Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Ep 125: Fixing the rumors with David Fix
78 Plays2 years ago
David Fix of American Pinball is here to set the record straight! We talk rumors, the future of American and the future of the pinball industry.
Recommended
Transcript
Episode Introduction & Host Recommendations
00:00:07
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in to Loser Kid Pinball Podcast.
00:00:09
Speaker
I bet you didn't think we'd be back so soon, but it's a crazy, it's been a crazy weekend.
00:00:14
Speaker
We're on episode 125.
00:00:16
Speaker
I am Josh Roop with me, my co-host as always.
00:00:19
Speaker
Scott Larson.
00:00:20
Speaker
And Scott, we're going to be talking, we're going to be talking some American shenanigans today, but if you're going to get your American game, where are you going to get it from?
00:00:26
Speaker
I will call Zach and Nicole Manning at Flippin' Out Pinball.
00:00:28
Speaker
They will always take care of you.
00:00:30
Speaker
They, I told you, they, they just helped out my friend who just bought us first pinball machine.
00:00:35
Speaker
So if you are looking for that galactic tank force or you're looking to get anything else, just contact them.
00:00:41
Speaker
They'll be able to help you out.
00:00:43
Speaker
Definitely.
Clarifications & Guest Introduction
00:00:44
Speaker
And their customer service is amazing.
00:00:46
Speaker
Like, I know Zach has taken parts off of his own personal game.
00:00:50
Speaker
Well, Greg Bone took his, the scoop sensor from Rush.
00:00:56
Speaker
I still need to find it because it's in a box.
00:00:58
Speaker
But no, no, I put it on my game, but the dysfunctional one I was supposed to send back to him and he, yeah.
00:01:06
Speaker
Way to go.
00:01:08
Speaker
Yeah, it's, hey, we went through a renovation.
00:01:10
Speaker
You know how it is.
00:01:11
Speaker
But yes, they're great.
00:01:12
Speaker
Flipping out pinball.
00:01:13
Speaker
Okay, before we get to our guests, I want to just make a quick just 30-second disclaimer from our last episode, 124.
00:01:18
Speaker
We were talking about rumors and how they get leaked into the hobby and our weird fascination with, like, we can't be happy with the present and now.
00:01:28
Speaker
My disclaimer is, though, is I just want to –
00:01:31
Speaker
Point one thing out.
00:01:32
Speaker
We did use a NAP article as our example in our discussion of that.
00:01:36
Speaker
And it was never meant for malice or attack or to slight Jason.
00:01:42
Speaker
Jason's a great guy.
00:01:43
Speaker
We appreciate what he does with NAP Arcade and love his journalistic approach.
00:01:48
Speaker
So I just wanted to put that out there because there was some misconceptions there.
00:01:52
Speaker
But I just wanted to clear that all up.
00:01:53
Speaker
We love Jason.
00:01:55
Speaker
Love what he's doing.
00:01:55
Speaker
We appreciate everything that he covers.
00:01:57
Speaker
And it was a wonderful article.
00:01:58
Speaker
If you haven't checked it out, it was the first details on.
00:02:01
Speaker
uh ellen's next game or something like that back from february and it was very in-depth so anywho before well now now move on and now for something completely different scott give us our give our introduction for our guest okay so we have someone who's been involved in the industry for such a long time and including
00:02:19
Speaker
Being one of the people who's putting on Expo and Expo 40 is coming up.
00:02:24
Speaker
He also is involved with American Pinball.
00:02:29
Speaker
And so we have the David Fix.
00:02:32
Speaker
If you've been at Expo, you certainly see him because he has a very distinctive mustache and he has his very distinctive hat on.
00:02:39
Speaker
He doesn't have it on today, though.
00:02:41
Speaker
I'm not really sure why he didn't wear it for the episode.
00:02:43
Speaker
But anyway, David, how you doing?
00:02:46
Speaker
I'm doing really good.
00:02:47
Speaker
And the best thing is because it's a podcast, I don't have to put a hat on so you don't have to worry about seeing it.
00:02:52
Speaker
True.
00:02:53
Speaker
I guess it's true.
00:02:54
Speaker
We do show it on YouTube, though.
00:02:57
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:02:57
Speaker
Well, there you go.
00:02:58
Speaker
Now I know why everybody's watching it.
00:02:59
Speaker
You can put your shirt back on.
00:03:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:03
Speaker
But we're showing from the waist up.
00:03:04
Speaker
You don't have to worry about that.
00:03:05
Speaker
That's true.
00:03:05
Speaker
That's true.
00:03:07
Speaker
Well, not only that, now I answer all the questions that the man does have hair.
00:03:10
Speaker
I know Jack Connery is always asking.
00:03:12
Speaker
I've never seen David without a hat.
00:03:14
Speaker
Oh, there you go.
00:03:15
Speaker
Yes.
00:03:16
Speaker
I don't.
00:03:16
Speaker
So that's why I always wear my hat.
00:03:18
Speaker
Not much up there anymore.
00:03:20
Speaker
I've been pulling it out, but, you know, that's okay.
American Pinball Title Rumors
00:03:26
Speaker
So David, we wanted to have you on because we've been hearing some rumors and it sounds like you got to set the record straight.
00:03:32
Speaker
So let's talk about some of these.
00:03:33
Speaker
I guess the first one we've been hearing a lot of is you're kind of still geared towards unlicensed theme over at least the next three titles.
00:03:41
Speaker
Is that true?
00:03:43
Speaker
No, that's not true.
00:03:45
Speaker
So we are doing some unlicensed titles.
00:03:47
Speaker
Okay.
00:03:48
Speaker
And, you know, like we talked about rumors yesterday, things get misconstrued, people hear things, you know, and unfortunately some people maybe haven't know all the things because we keep a very tight knit thing at American.
00:04:03
Speaker
So yes, the next game we have coming out is a original title.
00:04:09
Speaker
It is not like game after that.
00:04:13
Speaker
let's just say it's a follow-up game.
00:04:17
Speaker
Okay.
00:04:18
Speaker
And then after that is a license.
00:04:21
Speaker
And the game after that is a license.
00:04:22
Speaker
Okay.
00:04:24
Speaker
Okay.
00:04:25
Speaker
So you're basically mixing this up.
00:04:28
Speaker
It's trying to find that balance because people are always asking for original titles.
00:04:35
Speaker
Now, the irony is a lot of times people ask for them and then they may or may not be interested in that theme, which I find interesting because they're the ones who are asking for the original stuff.
00:04:47
Speaker
But you're trying to appease both crowds, it seems like.
00:04:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:51
Speaker
Well, listen, I mean, for the longest time, Williams had a beautiful, Williams Valley had a beautiful mix in the industry where they had licensed and unlicensed titles, right?
00:05:00
Speaker
And, you know, some people love some of the unlicensed titles.
00:05:04
Speaker
Listen, some of the unlicensed titles from Williams became licensed, right?
00:05:09
Speaker
Look at Mortal Kombat, for crying out loud.
00:05:12
Speaker
But, you know, that's very easy for...
00:05:16
Speaker
and let the team be creative.
00:05:18
Speaker
That's the other thing.
00:05:19
Speaker
You know, I mean, sometimes when you're dealing with a licensor, you are in this, you know, this, this little world, this little globe, and God forbid for you to step out of that globe.
00:05:29
Speaker
Okay.
00:05:29
Speaker
So you get, you get shot down pretty easy.
00:05:32
Speaker
Um, but for the most part, we love doing unlicensed, but we do like, we've done Hot Wheels and, uh, we have done Hot Wheels in the past and we were probably doing, you know, we got other licenses coming.
00:05:44
Speaker
So we're excited about it.
00:05:46
Speaker
Nice.
00:05:47
Speaker
And I think that's kind of refreshing to hear as well is because we've always been, I don't know, we've always talked about licenses king and whatnot.
00:05:54
Speaker
And so, uh,
00:05:56
Speaker
I don't know, like you said, aiming for that mixture, like Bally Williams of doing unlicensed and licenses, I think it's a great strategy.
00:06:03
Speaker
So.
00:06:03
Speaker
It seems like you're, you're leaning a little bit heavier toward licensing in the future though, because if you look at your history, you start with Houdini and then you move to Oktoberfest.
00:06:14
Speaker
Then you have Hot Wheels, which was your first license theme.
00:06:18
Speaker
And then you have Legends of Valhalla, which was Scott's homebrew that turned into a very functional game.
00:06:24
Speaker
I actually liked of all the games I played at that expo.
00:06:31
Speaker
Legends was pretty high on my list because it was a very simple approach, but it was still visually very cool.
00:06:38
Speaker
And then your latest one, Galactic Tank Force.
00:06:42
Speaker
So how's Galactic Tank Force doing?
00:06:45
Speaker
You talked about, now there's the special one that has like the light up tracks and everything like that.
00:06:52
Speaker
When you fold it down, it looks like a tank.
00:06:54
Speaker
So how's it doing?
00:06:57
Speaker
And what's your vision for it in the future?
Galactic Tank Force & Production Plans
00:07:01
Speaker
Well, Galactic Tank Force has been, you know, to some, you know, some keyboard commandos will say it's terrible, but the people who are buying it love it.
00:07:11
Speaker
So, and most of the people who play it become a fan of it very fast.
00:07:17
Speaker
Right now, we are currently in the production of the signature version of Galactic Tank Force.
00:07:24
Speaker
We're producing all 200 of them, and we will have them done before Christmas.
