Transcript
Speaker: Thanks for tuning in to Loser Kid Pinball Podcast.
Speaker: I bet you didn't think we'd be back so soon, but it's a crazy, it's been a crazy weekend.
Speaker: We're on episode 125.
Speaker: I am Josh Roop with me, my co-host as always.
Speaker: Scott Larson.
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?
Speaker: I will call Zach and Nicole Manning at Flippin' Out Pinball.
Speaker: They will always take care of you.
Speaker: They, I told you, they, they just helped out my friend who just bought us first pinball machine.
Speaker: So if you are looking for that galactic tank force or you're looking to get anything else, just contact them.
Speaker: They'll be able to help you out.
Speaker: Definitely.
Speaker: And their customer service is amazing.
Speaker: Like, I know Zach has taken parts off of his own personal game.
Speaker: Well, Greg Bone took his, the scoop sensor from Rush.
Speaker: I still need to find it because it's in a box.
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.
Speaker: Way to go.
Speaker: Yeah, it's, hey, we went through a renovation.
Speaker: You know how it is.
Speaker: But yes, they're great.
Speaker: Flipping out pinball.
Speaker: Okay, before we get to our guests, I want to just make a quick just 30-second disclaimer from our last episode, 124.
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.
Speaker: My disclaimer is, though, is I just want to –
Speaker: Point one thing out.
Speaker: We did use a NAP article as our example in our discussion of that.
Speaker: And it was never meant for malice or attack or to slight Jason.
Speaker: Jason's a great guy.
Speaker: We appreciate what he does with NAP Arcade and love his journalistic approach.
Speaker: So I just wanted to put that out there because there was some misconceptions there.
Speaker: But I just wanted to clear that all up.
Speaker: We love Jason.
Speaker: Love what he's doing.
Speaker: We appreciate everything that he covers.
Speaker: And it was a wonderful article.
Speaker: If you haven't checked it out, it was the first details on.
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
Speaker: Being one of the people who's putting on Expo and Expo 40 is coming up.
Speaker: He also is involved with American Pinball.
Speaker: And so we have the David Fix.
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.
Speaker: He doesn't have it on today, though.
Speaker: I'm not really sure why he didn't wear it for the episode.
Speaker: But anyway, David, how you doing?
Speaker: I'm doing really good.
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.
Speaker: True.
Speaker: I guess it's true.
Speaker: We do show it on YouTube, though.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: Well, there you go.
Speaker: Now I know why everybody's watching it.
Speaker: You can put your shirt back on.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But we're showing from the waist up.
Speaker: You don't have to worry about that.
Speaker: That's true.
Speaker: That's true.
Speaker: Well, not only that, now I answer all the questions that the man does have hair.
Speaker: I know Jack Connery is always asking.
Speaker: I've never seen David without a hat.
Speaker: Oh, there you go.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I don't.
Speaker: So that's why I always wear my hat.
Speaker: Not much up there anymore.
Speaker: I've been pulling it out, but, you know, that's okay.
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.
Speaker: So let's talk about some of these.
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.
Speaker: Is that true?
Speaker: No, that's not true.
Speaker: So we are doing some unlicensed titles.
Speaker: Okay.
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.
Speaker: So yes, the next game we have coming out is a original title.
Speaker: It is not like game after that.
Speaker: let's just say it's a follow-up game.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And then after that is a license.
Speaker: And the game after that is a license.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So you're basically mixing this up.
Speaker: It's trying to find that balance because people are always asking for original titles.
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.
Speaker: But you're trying to appease both crowds, it seems like.
Speaker: Yeah.
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?
Speaker: And, you know, some people love some of the unlicensed titles.
Speaker: Listen, some of the unlicensed titles from Williams became licensed, right?
Speaker: Look at Mortal Kombat, for crying out loud.
Speaker: But, you know, that's very easy for...
Speaker: and let the team be creative.
Speaker: That's the other thing.
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.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So you get, you get shot down pretty easy.
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.
Speaker: So we're excited about it.
Speaker: Nice.
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.
Speaker: And so, uh,
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.
Speaker: So.
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.
Speaker: Then you have Hot Wheels, which was your first license theme.
