I am like a Methuselah compared to generations removed.
01:04:07
Speaker
I'm pushing 50 closer.
01:04:09
Speaker
I'm pushing what they're getting.
01:04:10
Speaker
So.
01:04:11
Speaker
Well, cool.
01:04:11
Speaker
If you want to get ahold of us, uh, we are loser kid pinball podcast at gmail.com.
01:04:15
Speaker
You can also get ahold of us on loser kid pinball at Facebook.
01:04:19
Speaker
or vice versa on that.
01:04:20
Speaker
Also on Instagram and Twitter.
01:04:23
Speaker
If you want to get a hold of us, we are on SoundCloud, all that jazz.
01:04:26
Speaker
I am officially out of merch, but I think Scott has a couple more things.
01:04:29
Speaker
I have a few more shirts, but yeah, we are back ordered too.
01:04:35
Speaker
Look at that.
01:04:36
Speaker
Supply chain issues.
01:04:37
Speaker
Hey, and if you want to buy my Tron, let me know.
01:04:41
Speaker
What's funny is I got a call from the lady and she's like, I know you like your hats in black, red and white, but how about green?
01:04:47
Speaker
I was like, like green, black and white.
01:04:50
Speaker
And she's like, just green.
01:04:51
Speaker
I'm like, 40th anniversary hats.
01:04:54
Speaker
Exactly.
01:04:56
Speaker
No, one 99.
01:04:57
Speaker
One 99.
01:04:58
Speaker
Sorry.
01:04:58
Speaker
Anywho, that's it for us.
01:05:03
Speaker
You got anything else for us, Scott or Josh?
01:05:06
Speaker
No, I'm going to go deal with these kids who are bugging the crap out of me.
01:05:11
Speaker
Welcome.
01:05:13
Speaker
Sorry for all the editing that that's going to cause.
01:05:15
Speaker
Oh, no, it's awesome.
01:05:16
Speaker
My kids are actually heading out of town on Friday.
01:05:19
Speaker
Tomorrow they're leaving, but I'm not meeting them until Wednesday when I fly down after work.
01:05:25
Speaker
Enjoy your peace and tranquility.
01:05:28
Speaker
Yeah, I'm actually going to open Maiden and Beatles.
01:05:30
Speaker
That's what I'm doing on Saturday.
01:05:32
Speaker
Awesome.
01:05:33
Speaker
Enjoy, boys.
01:05:35
Speaker
Thanks, Josh.
01:05:36
Speaker
Take care.
01:05:38
Speaker
Shut up and sit down.