00:07:29
Speaker
So anybody who ordered a Galactic Tank Force signature, which is the special one with the 3D back glass, it's the better trim, the whole painted toys, all the extra goodies.
00:07:43
Speaker
This is your top of the line.
00:07:45
Speaker
This is your high-end model.
00:07:47
Speaker
All bells and whistles.
00:07:48
Speaker
All bells and whistles.
00:07:49
Speaker
Nothing holding us back.
00:07:51
Speaker
That will be ready as soon as you order it from your distributors.
00:07:56
Speaker
You want one?
00:07:57
Speaker
Call Zach and Nicole at Flippin' Out.
00:08:01
Speaker
They'll get you in touch with, they'll get it taken care of for you right away.
00:08:05
Speaker
Nice.
00:08:06
Speaker
So one question I have, because it sounds like you guys are pretty far out on what you have an idea of making.
00:08:14
Speaker
I know in the past, you know, between Houdini and Oktoberfest and Hot Wheels, it was about roughly a year on the release time.
00:08:22
Speaker
But we're seeing a little bit more of a delay between tiles now.
00:08:24
Speaker
Are you guys going to try to tighten that up?
00:08:26
Speaker
Because it seems like four titles.
00:08:28
Speaker
That's pretty far out.
00:08:30
Speaker
So are you going to be going back to more of the year or more of the 18 months where you've been sticking at?
00:08:35
Speaker
Well, we've been trying to get to the two games a year model.
00:08:39
Speaker
And we are getting, we've been, the next two games were being built and designed in parallel.
00:08:48
Speaker
Okay.
00:08:49
Speaker
So in fact, one jumped in front of the other one for a while and jumped back and, you know, it's kind of that thing.
00:08:54
Speaker
So we will definitely have both next year in 2024.
00:08:58
Speaker
Nice.
00:09:01
Speaker
The cool thing about this is that we continue to develop the team, right?
00:09:07
Speaker
When we first started, and this is kind of funny if you think about it, December 7th, literally three days from now, I will have been at American Pinball for three years.
00:09:19
Speaker
I can't believe it's three years already.
00:09:20
Speaker
But when I walked through the door, we had, you know, we just let go of the designer.
00:09:25
Speaker
We didn't have anybody.
00:09:26
Speaker
The front office was kind of empty.
00:09:29
Speaker
We brought in Scott's game, Legends of Valhalla, and we turned around and had it out 10 months.
00:09:36
Speaker
So we were able to move that along, and then we brought out Galactic Tank Force, which had some delays, but again, remember, it has over 5,000 video clips in a pinball machine, and it is...
00:09:53
Speaker
the most packed visual game that we've ever done, especially on the screen, picture in picture animations, just, you know, we just threw everything in it.
00:10:05
Speaker
We have two full-time animators on this game.
00:10:08
Speaker
Granted, it's not like my competitors who probably have like, you know, 20 animators working on all their games, but we've been really pushing this.
00:10:16
Speaker
Right.
00:10:17
Speaker
So then with the team, we brought in Ryan, um,
00:10:21
Speaker
Over a year ago, and he's just now, his white wood is flipping on his game.
00:10:28
Speaker
And, you know, Dennis has been working on his.
00:10:31
Speaker
And then we have the next game, which Dennis was working on to help because the next game is Barry Osler's last game.
00:10:39
Speaker
Okay.
00:10:40
Speaker
And Barry was a great guy.
00:10:43
Speaker
We were so excited to have him join us.
00:10:46
Speaker
Lose him so quickly after his first game was final to him.
00:10:50
Speaker
And then we had to build up the Whitewood.
00:10:52
Speaker
But there were some small adjustments and some changes.
00:10:54
Speaker
And Dennis
Team Dynamics at American Pinball
00:10:55
Speaker
jumped in and Ryan jumped in and we kind of helped put Barry's game together.
00:11:00
Speaker
So...
00:11:02
Speaker
Everything on this game is a family.
00:11:07
Speaker
We're all there trying very hard because we're not a big group.
00:11:11
Speaker
American is a very small office.
00:11:13
Speaker
We have two animators, one art director.
00:11:17
Speaker
Jack Hager, which we had on the show.
00:11:19
Speaker
Which you guys had on the show, right?
00:11:21
Speaker
And then we hire in people like Chris Franchi and other artists.
00:11:25
Speaker
And then we have Casey and Joe, Casey Butler and Joe Schober, who are our programmers with my good friend, Steve Bowden, the rule master.
00:11:40
Speaker
And then we just have Dennis Schober.
00:11:43
Speaker
And Ryan is designers and Zofia is my mechanical engineer.
00:11:48
Speaker
Okay.
00:11:49
Speaker
Guys.
00:11:50
Speaker
Now, I mean, if you think about it, I've never seen a pinball company smaller.
00:11:55
Speaker
Well, it's probably true.
00:11:56
Speaker
And let's get something else out of the way.
00:12:00
Speaker
This makes it able for you to absorb a possible delay in manufacturing because you don't have 100, 200, 300 people on the payroll.
00:12:12
Speaker
And so if you need to take time to make something right or get products in or shipment, then you can weather a delay is what I'm saying.
00:12:22
Speaker
So if you don't put out a machine in six months, you can still – like it's still sustainable because you're not paying so many people just to keep spinning their wheels.
00:12:35
Speaker
Right.
00:12:38
Speaker
True, but you've got to remember the factory is a monster, right?
00:12:42
Speaker
That's true.
00:12:42
Speaker
The factory is a monster.
00:12:43
Speaker
It always needs to be fed.
00:12:46
Speaker
Right, and if the factory is a monster for me, just imagine what it's like for people like my competitors, right?
00:12:53
Speaker
They're pumping out tons of machines, and there's reasons for that, right?
00:12:57
Speaker
So you're right.
00:13:01
Speaker
Go ahead.
00:13:01
Speaker
There was another rumor that kind of spewed out because you did have...
00:13:06
Speaker
the 300 poster up, up in your, uh, in your assembly line.
00:13:12
Speaker
And I think there were some people who misinterpreted the meaning of that.
00:13:16
Speaker
So you want to go into that?
00:13:18
Speaker
So, so it's official.
00:13:19
Speaker
It's official.
00:13:20
Speaker
We got 300, the Spartan story coming from American pinball, right?
00:13:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:26
Speaker
No, that's not.
00:13:28
Speaker
That was Legends of Valhalla.
00:13:30
Speaker
That was Legends of Valhalla.
00:13:31
Speaker
Very good, Scott.
00:13:32
Speaker
Very good.
00:13:34
Speaker
No, no.
00:13:35
Speaker
Spartans 300 is not the next title.
00:13:38
Speaker
And here's the gist of it.
00:13:41
Speaker
The 300 was a milestone for the company.
00:13:45
Speaker
And we're right on target for it.
00:13:47
Speaker
So I'm happy for the team.
00:13:49
Speaker
300 gets us to the most amount of machines that American Pinball has ever made to date in one year.
00:13:58
Speaker
So that was the goal.
00:14:00
Speaker
We put out the gauntlet for the production team.
00:14:04
Speaker
We said to him, listen, we hit 300 by December of this time,
00:14:10
Speaker
In December, we have now just hit the highest number that this little factory has ever made, and then some.
00:14:17
Speaker
So we continue to strive.
00:14:20
Speaker
Now, granted, I'm not going to go into production numbers, and everybody's going to be like, oh, they only made 300 games.
00:14:24
Speaker
No, we've made...
00:14:26
Speaker
We made a lot of games this year, and that 300 is actually a very nice number.
00:14:31
Speaker
Think about it.
00:14:32
Speaker
We, in one year, we ended up, we started, we had on the line back in January, Legends of Valhalla and Oktoberfest.
00:14:41
Speaker
Then we went over and did the Hot Wheels and then Galactic.
00:14:45
Speaker
So we hit all four of those.
00:14:46
Speaker
And now we're finishing with Houdini and Galactic.
00:14:50
Speaker
So in one year, we've had all the machines on the line.
00:14:54
Speaker
So it's been very good for us.
00:14:57
Speaker
And so you have two lines is what you're saying then?
00:15:00
Speaker
That's correct.
00:15:00
Speaker
Two independent lines.
00:15:02
Speaker
Yep.
00:15:03
Speaker
Okay.
00:15:04
Speaker
And a quick calculation means that you're putting out a game roughly one a day.
00:15:13
Speaker
If your goal is 300.
00:15:14
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:15:17
Speaker
I see what you're saying.
00:15:18
Speaker
No, no, no, no.
00:15:20
Speaker
Okay.
00:15:20
Speaker
My goal is more like, you know, if we get into 15 to 20 a day, that's a good number for us.
00:15:30
Speaker
Okay.
00:15:32
Speaker
So we do have striving marks that we're trying to hit.
00:15:35
Speaker
Okay.
00:15:37
Speaker
It was an inspirational thing to motivate employees and companies.
00:15:43
Speaker
That sounds about right.
00:15:44
Speaker
And also it was during Halloween.
00:15:46
Speaker
So we thought we'd keep it a little, you know, no do or die.
00:15:50
Speaker
There's only, and there is no try.
00:15:52
Speaker
That kind of thing.
00:15:52
Speaker
We're just like, do it.
00:15:53
Speaker
You know, that kind of thing.
00:15:55
Speaker
But we're staying with the holiday spirit too.
00:15:58
Speaker
But everybody's been, you know, kicking butt and taking names and their factories are turning out the machines, which we're very happy about.
00:16:05
Speaker
Okay, here's the one question.
00:16:06
Speaker
I'm going to ask it before Josh does.