Speaker: And then you have Legends of Valhalla, which was Scott's homebrew that turned into a very functional game.
Speaker: I actually liked of all the games I played at that expo.
Speaker: Legends was pretty high on my list because it was a very simple approach, but it was still visually very cool.
Speaker: And then your latest one, Galactic Tank Force.
Speaker: So how's Galactic Tank Force doing?
Speaker: You talked about, now there's the special one that has like the light up tracks and everything like that.
Speaker: When you fold it down, it looks like a tank.
Speaker: So how's it doing?
Speaker: And what's your vision for it in the future?
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.
Speaker: So, and most of the people who play it become a fan of it very fast.
Speaker: Right now, we are currently in the production of the signature version of Galactic Tank Force.
Speaker: We're producing all 200 of them, and we will have them done before Christmas.
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.
Speaker: This is your top of the line.
Speaker: This is your high-end model.
Speaker: All bells and whistles.
Speaker: All bells and whistles.
Speaker: Nothing holding us back.
Speaker: That will be ready as soon as you order it from your distributors.
Speaker: You want one?
Speaker: Call Zach and Nicole at Flippin' Out.
Speaker: They'll get you in touch with, they'll get it taken care of for you right away.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: So one question I have, because it sounds like you guys are pretty far out on what you have an idea of making.
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.
Speaker: But we're seeing a little bit more of a delay between tiles now.
Speaker: Are you guys going to try to tighten that up?
Speaker: Because it seems like four titles.
Speaker: That's pretty far out.
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?
Speaker: Well, we've been trying to get to the two games a year model.
Speaker: And we are getting, we've been, the next two games were being built and designed in parallel.
Speaker: Okay.
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.
Speaker: So we will definitely have both next year in 2024.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: The cool thing about this is that we continue to develop the team, right?
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.
Speaker: I can't believe it's three years already.
Speaker: But when I walked through the door, we had, you know, we just let go of the designer.
Speaker: We didn't have anybody.
Speaker: The front office was kind of empty.
Speaker: We brought in Scott's game, Legends of Valhalla, and we turned around and had it out 10 months.
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...
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.
Speaker: We have two full-time animators on this game.
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.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So then with the team, we brought in Ryan, um,
Speaker: Over a year ago, and he's just now, his white wood is flipping on his game.
Speaker: And, you know, Dennis has been working on his.
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.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And Barry was a great guy.
Speaker: We were so excited to have him join us.
Speaker: Lose him so quickly after his first game was final to him.
Speaker: And then we had to build up the Whitewood.
Speaker: But there were some small adjustments and some changes.
Speaker: And Dennis jumped in and Ryan jumped in and we kind of helped put Barry's game together.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: Everything on this game is a family.
Speaker: We're all there trying very hard because we're not a big group.
Speaker: American is a very small office.
Speaker: We have two animators, one art director.
Speaker: Jack Hager, which we had on the show.
Speaker: Which you guys had on the show, right?
Speaker: And then we hire in people like Chris Franchi and other artists.
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.
Speaker: And then we just have Dennis Schober.
Speaker: And Ryan is designers and Zofia is my mechanical engineer.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Guys.
Speaker: Now, I mean, if you think about it, I've never seen a pinball company smaller.
Speaker: Well, it's probably true.
Speaker: And let's get something else out of the way.
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.
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.
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.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: True, but you've got to remember the factory is a monster, right?
Speaker: That's true.
Speaker: The factory is a monster.
Speaker: It always needs to be fed.
Speaker: Right, and if the factory is a monster for me, just imagine what it's like for people like my competitors, right?
Speaker: They're pumping out tons of machines, and there's reasons for that, right?
Speaker: So you're right.
Speaker: Go ahead.
Speaker: There was another rumor that kind of spewed out because you did have...
Speaker: the 300 poster up, up in your, uh, in your assembly line.
Speaker: And I think there were some people who misinterpreted the meaning of that.
Speaker: So you want to go into that?
Speaker: So, so it's official.
Speaker: It's official.
Speaker: We got 300, the Spartan story coming from American pinball, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, that's not.
Speaker: That was Legends of Valhalla.