00:16:09
Speaker
Did you dress up like Leonidas for Halloween?
00:16:12
Speaker
No.
00:16:13
Speaker
Oh, that was an opportunity missed.
00:16:17
Speaker
Definitely.
00:16:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:21
Speaker
No, but I did have
Quality Control & Future Designs
00:16:22
Speaker
two employees dress up as me.
00:16:24
Speaker
So there you go.
00:16:26
Speaker
I did see the pictures.
00:16:27
Speaker
It was pretty funny.
00:16:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:30
Speaker
So there you go.
00:16:32
Speaker
And then you all said, would the real Dave Fix stand for it?
00:16:34
Speaker
I said, I'll sign a check.
00:16:35
Speaker
And they said, well, we'll take that one.
00:16:40
Speaker
Oh, that's great.
00:16:42
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:16:43
Speaker
But we've been doing very well for our company this year, and I'm very proud of the team.
00:16:49
Speaker
And like I said, we're a small little family, but we're doing what we can do.
00:16:54
Speaker
We're the little guy, and we're doing some good numbers, and Galactic Tank Force is doing very well.
00:17:01
Speaker
There's been some small little hitches.
00:17:05
Speaker
With the very beginning, but we've worked through those.
00:17:08
Speaker
And then there was a new one that we just kind of found out just out of the blue, which we're working on right now.
00:17:14
Speaker
And I'm just going to throw this out there.
00:17:16
Speaker
If any of you guys have been having problems with your galactic tank force and it kind of is like missing the ball, take a look at the shooter lane switch.
00:17:25
Speaker
It's kind of stupid.
00:17:28
Speaker
We have people coming and going and there's been some times we miss a step.
00:17:34
Speaker
One of the things that we found out late just recently was the team wasn't putting Threadlock on the shooter lane switch.
00:17:43
Speaker
Oh, that's actually happened to other companies.
00:17:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:47
Speaker
It's the blue.
00:17:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:50
Speaker
The blue Loctite.
00:17:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:52
Speaker
What happens is I found it at IEPA.
00:17:57
Speaker
You know, we hit this game.
00:17:58
Speaker
It was working beautifully.
00:17:59
Speaker
And then the next day it was caused me all kinds of grief.
00:18:01
Speaker
What the hell?
00:18:02
Speaker
heck is going on with this thing so i open it up i'm looking at it now granted i i've you know done my fair share of fixing and repairing machines over the year and sure enough that it doesn't take me to be a rocket scientist to go oh look the shooter lane switches like comes against the side and it's it that's why the game thinks the ball's sitting there yeah
00:18:22
Speaker
But if it isn't that, reach out to our service department.
00:18:26
Speaker
We will take care of it.
00:18:28
Speaker
Like I said, we're a small group.
00:18:30
Speaker
We are trying as hard as we can to, you know, we're fighting Goliath.
00:18:35
Speaker
You know, I don't have the budgets that I'd love to have at other companies, but we're doing really well.
00:18:41
Speaker
One thing you brought up was sadly Barry passed away too soon, but that does leave a vacancy for designers.
00:18:50
Speaker
Are you guys going to be looking for more designers or is it pretty much we're going to kind of take on the workload we have right now and we'll see about the future?
00:18:58
Speaker
Pretty much.
00:18:59
Speaker
Well, so let me touch upon this because I've had some people ask the question, is Riot Pinball, Scott and Frank, are they done?
00:19:07
Speaker
Are we not going to see another pin from them?
00:19:08
Speaker
I'm going to say no.
00:19:10
Speaker
We talked about it.
00:19:11
Speaker
They are working on a pin right now.
00:19:13
Speaker
So I have Barry's game.
00:19:15
Speaker
I have Dennis working on a game after I have Ryan working on his game and I got Scott and Frank working on a game.
00:19:23
Speaker
And then Dennis is already working on a game after that.
00:19:27
Speaker
We have different games in development stages.
00:19:31
Speaker
So we do have stuff that we continue to work on.
00:19:34
Speaker
We're not slouches.
00:19:35
Speaker
Right.
00:19:35
Speaker
So we do have and I continue to open the door for certain, you know, people that might do a homebrew that is just knock my socks off and, you know.
00:19:49
Speaker
we'll go from there.
00:19:50
Speaker
Okay.
00:19:50
Speaker
I'm going to follow up on that because you talked about that.
00:19:53
Speaker
The American dream.
00:19:54
Speaker
If I, if I remember correctly, the American dream, and it's basically a gauntlet that you throw out there that says, Hey, bring us a design.
00:20:05
Speaker
And if it looks like you got potential kid, we may be able to find a spot for you in the company.
00:20:11
Speaker
Is that still the case?
00:20:12
Speaker
Yep.
00:20:13
Speaker
And it is.
00:20:14
Speaker
And I will tell you that the American dream winner from two years ago,
00:20:18
Speaker
He's been at our company and we're working on his title.
00:20:24
Speaker
Okay.
00:20:24
Speaker
That kind of thing.
00:20:25
Speaker
We put it in the back burner, but we're kind of keeping that quiet.
00:20:29
Speaker
We also have a contestant that won this year, but we're going to use him that maybe not his games, but we're going to use him in some of the aspects of the, of one of our games coming forward.
00:20:41
Speaker
So we continue to look at people.
00:20:44
Speaker
So he can be involved, he or she can be involved in developing the pinball machine because there are lots of areas that you can help out with, not necessarily just bringing a design because it takes a lot more of a team to bring a pinball machine to fruition than just a designer.
00:21:05
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:21:06
Speaker
And I don't mean to disparage designers.
00:21:08
Speaker
I'm just saying that there's more involved.
00:21:10
Speaker
And you're not disparaging designers.
00:21:12
Speaker
Designers are the guys who will first tell you that it's the rest of the team that help out to make that game.
00:21:19
Speaker
They sit there and they look at it and they play with it and they come up with it and they say, how is this?
00:21:25
Speaker
Ryan will pull me in or Dennis will pull me in and say, hey, play, shoot this.
00:21:29
Speaker
What do you think?
00:21:30
Speaker
I'll be like, well, this looks a little, you know, this is over here, that's over there, and I'll make a suggestion.
00:21:38
Speaker
Just throw it out there, you know.
00:21:40
Speaker
And then they'll say, well, it's not a bad idea.
00:21:42
Speaker
And then about, you know, a day or two go by, and then they go, you know, you're not the only one that suggested it.
00:21:47
Speaker
Here, shoot this.
00:21:48
Speaker
Tell me what you think.
00:21:49
Speaker
And, you know, and it's great.
00:21:52
Speaker
And we've done that also when we get close to the final Whitewood.
00:21:58
Speaker
We'll bring in some of our, how do I say this, trusted advisors, some pinball players, and we'll let them just beat on a Whitewood and then give us their, you know, when we're pretty close and give us their feedback.
00:22:13
Speaker
And then they kind of give us their feedback.
00:22:15
Speaker
I mean,
00:22:16
Speaker
This is how we develop, right?
00:22:18
Speaker
This is, I mean, gone are the days of me slipping a pinball machine out, you know, all done in a Chuck E. Cheese somewhere and sitting back and watching the kids play it and go, what do you think?
00:22:27
Speaker
What do you think, kid?
00:22:28
Speaker
You know, I mean, it wouldn't happen.
00:22:29
Speaker
There are no test locations anymore.
00:22:32
Speaker
No test locations whatsoever for pinball.
00:22:35
Speaker
And trust me, there's a lamplighter in Palatine, which was Stern's old test location that we've been up there for lunch.
00:22:44
Speaker
There's nothing there.
00:22:46
Speaker
There's other test locations around.
00:22:49
Speaker
So the one thing I will say is that I do use Interium as a test location.
00:22:55
Speaker
Now, how do I use it as a test location?
00:22:58
Speaker
I test new aspects of the game that you don't see that's under the hood to see how long it lasts, how well it works, how well it provides.
00:23:08
Speaker
I mean, I'm testing power supplies.
00:23:10
Speaker
I'm testing...
00:23:11
Speaker
new board systems.
00:23:13
Speaker
I'm testing all kinds of crazy stuff in there.
00:23:16
Speaker
In fact, one of the tests that I had was back in 2001, I had talked to Titan and I had a couple sets of Titan rubbers sent to me for all the games in Interium and I ran it for a year on Titan rubber and was pleased with my findings to the point that I gave up, gave the call to Titan and said, listen, I'm switching all my games in production to Titan rubbers.
00:23:41
Speaker
Which is huge.
00:23:44
Speaker
Instead of you buying a brand new game and taking all the rubbers off and changing them all over to Titan, I already took care of it for you.
00:23:51
Speaker
It's included.
00:23:54
Speaker
David, I do want to talk about Expo
Special Offers & Game Adjustments
00:24:00
Speaker
2.
00:24:00
Speaker
What else do we need to know about American Pinball that we are not smart enough to ask?
00:24:07
Speaker
Okay.
00:24:10
Speaker
That's a trick question there.
00:24:13
Speaker
There are many crazy things at American Pinball, and we continue to develop a lot of fun stuff.
00:24:19
Speaker
So there's going to be some stuff that's going to be coming in the horizons that you're going to catch people off guard a little bit, which...
00:24:26
Speaker
I love doing that every once in a while.
00:24:28
Speaker
So just sit back and wait and you'll find out.
00:24:31
Speaker
One of the other things is that we did do a special deal for Black Friday for the limited edition of Valhalla.
00:24:40
Speaker
We gave an instant $400 discount for anybody who ordered a brand new limited Valhalla while supplies last.