Speaker: That was Legends of Valhalla.
Speaker: Very good, Scott.
Speaker: Very good.
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: Spartans 300 is not the next title.
Speaker: And here's the gist of it.
Speaker: The 300 was a milestone for the company.
Speaker: And we're right on target for it.
Speaker: So I'm happy for the team.
Speaker: 300 gets us to the most amount of machines that American Pinball has ever made to date in one year.
Speaker: So that was the goal.
Speaker: We put out the gauntlet for the production team.
Speaker: We said to him, listen, we hit 300 by December of this time,
Speaker: In December, we have now just hit the highest number that this little factory has ever made, and then some.
Speaker: So we continue to strive.
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.
Speaker: No, we've made...
Speaker: We made a lot of games this year, and that 300 is actually a very nice number.
Speaker: Think about it.
Speaker: We, in one year, we ended up, we started, we had on the line back in January, Legends of Valhalla and Oktoberfest.
Speaker: Then we went over and did the Hot Wheels and then Galactic.
Speaker: So we hit all four of those.
Speaker: And now we're finishing with Houdini and Galactic.
Speaker: So in one year, we've had all the machines on the line.
Speaker: So it's been very good for us.
Speaker: And so you have two lines is what you're saying then?
Speaker: That's correct.
Speaker: Two independent lines.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And a quick calculation means that you're putting out a game roughly one a day.
Speaker: If your goal is 300.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: I see what you're saying.
Speaker: No, no, no, no.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: My goal is more like, you know, if we get into 15 to 20 a day, that's a good number for us.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So we do have striving marks that we're trying to hit.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: It was an inspirational thing to motivate employees and companies.
Speaker: That sounds about right.
Speaker: And also it was during Halloween.
Speaker: So we thought we'd keep it a little, you know, no do or die.
Speaker: There's only, and there is no try.
Speaker: That kind of thing.
Speaker: We're just like, do it.
Speaker: You know, that kind of thing.
Speaker: But we're staying with the holiday spirit too.
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.
Speaker: Okay, here's the one question.
Speaker: I'm going to ask it before Josh does.
Speaker: Did you dress up like Leonidas for Halloween?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Oh, that was an opportunity missed.
Speaker: Definitely.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, but I did have two employees dress up as me.
Speaker: So there you go.
Speaker: I did see the pictures.
Speaker: It was pretty funny.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So there you go.
Speaker: And then you all said, would the real Dave Fix stand for it?
Speaker: I said, I'll sign a check.
Speaker: And they said, well, we'll take that one.
Speaker: Oh, that's great.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: But we've been doing very well for our company this year, and I'm very proud of the team.
Speaker: And like I said, we're a small little family, but we're doing what we can do.
Speaker: We're the little guy, and we're doing some good numbers, and Galactic Tank Force is doing very well.
Speaker: There's been some small little hitches.
Speaker: With the very beginning, but we've worked through those.
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.
Speaker: And I'm just going to throw this out there.
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.
Speaker: It's kind of stupid.
Speaker: We have people coming and going and there's been some times we miss a step.
Speaker: One of the things that we found out late just recently was the team wasn't putting Threadlock on the shooter lane switch.
Speaker: Oh, that's actually happened to other companies.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's the blue.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The blue Loctite.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What happens is I found it at IEPA.
Speaker: You know, we hit this game.
Speaker: It was working beautifully.
Speaker: And then the next day it was caused me all kinds of grief.
Speaker: What the hell?
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
Speaker: But if it isn't that, reach out to our service department.
Speaker: We will take care of it.
Speaker: Like I said, we're a small group.
Speaker: We are trying as hard as we can to, you know, we're fighting Goliath.
Speaker: You know, I don't have the budgets that I'd love to have at other companies, but we're doing really well.
Speaker: One thing you brought up was sadly Barry passed away too soon, but that does leave a vacancy for designers.
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?
Speaker: Pretty much.
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?
Speaker: Are we not going to see another pin from them?
Speaker: I'm going to say no.
Speaker: We talked about it.
Speaker: They are working on a pin right now.
Speaker: So I have Barry's game.
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.
Speaker: And then Dennis is already working on a game after that.
Speaker: We have different games in development stages.
Speaker: So we do have stuff that we continue to work on.
Speaker: We're not slouches.
Speaker: Right.
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.
Speaker: we'll go from there.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I'm going to follow up on that because you talked about that.
Speaker: The American dream.
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.
Speaker: And if it looks like you got potential kid, we may be able to find a spot for you in the company.
Speaker: Is that still the case?
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And it is.
Speaker: And I will tell you that the American dream winner from two years ago,
Speaker: He's been at our company and we're working on his title.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That kind of thing.
Speaker: We put it in the back burner, but we're kind of keeping that quiet.
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.
Speaker: So we continue to look at people.
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.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: And I don't mean to disparage designers.
Speaker: I'm just saying that there's more involved.
Speaker: And you're not disparaging designers.
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.
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?
Speaker: Ryan will pull me in or Dennis will pull me in and say, hey, play, shoot this.
Speaker: What do you think?
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.
Speaker: Just throw it out there, you know.
Speaker: And then they'll say, well, it's not a bad idea.
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.
Speaker: Here, shoot this.
Speaker: Tell me what you think.
Speaker: And, you know, and it's great.
Speaker: And we've done that also when we get close to the final Whitewood.
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.
Speaker: And then they kind of give us their feedback.
Speaker: I mean,
Speaker: This is how we develop, right?
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?
Speaker: What do you think, kid?
Speaker: You know, I mean, it wouldn't happen.
Speaker: There are no test locations anymore.
Speaker: No test locations whatsoever for pinball.
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.
Speaker: There's nothing there.
Speaker: There's other test locations around.
Speaker: So the one thing I will say is that I do use Interium as a test location.
Speaker: Now, how do I use it as a test location?
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.
Speaker: I mean, I'm testing power supplies.
Speaker: I'm testing...
Speaker: new board systems.
Speaker: I'm testing all kinds of crazy stuff in there.
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.
Speaker: Which is huge.
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.
Speaker: It's included.
Speaker: David, I do want to talk about Expo 2.
Speaker: What else do we need to know about American Pinball that we are not smart enough to ask?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That's a trick question there.
Speaker: There are many crazy things at American Pinball, and we continue to develop a lot of fun stuff.
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...
Speaker: I love doing that every once in a while.
Speaker: So just sit back and wait and you'll find out.
Speaker: One of the other things is that we did do a special deal for Black Friday for the limited edition of Valhalla.
Speaker: We gave an instant $400 discount for anybody who ordered a brand new limited Valhalla while supplies last.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: We are running that as of December 4th today until the 15th of December.
Speaker: So if you're interested in a limited edition, and it's a small amount.
Speaker: So what happened was we originally had 500.
Speaker: We got through the full production.
Speaker: Some customers have canceled.
Speaker: Some big distributors didn't take their full allotment.
Speaker: So I have, do I have hundreds?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Do I have over 50?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Do I have less than 50?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: But once they're gone, they're gone.
Speaker: But what I'm doing is I'm gonna kind of give an incentive.
Speaker: And so for the next two weeks, we're changing the MRP.
Speaker: which gives it a full discount to $79.95.
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.
Speaker: And it's ready to ship.
Speaker: They're in stock.
Speaker: So we will probably be shipping them out.
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
Speaker: I have it up for you, so I can just list it off.
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.
Speaker: That's right.
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...
Speaker: This is high end, gold foil, gold powder coating.
Speaker: So this is everything you'd want in the top of the line version.
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.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: And here's the other thing.
Speaker: American has always given out some really nice machines, right?
Speaker: I mean, look, our Houdini, which had a special powder coat, all the toys, all that, that's $73.95.
Speaker: You know, that's a decent price.
Speaker: Oktoberfest, also.
Speaker: Hot Wheels, $73.95.
Speaker: I do have one follow up question on Oktoberfest.
Speaker: So when I have played it, that ramp on the left side is really hard to hit.
Speaker: So so is it ramp on the left side?
Speaker: What was that?
Speaker: Which ramp on the left side?
Speaker: The one that goes like straight up.