00:24:50
Speaker
Okay.
00:24:51
Speaker
We are running that as of December 4th today until the 15th of December.
00:24:58
Speaker
So if you're interested in a limited edition, and it's a small amount.
00:25:03
Speaker
So what happened was we originally had 500.
00:25:07
Speaker
We got through the full production.
00:25:09
Speaker
Some customers have canceled.
00:25:12
Speaker
Some big distributors didn't take their full allotment.
00:25:15
Speaker
So I have, do I have hundreds?
00:25:17
Speaker
No.
00:25:18
Speaker
Do I have over 50?
00:25:20
Speaker
No.
00:25:21
Speaker
Do I have less than 50?
00:25:22
Speaker
Yes.
00:25:23
Speaker
But once they're gone, they're gone.
00:25:26
Speaker
But what I'm doing is I'm gonna kind of give an incentive.
00:25:29
Speaker
And so for the next two weeks, we're changing the MRP.
00:25:35
Speaker
which gives it a full discount to $79.95.
00:25:40
Speaker
And you can contact all your distributors, anybody who sells American, or you can contact Zach Many at Flippin' Out here, and he will definitely get you taken care of.
00:25:51
Speaker
And it's ready to ship.
00:25:52
Speaker
They're in stock.
00:25:53
Speaker
So we will probably be shipping them out.
00:25:55
Speaker
So if you wanted to do something new under the tree this year, you could get a Legends of Valhalla with a discount, which you're saving some money, and that's a limited, that comes with a
00:26:07
Speaker
I have it up for you, so I can just list it off.
00:26:10
Speaker
It has the mirrored back glass on glass, and I actually have one of those back glasses because I won it at your seminar.
00:26:18
Speaker
That's right.
00:26:19
Speaker
Hand-painted Thor's hammer, we have molded, hand-painted six boot shields, Odin's main ramp, molded and hand-painted, molded amber translucent arch behind... We're talking...
00:26:34
Speaker
This is high end, gold foil, gold powder coating.
00:26:39
Speaker
So this is everything you'd want in the top of the line version.
00:26:44
Speaker
But you're really not paying top of the line prices compared to what things are going like, what alternative options for a similar machine are going for today.
00:26:53
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:26:55
Speaker
And here's the other thing.
00:26:57
Speaker
American has always given out some really nice machines, right?
00:27:02
Speaker
I mean, look, our Houdini, which had a special powder coat, all the toys, all that, that's $73.95.
00:27:09
Speaker
You know, that's a decent price.
00:27:10
Speaker
Oktoberfest, also.
00:27:11
Speaker
Hot Wheels, $73.95.
00:27:19
Speaker
I do have one follow up question on Oktoberfest.
00:27:23
Speaker
So when I have played it, that ramp on the left side is really hard to hit.
00:27:31
Speaker
So so is it ramp on the left side?
00:27:34
Speaker
What was that?
00:27:35
Speaker
Which ramp on the left side?
00:27:36
Speaker
The one that goes like straight up.
00:27:38
Speaker
It's like a ski jump.
00:27:41
Speaker
Okay.
00:27:41
Speaker
Okay.
00:27:42
Speaker
So is it, have you done anything to tweak the design or the flipper power to make sure?
00:27:48
Speaker
Now, guaranteed, I have played it at expos and things like that.
00:27:54
Speaker
So I totally understand that the power supply is different at one of those mega shows because a lot of times the...
00:28:03
Speaker
The consistent complaint with people trying out games at expos are because the power drain is so much with all the games that they are not as flippy as there used to be in a home environment or at a bar environment.
00:28:20
Speaker
Correct.
00:28:20
Speaker
You're talking about at a show.
00:28:22
Speaker
Yes.
00:28:22
Speaker
And going to run Pinball Expo.
00:28:24
Speaker
I can tell you, Pinball Expo, we were running the power at 109, 110 on occasions.
00:28:32
Speaker
You're talking about so many breakers, so many circuits, so many everything, right?
00:28:36
Speaker
At your home, you're running it usually 115, 120.
00:28:39
Speaker
So your power, you're fully saturating your power supply.
00:28:43
Speaker
What we have with like Expos, you're not getting that full power.
00:28:47
Speaker
Now,
00:28:48
Speaker
On Oktoberfest, and if you played it at Expo, we go through and we just dial up the one flipper because it is the purple flipper.
00:28:59
Speaker
It's a purple color.
00:29:00
Speaker
Normally they're all orange.
00:29:01
Speaker
I'm sorry, not orange.
00:29:03
Speaker
Orange.
00:29:03
Speaker
They're all blue.
00:29:05
Speaker
And the purple one we dial up.
00:29:07
Speaker
So we just jump it up to and it goes right up that ramp.
00:29:12
Speaker
Okay.
00:29:12
Speaker
So there's a fix is basically what you're saying.
00:29:14
Speaker
There's a David Fix fix for the ramp.
00:29:18
Speaker
Well, the reason I asked that question is because when we first came out with that, the left upper ramp, the one that goes around through the barrel, that one was also a problem.
00:29:27
Speaker
But we had a fix with that with a special coil stop.
00:29:31
Speaker
So if you can't make it, you might want to check your coil stop, make sure it is the correct one.
00:29:36
Speaker
If it isn't, contact us.
00:29:37
Speaker
We'll get you the right one.
00:29:39
Speaker
Okay.
00:29:40
Speaker
So, so one thing I want to talk to you, cause you've been talking about pricing a lot on this episode, David, and the market, if, if we look at the used market, um, there is a lot of pinball machines going for cheaper than they were a year ago.
00:29:55
Speaker
Uh, I don't think this is unusual.
00:29:57
Speaker
You've been in the hobby for a while.
00:29:59
Speaker
Um, where do you think the market is, is turning to head with what we're seeing?
00:30:04
Speaker
Ah,
00:30:05
Speaker
That's a question that is in every boardroom across every pinball company in the United States and around overseas too.
00:30:15
Speaker
We have meetings once a month about this.
00:30:20
Speaker
Is the pinball going to continue?
00:30:23
Speaker
What's the price value?
00:30:25
Speaker
Where do we see the market going?
00:30:28
Speaker
Trust me, I had an overseas call today just trying to figure out
00:30:34
Speaker
where we see the pricing.
00:30:35
Speaker
Okay.
00:30:36
Speaker
So the price, you know, is very much what people are paying for games.
00:30:43
Speaker
However, one of the biggest things that I see is the thought, is the game really limited?
00:30:52
Speaker
Sure.
00:30:53
Speaker
And I think you guys will know what I'm talking about when I say that if you remember two years ago, there was a special limited version of Elvira.
00:31:03
Speaker
Now this year, there's another special limited version of Elvira.
00:31:08
Speaker
And when it came out, there was a special limited version of Elvira.
00:31:11
Speaker
I'm not saying anything about that, but the...
00:31:17
Speaker
I think you're pointing out what we have said before.
00:31:22
Speaker
Even on the last episode, we talked about this.
00:31:24
Speaker
Yeah, we talked about this.
00:31:26
Speaker
Other companies, and not to pick on one company, JJP did it also when The Hobbit came out.
00:31:37
Speaker
They had the standard edition, the limited edition, then they had the smog edition, and then they had the black arrow edition.
00:31:45
Speaker
And so this is not new.
00:31:47
Speaker
However, you're bringing up is, do people feel like they're getting something exclusive?
00:31:54
Speaker
Is that what I'm getting at?
00:31:56
Speaker
Yes.
00:31:58
Speaker
Yes.
00:31:59
Speaker
And that's kind of the reason that, like, listen, the signature edition of Galactic Tank Force, that's it.
00:32:05
Speaker
200, we're done.
00:32:06
Speaker
The limited edition, it's done.
00:32:08
Speaker
In fact, going forward, you probably will see other manufacturers, maybe myself, cut back on the limited numbers a little bit.
00:32:17
Speaker
But, you know...
00:32:19
Speaker
you gotta, you gotta make sure that you don't kill your own market.
00:32:24
Speaker
Right.
00:32:25
Speaker
I mean, you know, it's, it's like, you know, I can buy the greatest looking brand new car.
00:32:31
Speaker
And then a year later, go out and buy the same car.
00:32:35
Speaker
It's like, okay, it's not, you know, it's not the, it's not the, um,
00:32:39
Speaker
I'm probably going to get beat up for this, but it's not the Hellcat edition, right?
00:32:43
Speaker
You know, is it that Dodge Hellcat, you know, that rare one that they brought out three or four years ago?
00:32:50
Speaker
No, it's the newer one, but it's still, you know, does it depreciate the value?
00:32:56
Speaker
At the end of the day, it makes you wonder.
00:32:59
Speaker
It makes me, as a collector, remember, like I was telling Josh earlier, I have 150 pins, right?
00:33:04
Speaker
Yeah, that's it.
00:33:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:08
Speaker
In fact, the one sitting behind me right here is a pistol poker.
00:33:12
Speaker
That's number one from LNG.
00:33:15
Speaker
That's the first one that they produced.
00:33:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:19
Speaker
And then I have number four at the office right now of Full Throttle.
00:33:26
Speaker
So, you know, those are limited, very unique games to have.
00:33:34
Speaker
Fun play, you know, that's, you know, what are you buying them for?
00:33:37
Speaker
Because you're enjoying them, right?
00:33:38
Speaker
Right.
00:33:40
Speaker
If you want to play the stock market or buy gold, go do that.
00:33:43
Speaker
These are pinball machines.
00:33:45
Speaker
It's not on the gold standard.
Market Insights & Expo Expansion
00:33:48
Speaker
But I see the market really is it's a buyer's market right now.
00:33:53
Speaker
It really is a buyer's market.
00:33:55
Speaker
You can go into any of the you can call Zach Benny up right now and probably buy any of the Stern games that are out there.
00:34:01
Speaker
And he probably has them.
00:34:03
Speaker
You could buy any of the American games.
00:34:05
Speaker
You could buy any of the JJP games.
00:34:06
Speaker
You could buy any of those.
00:34:08
Speaker
I mean, so, you know, it depends on where you want to invest your money.
00:34:13
Speaker
If you're enjoying the game.
00:34:16
Speaker
So, you know, hats off to you.
00:34:20
Speaker
So one thing, too, we talked about is inflation.
00:34:23
Speaker
And one thing I wanted to point out, too, is when Bowley Williams closed their doors in 1999,
00:34:30
Speaker
And they had revenge for Mars.
00:34:32
Speaker
They were doing that.
00:34:33
Speaker
I remember in the documentary tilt, they said that they were asking a lot from their distributors and from the, the, uh, operators that were buying because they had to tack on $500 more for the new, uh, operating system they were putting in and, and at $3,500 in 1999,
00:34:51
Speaker
today's inflation is 6,500 bucks.
00:34:56
Speaker
So you guys are still, it's kind of funny because you think of 1999 and they were operating at a loss on these machines.
00:35:04
Speaker
And obviously the games today have a lot more in them.
00:35:08
Speaker
So how do you battle that perception of like you're already overpriced for what you're selling at?
00:35:14
Speaker
Well, let's talk about that for a second.
00:35:17
Speaker
I think of, you know, listen, I sit there
00:35:20
Speaker
I mean, I'm running a pinball company.
00:35:23
Speaker
I can do a calculation in my head pretty quickly of anybody's machines, right?
00:35:28
Speaker
When you're in the industry, you probably could do that.
00:35:30
Speaker
I'm sure the guys at the other companies can look at my game and go, okay, this is what Fix is putting in.
00:35:35
Speaker
It's like, okay, this is what his BOM is.
00:35:37
Speaker
It's just like, you know, we all know.
00:35:40
Speaker
Bailey Williams, let's talk about that for a minute.
00:35:43
Speaker
Pinball 2000 was groundbreaking.
00:35:47
Speaker
It was earth-shattering.
00:35:48
Speaker
It was an amazing...
00:35:51
Speaker
game that came out at that time and hats off to the entire pinball 2000 staff for pulling off that and I know you're talking about the $500 increase which was tacked on to actually Star Wars episode one because they were trying to push the license
00:36:08
Speaker
If you ask some people in the industry that know, which I've had that conversation, the license wasn't much more.
00:36:14
Speaker
It wasn't that.
00:36:15
Speaker
It was just them trying to see what the market could sustain.
00:36:19
Speaker
And then when they had lost orders, they were like, you know what, this is not our way.
00:36:24
Speaker
We really want to get into the...
00:36:28
Speaker
into the slot machine business.
00:36:31
Speaker
You know, casino gambling.
00:36:33
Speaker
Now think about it, WMS at that time has now been sold as part of scientific gaming.
00:36:38
Speaker
You know, it's a completely different, you know, entity.
00:36:41
Speaker
Where are they now?
00:36:42
Speaker
Right.
00:36:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:44
Speaker
In fact, a lot of the WMS people work for me, you know, Zofia Ryan, she worked there and she was on Pinball 2000.
00:36:51
Speaker
She went over to the slot reel division, Jack Hager.
00:36:55
Speaker
You know, he was on the show.
00:36:57
Speaker
um he's over he's working for us now so there's a lot of people that were there that put their heart and soul into a game but the you know corporate environment at that time was like let's just cash it out and let's let's move on to something different yeah but you you have to think about it price of metal is up price of wood is up you have wars um heading with you know russia and ukraine's going on what three years now this is kind of crazy right um
00:37:24
Speaker
I feel for the people in Ukraine.
00:37:27
Speaker
Then you have now this whole thing with Palestine and Israel, right?
00:37:32
Speaker
There's another conflict that's not great.
00:37:36
Speaker
This does drive the price of goods and stuff up.
00:37:40
Speaker
So it's tough.
00:37:42
Speaker
You know what, what we used to buy, you know, I look at a bill material from when we made Houdini the first time to now, uh,
00:37:52
Speaker
It's comparable, but if I looked at a price list, let's say from 1999 to now, it's significantly lower, right?
00:38:03
Speaker
Your flipper mechs are a lot cheaper, pop bumpers are a lot cheaper, all that stuff.
00:38:08
Speaker
So, I mean, you can see the price has gone up, but, you know, I think at American, we try to price our games.
00:38:15
Speaker
We pack them to death and give you the best money for the best buck for the, I can't even speak now, the best bang for your buck.
00:38:25
Speaker
There you go.
00:38:26
Speaker
So, you know, we're trying to make it, you know, that we're not gouging you.
00:38:29
Speaker
Right.
00:38:33
Speaker
So let's talk about Expo.
00:38:35
Speaker
Sure.
00:38:35
Speaker
So Expo, you have a big anniversary coming up.
00:38:40
Speaker
So you have the 40th coming up.
00:38:42
Speaker
And if I understand correctly, this time we're also increasing the size.
00:38:48
Speaker
That's correct.
00:38:49
Speaker
The last two Expos, we were at 60,000 square feet.
00:38:53
Speaker
We're going to 90,000, just shy of 100,000 square feet in that facility.
00:39:00
Speaker
We're also expanding Expo.
00:39:04
Speaker
Okay, so go on.
00:39:06
Speaker
Tell me more about that.
00:39:07
Speaker
If you haven't checked out the website, check out the website, but we're starting on Tuesday.
00:39:13
Speaker
Of Expo this year.
00:39:14
Speaker
Wow.
00:39:15
Speaker
Tuesday.
00:39:16
Speaker
And then Wednesday.
00:39:18
Speaker
Then Thursday.
00:39:19
Speaker
Then Friday.
00:39:20
Speaker
Then Saturday.
00:39:21
Speaker
People think we've lost our mind.
00:39:23
Speaker
I might agree with them.
00:39:25
Speaker
That's a lot.
00:39:26
Speaker
Seminars don't start until Thursday.
00:39:28
Speaker
Okay.
00:39:33
Speaker
Seminars don't start until Thursday.
00:39:34
Speaker
And neither does the vending hall open until Thursday.
00:39:37
Speaker
So what are we going to do Tuesday and Wednesday?
00:39:40
Speaker
Well...
00:39:41
Speaker
get ready, you're going to go to all the factories and you're going to get to see every pinball manufacturer that is out there right now.
00:39:50
Speaker
So that is a cool thing.
00:39:52
Speaker
So you're going to get to go to Chicago Gaming.
00:39:55
Speaker
You're going to get to go to Stern.
00:39:56
Speaker
You're going to get to go to American Pinball.
00:39:57
Speaker
You're going to get to go to Jersey Jack.
00:39:59
Speaker
So you've got four manufacturers that are opening their doors for the 40th to see how pinball machines are made.
00:40:08
Speaker
Wow.
00:40:09
Speaker
So that is a huge undertaking for a lot of us.
00:40:14
Speaker
That's huge.
00:40:14
Speaker
Now, I will say, in addition to those four tours, and each of those tours is roughly an hour, maybe an hour and a half when you take travel time.
00:40:24
Speaker
So three hours of the day.
00:40:26
Speaker
What else are people going to do those days?
00:40:29
Speaker
So we're also going to be going, well, so the first tour is on Tuesday afternoon.
00:40:34
Speaker
Then there's a dinner that we're going to, and then we're probably going to go up to, I think it's Galloping Ghost.
00:40:40
Speaker
Galloping Ghost is what, on your schedule, yeah.
00:40:43
Speaker
Yeah, Galloping Ghost for the rest of the evening.
00:40:45
Speaker
Then the next day, it's Stern, then a luncheon, then American Pinball, then the flip-out, the big show or the big thing at Interium on Wednesday night, then JJP in the morning on Thursday, and then everything else.
00:41:03
Speaker
Then the seminars and the expo room and everything else just kicks off Thursday afternoon at noon.
00:41:09
Speaker
And then we just go into the whole thing.
00:41:11
Speaker
We're also talking.
00:41:13
Speaker
We may have a special speaker come to Expo.
00:41:18
Speaker
Can't give you any details at this time because we're still working on it, but it is probably one person that I helped bring to Expo many years ago.
00:41:28
Speaker
And he only did one pinball show in his history and it was ours.
00:41:34
Speaker
And we're trying to bring him back for meet and greet, you know, some kind of a deal.
00:41:38
Speaker
So we're in negotiations right now with him coming back.
00:41:42
Speaker
That's going to be good.
00:41:42
Speaker
As soon as we know, we'll let you guys know.
00:41:44
Speaker
But I think you guys can gather from my hints who it is.
00:41:49
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:41:51
Speaker
But again, it's the 40th, right?
00:41:53
Speaker
Think about it.
00:41:53
Speaker
40 years ago, Pinball Expo got started.
00:41:57
Speaker
And here's a little trivia question for you two guys.
00:42:01
Speaker
So Josh and Scott, what was the game that we gave away at the very first Pinball Expo?
00:42:08
Speaker
Okay, so let's rewind. 1984.
00:42:13
Speaker
Oh, no, no, no looking at ID.
00:42:21
Speaker
No, I'm not.
00:42:22
Speaker
I'm not.
00:42:22
Speaker
I'm okay.
00:42:24
Speaker
I'm thinking that's in, was it that year?
00:42:30
Speaker
Was it a black night 2000?
00:42:32
Speaker
No, Black Knight 2000.
00:42:34
Speaker
I'm sorry.
00:42:35
Speaker
I'm thinking, I'm sorry.
00:42:36
Speaker
Black Knight.
00:42:36
Speaker
Was it a Black Knight?
00:42:38
Speaker
It was 80.
00:42:39
Speaker
Okay, well, you said, so 83.
00:42:42
Speaker
84.85. 84,
00:42:47
Speaker
Was it a space shuttle?
00:42:49
Speaker
Ooh, good guess.
00:42:51
Speaker
Ooh, that is a really good guess.
00:42:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:53
Speaker
It was a very good guess, but the factory was still dark.
00:42:57
Speaker
And space shuttle was the first game to keep the lights on, as it were.
00:43:01
Speaker
Because that's right after the arcade crash.
00:43:06
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:43:06
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:43:08
Speaker
So.
00:43:10
Speaker
Ooh.
00:43:10
Speaker
Okay, give me a hint.
00:43:11
Speaker
Give me a hint.
00:43:13
Speaker
Barry Osler.
00:43:17
Speaker
Pinbot?
00:43:18
Speaker
Pinbot.
00:43:18
Speaker
Very good.
00:43:19
Speaker
Nice.
00:43:20
Speaker
It's actually behind you.
00:43:21
Speaker
It's off.
00:43:23
Speaker
It's not that one.
00:43:25
Speaker
Okay.
00:43:25
Speaker
Okay.
00:43:25
Speaker
But it's very interesting.
00:43:26
Speaker
And that's when David Fix got his first pinbot.
00:43:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:31
Speaker
No, but Pinbot was the very first game that we gave away.
00:43:34
Speaker
And the person who won it in the tournament, believe it or not, was a young man by the name of Steve Engel of Mayfair.
00:43:41
Speaker
So there you go.
00:43:42
Speaker
If you go into Expo, a lot of times you'll find Mayfair with all the backglasses and all the interesting old Dax Steve Engel.
00:43:49
Speaker
He's the first one that won the very first tournament at Pinball Expo.
00:43:54
Speaker
That's good to know.
00:43:56
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:43:56
Speaker
A little history in that, you know, it's kind of fun, but expo has been this growing thing for many years.
00:44:02
Speaker
And, you know, you know, people say, Dave, how are you doing this with American and pinball expo?
00:44:09
Speaker
Can you keep doing it?
00:44:11
Speaker
Right.
00:44:12
Speaker
So I've already told Rob, I says, Rob, I'm going to help you out with the 40th.
00:44:16
Speaker
Let's see where we, where we go with that.
00:44:18
Speaker
But I don't know after this, I mean, you know, the company is getting bigger.
00:44:22
Speaker
I'm,
00:44:23
Speaker
getting pulled two ways.
00:44:24
Speaker
I'm not as young as I used to be.
00:44:26
Speaker
The hairline is growing back.
00:44:27
Speaker
I mean, I'm losing hair.
00:44:29
Speaker
You're like 39 now, right?
00:44:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:31
Speaker
Yes.
00:44:32
Speaker
Going on 59.
00:44:33
Speaker
Thank you very much.
00:44:37
Speaker
I wish.
00:44:38
Speaker
But, you know, it is a lot, you know, and everybody goes, well, how's, you know, I get into expo mode sometime around July.
00:44:45
Speaker
And I'm kind of a bear around the office.
00:44:47
Speaker
Some people will say, oh, he's trying to do this, that, the other thing.
00:44:49
Speaker
He's getting everything ready, and then he's also doing expo.
00:44:53
Speaker
And this year was even more stressful for me because I took a week off to go to IEPA Europe.
00:45:01
Speaker
which was September in Vienna.
00:45:03
Speaker
That was gorgeous.
00:45:05
Speaker
Did that show, met a lot of people, made a lot of sales there, and then came back, did an expo, turned around, went
Pricing Strategy & Best Sellers
00:45:13
Speaker
to IAAPA, Orlando, came back.
00:45:16
Speaker
I mean, frequent flyer miles, there you go, it's racking up.
00:45:19
Speaker
And a little bit later on this year, in a few weeks, I'll be heading back down to Florida.
00:45:24
Speaker
So...
00:45:26
Speaker
But it's fun.
00:45:29
Speaker
I'm kind of like chasing the silver ball, as it were.
00:45:32
Speaker
But, you know, the industry is still exploding, right?
00:45:36
Speaker
It's moving.
00:45:37
Speaker
It has a little bit of a pause right now because people, it's like I said, it's a buyer's market.
00:45:42
Speaker
But, you know, there will be a writing of the ship, as I call it.
00:45:45
Speaker
Things will even out.
00:45:48
Speaker
And I think...
00:45:50
Speaker
You know, I mean, Americans prices have never been overly topped, you know, not too big, but we try to give you a really nice game for what you're buying.
00:45:59
Speaker
I would say the numbers you were saying, $73.95, was that correct, on a lot of your models?
00:46:05
Speaker
That's pretty comparable to the base models of competitors across the board.
00:46:09
Speaker
And like you're saying, American games are fairly well packed for what you buy, even on the base model.
00:46:13
Speaker
Yep.
00:46:15
Speaker
So that's quite the deal.
00:46:17
Speaker
It is quite the deal.
00:46:18
Speaker
And then, you know, there's that limited version of Legends of Valhalla, which now is going to have that special price for two weeks.
00:46:25
Speaker
It's $79.95, which is a really smoking deal.
00:46:29
Speaker
While they're available, limited is few, but, you know, those might be gone.
00:46:35
Speaker
And then...
00:46:36
Speaker
you know, we still make, you know, nobody's been asking for the classic right now.
00:46:40
Speaker
So we're just kind of holding off on the classic, but that a lot of, a lot of, um, interest off of legends has come just in the last few months because Steve Bowden and Frank have been working since August, right.
00:46:56
Speaker
And all the new updates for legends.
00:46:58
Speaker
So legends now has like the jukebox mode and it has all the extra goodies that's in there.
00:47:06
Speaker
It has the code plays really good.
00:47:09
Speaker
It's been used at some tournaments.
00:47:11
Speaker
Some tournament players are taking note of how to play this game.
00:47:15
Speaker
It's not easy.
00:47:16
Speaker
I know it was on Carl DeAndalus and IE Pinball.
00:47:21
Speaker
And it's been also overseas at the European.
00:47:26
Speaker
I can't think of what his name was.
00:47:27
Speaker
The young man over in Germany or Austria.
00:47:30
Speaker
Who's Daniele?
00:47:31
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, no, no, no, it's on my, it's on our webpage that I do know.
00:47:37
Speaker
But, you know, they, they streamed it, right?
00:47:39
Speaker
They, they were playing it and they're going after, you know, trying to get into all those cool modes, you know, and it's, it's a, it's a quite a packed little game, Legends of Valhalla.
00:47:49
Speaker
So I have to give.
00:47:50
Speaker
Scott and Frank hats off and thanking Steve for making it more of a tournament-ready game.
00:47:58
Speaker
It's come together very nicely.
00:48:01
Speaker
A lot of people are now just discovering it.
00:48:04
Speaker
I've been hearing a lot of people saying it's kind of like a diamond in the rough.
00:48:10
Speaker
It's a quiet little secret.
00:48:11
Speaker
It's got some really good stuff in it.
00:48:14
Speaker
You have to find it out.
00:48:15
Speaker
Looks like it's Abe Flips that's doing the Legends of Valhalla complete playthrough.
00:48:20
Speaker
Gotcha.
00:48:22
Speaker
Well, that brings me to another question as well.
00:48:24
Speaker
At one point, I know after you had shortly announced Legends of Valhalla, there was the two models, but then you guys added a third.
00:48:33
Speaker
What has happened with the third?
00:48:34
Speaker
I don't think I've heard much since Expo of last year, or maybe it was two years ago.
00:48:38
Speaker
Third model?
00:48:40
Speaker
Yeah, I want to say there was like a special plus or like a, I could be wrong.
00:48:44
Speaker
No, there's always been a limited.
00:48:46
Speaker
And so what we do is we make a classic and a deluxe, right?
00:48:51
Speaker
Classic is your street run game.
00:48:53
Speaker
The deluxe is just, you know, shaker, knocker and magic glass upgrade to the classic.
00:49:00
Speaker
So those are the two there.
00:49:01
Speaker
The limited was the one where we always pull out the stops and make it look, you know, mirrored back glass, you know, go over the top.
00:49:08
Speaker
The signature version of Galactic Tank Force right now has got that lenticular back glass, right?
00:49:16
Speaker
108 layers of artwork from Franchi.
00:49:19
Speaker
So it actually is stacked to a point where it looks like it's two feet back.
00:49:23
Speaker
So when you're looking around, it's like, wow, that is pretty cool.
00:49:27
Speaker
So, you know, we try to make that games when they're limited or special, special.
00:49:34
Speaker
And that's all you get.
00:49:34
Speaker
You know, you just get those for those.
00:49:36
Speaker
So it's kind of cool.
00:49:39
Speaker
Awesome.
00:49:40
Speaker
Well, David, you've been great.
00:49:42
Speaker
I don't know if we, do you have any more questions for him, Scott?
00:49:45
Speaker
Uh, well, I was just going to follow up.
00:49:47
Speaker
I think what you're thinking, Josh, is that when, um, legends of Valhalla was announced, it sold out before it hit the international market.
00:49:55
Speaker
And so they, they made accommodations to make sure the international market was going to get some, uh, some numbers.
00:50:03
Speaker
Is that correct, Dave?
00:50:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:06
Speaker
Here's the thing.
00:50:07
Speaker
We sat down as a company and we had made a decision as a group, but I got the final say on it.
00:50:17
Speaker
And I said, okay, as a group, we said, we're going to do 300.
00:50:19
Speaker
That's it.
00:50:21
Speaker
And we went day one and we announced it.
00:50:25
Speaker
And within 24 hours to the day of the announcement, eight o'clock the next day, we had well over 500.
00:50:34
Speaker
So we brought it back.
00:50:38
Speaker
just to the 500 we bumped it because all those went over to europe okay so you know or australia or wherever they were so we had to bring those you know back in but that was the only reason we bumped it up and usually we're not going to do that we wanted originally i wanted to do 500 off the bat and just be done with it it would have been great but uh we kept it at you know
00:51:04
Speaker
I was my first launch with the company and the ownership said, no, let's try three.
00:51:10
Speaker
I said, okay.
00:51:11
Speaker
Then I called him back in 24 hours and said, we got over 500 orders.
00:51:15
Speaker
I bumped it to 500.
00:51:15
Speaker
He says, okay.
00:51:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:18
Speaker
And I think that was a reasonable move because there was a reason behind it.
00:51:24
Speaker
Like there was an understandable reason.
00:51:26
Speaker
It wasn't a...
00:51:28
Speaker
And we've seen this with other companies that the goalposts were moved when they figured out that the demand was a lot higher than they anticipated.
00:51:39
Speaker
However, yours seemed to be a, well, we set this limit, but sold out way faster than we thought.
00:51:46
Speaker
So we're making accommodations, especially for the international market.
00:51:50
Speaker
Correct.
00:51:51
Speaker
And then there were still more than that, right?
00:51:55
Speaker
There were still well more than that.
00:51:56
Speaker
We were like, I think it was 630 or 640.
00:52:00
Speaker
So, you know, we could have went 600, right?
00:52:02
Speaker
But no, we kept it at 500.
00:52:06
Speaker
And, you know, it took us some time to build all those.
00:52:09
Speaker
And, you know, we got some of the classics out to some of those other people that wanted it still.
00:52:14
Speaker
And then we had a few...
00:52:17
Speaker
distributors who, you know, like, Hey, we got like five or whatever it is.
00:52:22
Speaker
And they kind of said, well, hold on to them.
00:52:24
Speaker
We'll get back to you.
00:52:25
Speaker
And then they finally came back and canceled.
00:52:28
Speaker
So all of a sudden I have a little, little inventory.
00:52:31
Speaker
Sure.
00:52:32
Speaker
Which happens with every company actually.
00:52:33
Speaker
Correct.
00:52:34
Speaker
But here's the, here's the nice thing, right?
00:52:37
Speaker
Until December 15th, call your distributor, put an order in, you're going to save 400 bucks.
00:52:42
Speaker
Right.
00:52:43
Speaker
That's pretty good.
00:52:44
Speaker
So the other question I have too, really quick is I don't want to know numbers, but would you tell us what your best selling game is to date so far for American?
00:52:54
Speaker
The one we've made the most?
00:52:56
Speaker
Yeah, the most of.
00:52:58
Speaker
Houdini, baby.
00:53:00
Speaker
Nice.
00:53:00
Speaker
With the original, the OG.
00:53:03
Speaker
The original OG?
00:53:04
Speaker
Listen, we are making Houdini right now.
00:53:07
Speaker
Okay.
00:53:08
Speaker
Take a look, Josh, if you can, real quick on IDPP.
00:53:12
Speaker
What game came out in 2017?
00:53:15
Speaker
That's a question.
00:53:16
Speaker
What game came out 2017?
00:53:20
Speaker
October of 2016, we announced Houdini.
00:53:24
Speaker
Texas of 2017, we brought Houdini to the market.
00:53:28
Speaker
Which is nuts.
00:53:30
Speaker
It's insane.
00:53:30
Speaker
Yeah, that's crazy.
00:53:34
Speaker
And then just look at the titles that were around there and to say that we're still making Houdini and people are still buying the Houdini because it's a game that they don't want, right?
00:53:48
Speaker
It looks like you're going up against Alice Cooper, Guardians of the Galaxy.
00:53:53
Speaker
Multimorphic had just hit the scene that year, too, so they had a lot of their games.
00:53:58
Speaker
Star Wars, which is a beast of a theme, and no one can deny that.
00:54:02
Speaker
Going up against faults of ACDC.
00:54:05
Speaker
Attack for Mars was announced that year as well.
00:54:07
Speaker
And that's, that's going up against another monster of a game.
00:54:11
Speaker
That's, that's impressive.
00:54:12
Speaker
You guys are still making Houdini's.
00:54:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:14
Speaker
Yep.
00:54:14
Speaker
Well, I, I, I just ran to, my wife came in for a second and the cat got trapped in here.
00:54:20
Speaker
So the cat was freaking out.
00:54:21
Speaker
So I went over, but I looked down and the funny thing is I saw my original pinball expo lanyard sitting over there.
00:54:30
Speaker
Nice.
00:54:31
Speaker
Nice.
00:54:32
Speaker
Nice.
00:54:33
Speaker
One other question I have too for you, Fix, is when you were starting to do – when you first came in on American, you were starting to do kind of like this tour of interviews.
00:54:41
Speaker
And one of the things you caught heat for is you said that if you hadn't been in the hobby for like five years, you don't get like an opinion or something.
00:54:50
Speaker
Like your remarks are not as credible, I guess.
00:54:57
Speaker
I joked with you like last year, the year before, you got to make a coin that says like Dave's approval, five-year coin.
00:55:03
Speaker
Five-year mark.
00:55:05
Speaker
Yes.
00:55:05
Speaker
Opinion approved.
00:55:07
Speaker
Opinion approved.
00:55:07
Speaker
Yes.
00:55:07
Speaker
Opinion approved.
00:55:08
Speaker
You can get your chip.
00:55:11
Speaker
You know, I guess it kind of goes back to your last episode.
00:55:18
Speaker
I mean, we can go back there a little bit and just talk about that for a second.
00:55:21
Speaker
But you think about it when, you know, you're going to talk about a hobby that's rich with people who have long memories.
00:55:28
Speaker
Make sure that you're talking about the rich history, right?
00:55:33
Speaker
Make sure you got all the facts correct.
00:55:35
Speaker
Don't be mistaken.
00:55:37
Speaker
And understand that, you know, what you're saying is, you know, going to be impacting a lot of people.
00:55:43
Speaker
Right.
00:55:44
Speaker
You're talking about an industry that, you know, you can, you know, people think, oh, so what is it?
00:55:49
Speaker
It's a podcast.
00:55:50
Speaker
They can't hurt.
00:55:51
Speaker
Listen, you're not Siskel and Ebert.
00:55:54
Speaker
Okay.
00:55:54
Speaker
Siskel and Ebert sat there in their front row of their balcony and said, this movie sucks.
00:55:59
Speaker
This movie was good.
00:55:59
Speaker
You know, it was like.
00:56:00
Speaker
By the way, you immediately targeted like the 50 and older crowd with Siskel and Ebert.
00:56:06
Speaker
I know, I know, I know.
00:56:09
Speaker
I had to.
00:56:10
Speaker
You know, hey, I'm that age, so, you know, I remember this.
00:56:14
Speaker
Just for the kids out there, there were two famous critics who, before you could look up the reviews online, you could watch them on TV, and they were from the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times.
00:56:28
Speaker
There you go.
00:56:29
Speaker
Right here in Chicago.
00:56:30
Speaker
I'm old enough to remember Siskel and Ebert, yes.
00:56:33
Speaker
And you know what the funny thing is?
00:56:34
Speaker
Is Siskel and Ebert, if they said the movie stunk, I went and saw it.
00:56:42
Speaker
They had interesting tastes, I will definitely say.
00:56:45
Speaker
They definitely did.
00:56:46
Speaker
Go ahead.
00:56:48
Speaker
No, I was just going to say, you know, listen, I've listened to a lot of podcasts, and there are a lot of good guys out there, and I like Loser
Appreciation for Pinball Media
00:56:54
Speaker
Kids.
00:56:54
Speaker
I like you guys.
00:56:55
Speaker
You guys have always done...
00:56:57
Speaker
A very nice show.
00:56:59
Speaker
And you're informative, just like I like Nap Arcade.
00:57:03
Speaker
OK, he sometimes gets the story a little goofy, but, you know, at the most of the time, he's still trying to do his journalistic integrity and get the story out there.
00:57:12
Speaker
Right.
00:57:12
Speaker
And there are other people that I think, you know, just, you know, do a nice job.
00:57:17
Speaker
And I go on their podcast an awful lot.
00:57:19
Speaker
So, or at sometimes.
00:57:21
Speaker
And then it's funny because I got a lot of heat.
00:57:25
Speaker
I think it was around April and May this year.
00:57:28
Speaker
They're like, where did Dave Fix go?
00:57:29
Speaker
You know, he kind of disappeared.
00:57:32
Speaker
He's not talking on podcasts or anything anymore.
00:57:35
Speaker
And, you know, one of the podcasters says, yeah, he's running a pinball company.
00:57:40
Speaker
Leave him alone.
00:57:41
Speaker
He's trying to do work.
00:57:42
Speaker
Getting busy.
00:57:43
Speaker
Not the PR guy.
00:57:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:57:44
Speaker
Yeah, not the PR guy.
00:57:45
Speaker
But like I said, I wanted to jump on here with the Loser Kids and definitely just give you guys a quick update.
00:57:53
Speaker
Thanks for having me on.
00:57:55
Speaker
Is there any other questions that Josh or Scott, anything you guys got out there?
00:57:59
Speaker
Anything?
00:58:00
Speaker
You know, the stock picks, what my next game title is, anything like that?
00:58:04
Speaker
Yeah, if you just want to share those.
00:58:06
Speaker
Those four next titles, I think we were talking like Golden Girls, I think was one of them before we started the episode.
00:58:15
Speaker
Hello Kitty, I heard you said the stock was good on that.
00:58:18
Speaker
So you guys snatched that up and that was good to go as well.
00:58:21
Speaker
The Nerds is up there.
00:58:24
Speaker
Animal House.
00:58:25
Speaker
Animal House, yeah.
00:58:27
Speaker
For the classic crowd, yeah.
00:58:29
Speaker
Big Trouble in Little China, I hear that one's coming too.
00:58:33
Speaker
You know, there's a lot of titles out there, right?
00:58:36
Speaker
And there's a lot of stuff that can be made into a pinball.
00:58:39
Speaker
But understand that, you know, there's just so much time and you want to hit the market just right, right?
00:58:44
Speaker
So, you know, there's a lot of thought and effort goes into what we'll pick and how well do we interface with the intellectual property.
00:58:54
Speaker
And that is huge for me.
00:58:56
Speaker
You know, we're a small, we're a small company.
00:58:59
Speaker
So if I'm doing something with an IP and they're willing to jump in and help us with that IP and work, listen, the new kid on the block, how did we even forget about them?
00:59:09
Speaker
Barrels of fun, right?
00:59:11
Speaker
You've probably watched their little video, you know.
00:59:15
Speaker
Okay.
00:59:15
Speaker
That's a very solid, I would say that that's a very solid opening for a new company.
00:59:20
Speaker
Oh, very solid.
00:59:21
Speaker
Good for, good for them.
00:59:24
Speaker
Hey, I just take the Gary Stern approach.
00:59:27
Speaker
Welcome to the swimming pool.
00:59:28
Speaker
Jump on it.
00:59:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:59:31
Speaker
Actually, this conversation has made me think of one more question.
00:59:34
Speaker
Earlier in the podcast, you talked about one of your future titles is going to be a continuation of a previous game.
00:59:42
Speaker
Is that a previous American game or is that a previous game?
00:59:46
Speaker
Can you elaborate on continuation?
00:59:48
Speaker
That's a very vague and interesting description.
00:59:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:59:53
Speaker
It is not of an American game.
00:59:55
Speaker
Okay.
00:59:56
Speaker
Okay.
00:59:57
Speaker
That's as far as I'm going to go with that, but it is a continuization.
01:00:01
Speaker
So people, I think people are going to go really crazy about that.
01:00:05
Speaker
Yeah.
01:00:06
Speaker
They're going to go back in Dennis Norman's catalog and go, Oh my goodness.
01:00:10
Speaker
Yeah.
01:00:11
Speaker
Could it be somebody else?
01:00:12
Speaker
I think, Oh my goodness.
01:00:14
Speaker
I think they're doing uno.
01:00:15
Speaker
That's what they're doing.
01:00:16
Speaker
They're doing.
01:00:17
Speaker
Yeah.
01:00:17
Speaker
Yeah.
01:00:18
Speaker
Uno, there you go.
01:00:19
Speaker
Hey, that is a licensed theme right there.
01:00:21
Speaker
Draw four balls.
01:00:23
Speaker
They're doing a continuation of Spy Hunter from 1987.
01:00:28
Speaker
That game is so terrible.
01:00:31
Speaker
We couldn't get James Bond until we were going to do Spy Hunter.
01:00:36
Speaker
All right, Dave.
01:00:37
Speaker
Well, we appreciate you.
01:00:38
Speaker
Stick around for a minute.
01:00:39
Speaker
We want to get you an updated hat.
01:00:40
Speaker
I'm wearing the, did we decide this is the 2.0 or the 3.0 hat?
01:00:45
Speaker
This is the 3.0 hat.
01:00:47
Speaker
We have a new hat for you.
01:00:48
Speaker
We'll get you some stuff.
01:00:50
Speaker
And Josh, send us out.
01:00:53
Speaker
So, David, if someone does, if you want someone to get a hold of you, what's the best way to get a hold of you?
01:00:58
Speaker
Just call American Pimble.
01:01:00
Speaker
You can call the number.
01:01:01
Speaker
I'm right there.
01:01:03
Speaker
We have people at the front desk who will take the calls or push you over to me.
01:01:07
Speaker
You can also send me an email.
01:01:09
Speaker
David.Fix at AmericanPinball.com I don't hide.
01:01:16
Speaker
I'm there.
01:01:17
Speaker
Now granted, I might not get to you right away.
01:01:19
Speaker
You're still busy.
01:01:20
Speaker
You're still busy.
01:01:21
Speaker
Yeah.
01:01:22
Speaker
You're talking about a guy who, you know, when I went to IEPA, right, and came back, I was at 33,000 emails in that one week.
01:01:34
Speaker
Even though I was doing emails at IEPA, it just grows, right?
01:01:39
Speaker
I'm down to 15,000 right now, which is a good little churning moment for me.
01:01:44
Speaker
And, you know, I can get that back down.
01:01:47
Speaker
But it's just, it's a ton of stuff.
01:01:49
Speaker
There's a lot of stuff that goes on with running it.
01:01:53
Speaker
Well, if you want to get ahold of us, we are lose a kid pinball podcast at gmail.com.
01:01:57
Speaker
You can also find us on all the socials at loser kid pinball.
01:02:00
Speaker
That's Facebook, Instagram, X, Twitch, Twitter, YouTube, please subscribe, uh, follow all that jazz.
01:02:08
Speaker
I do want to give a personal thanks to David fix because a lot of you, I don't know if you're aware he was one of the instrumental helpers last year in flipping the script on autism.
01:02:19
Speaker
And he, he,
01:02:21
Speaker
Any question I asked, he was like, yes, let's do it.
01:02:23
Speaker
And it was amazing to work with David.
01:02:27
Speaker
He was one of the ones behind the scenes along with a handful of others that it just seemed like everything went smoothly because of what you guys did.
01:02:36
Speaker
And you did something amazing.
01:02:39
Speaker
You stepped up when at the very last day we were packing everything up.
01:02:42
Speaker
We got hit and stolen from our booth.
01:02:45
Speaker
And it happened to be some signed American stuff.
01:02:48
Speaker
And you just stepped up, said, we'll get it taken care of.
01:02:51
Speaker
You got new banners.
01:02:52
Speaker
You got them signed.
01:02:53
Speaker
You got them shipped out.
01:02:54
Speaker
And it was amazing.
01:02:55
Speaker
And I just want to personally thank you for supporting that cause and helping the children with autism that are having a hard time getting the help that they need because of those deductibles that were being not met because their families couldn't meet them.
01:03:09
Speaker
And so thank you for helping us with that.
01:03:13
Speaker
It's a pleasure, guys.
01:03:14
Speaker
Listen, we loved helping you guys with flipping the script.
01:03:18
Speaker
And if you put something else together, listen, give me a holler.
01:03:21
Speaker
I'm always there to support.
01:03:23
Speaker
Listen, we have to give back to the community.
01:03:26
Speaker
That's kind of my philosophy.
01:03:29
Speaker
And it's not like a philosophy that I've always had.
01:03:32
Speaker
But let me just, if I can talk about this for two seconds and I'll wrap this up and you guys will find it amazing.
01:03:38
Speaker
In 1950...
01:03:41
Speaker
there was the Damon Runyon Cancer Fund and Elvin G, Elvin Gottlieb, David Gottlieb, a bunch of manufacturers,
01:03:53
Speaker
donated funds to this cancer research fund in the 50s.
01:03:58
Speaker
So if you go back in history, the pinball companies have always been supportive of different communities to give back, right?
01:04:09
Speaker
It's a cancer research, it's Make-A-Wish Foundation, it's flipping the script.
01:04:16
Speaker
There are many others that we kind of give back to the community.
01:04:20
Speaker
and help, you know, so I mean, even Project Pinball too.
01:04:23
Speaker
So we there are there are many nice things we will definitely help as long as you guys are on board, right?
01:04:31
Speaker
And everything's up and up.
01:04:33
Speaker
I have no problem helping because it gives back to the community in a large way.
01:04:37
Speaker
And that that's what I feel like.
01:04:38
Speaker
Definitely.
01:04:40
Speaker
Thanks again.
01:04:41
Speaker
Thanks again.
01:04:42
Speaker
And I guess I'll see you in, well, maybe in two weeks, Scott.
01:04:44
Speaker
We'll see how December goes.
01:04:45
Speaker
We have something coming up, a team up.
01:04:48
Speaker
Remember?
01:04:49
Speaker
Oh, yes.
01:04:49
Speaker
Yes, we do.
01:04:50
Speaker
A special Christmas up.
01:04:52
Speaker
So, all right.
01:04:53
Speaker
See you later.
01:04:54
Speaker
See you guys.
01:05:10
Speaker
you