Speaker: It's like a ski jump.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So is it, have you done anything to tweak the design or the flipper power to make sure?
Speaker: Now, guaranteed, I have played it at expos and things like that.
Speaker: So I totally understand that the power supply is different at one of those mega shows because a lot of times the...
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.
Speaker: Correct.
Speaker: You're talking about at a show.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And going to run Pinball Expo.
Speaker: I can tell you, Pinball Expo, we were running the power at 109, 110 on occasions.
Speaker: You're talking about so many breakers, so many circuits, so many everything, right?
Speaker: At your home, you're running it usually 115, 120.
Speaker: So your power, you're fully saturating your power supply.
Speaker: What we have with like Expos, you're not getting that full power.
Speaker: Now,
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.
Speaker: It's a purple color.
Speaker: Normally they're all orange.
Speaker: I'm sorry, not orange.
Speaker: Orange.
Speaker: They're all blue.
Speaker: And the purple one we dial up.
Speaker: So we just jump it up to and it goes right up that ramp.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So there's a fix is basically what you're saying.
Speaker: There's a David Fix fix for the ramp.
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.
Speaker: But we had a fix with that with a special coil stop.
Speaker: So if you can't make it, you might want to check your coil stop, make sure it is the correct one.
Speaker: If it isn't, contact us.
Speaker: We'll get you the right one.
Speaker: Okay.
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.
Speaker: Uh, I don't think this is unusual.
Speaker: You've been in the hobby for a while.
Speaker: Um, where do you think the market is, is turning to head with what we're seeing?
Speaker: Ah,
Speaker: That's a question that is in every boardroom across every pinball company in the United States and around overseas too.
Speaker: We have meetings once a month about this.
Speaker: Is the pinball going to continue?
Speaker: What's the price value?
Speaker: Where do we see the market going?
Speaker: Trust me, I had an overseas call today just trying to figure out
Speaker: where we see the pricing.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So the price, you know, is very much what people are paying for games.
Speaker: However, one of the biggest things that I see is the thought, is the game really limited?
Speaker: Sure.
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.
Speaker: Now this year, there's another special limited version of Elvira.
Speaker: And when it came out, there was a special limited version of Elvira.
Speaker: I'm not saying anything about that, but the...
Speaker: I think you're pointing out what we have said before.
Speaker: Even on the last episode, we talked about this.
Speaker: Yeah, we talked about this.
Speaker: Other companies, and not to pick on one company, JJP did it also when The Hobbit came out.
Speaker: They had the standard edition, the limited edition, then they had the smog edition, and then they had the black arrow edition.
Speaker: And so this is not new.
Speaker: However, you're bringing up is, do people feel like they're getting something exclusive?
Speaker: Is that what I'm getting at?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And that's kind of the reason that, like, listen, the signature edition of Galactic Tank Force, that's it.
Speaker: 200, we're done.
Speaker: The limited edition, it's done.
Speaker: In fact, going forward, you probably will see other manufacturers, maybe myself, cut back on the limited numbers a little bit.
Speaker: But, you know...
Speaker: you gotta, you gotta make sure that you don't kill your own market.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I mean, you know, it's, it's like, you know, I can buy the greatest looking brand new car.
Speaker: And then a year later, go out and buy the same car.
Speaker: It's like, okay, it's not, you know, it's not the, it's not the, um,
Speaker: I'm probably going to get beat up for this, but it's not the Hellcat edition, right?
Speaker: You know, is it that Dodge Hellcat, you know, that rare one that they brought out three or four years ago?
Speaker: No, it's the newer one, but it's still, you know, does it depreciate the value?
Speaker: At the end of the day, it makes you wonder.
Speaker: It makes me, as a collector, remember, like I was telling Josh earlier, I have 150 pins, right?
Speaker: Yeah, that's it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: In fact, the one sitting behind me right here is a pistol poker.
Speaker: That's number one from LNG.
Speaker: That's the first one that they produced.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then I have number four at the office right now of Full Throttle.
Speaker: So, you know, those are limited, very unique games to have.
Speaker: Fun play, you know, that's, you know, what are you buying them for?
Speaker: Because you're enjoying them, right?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: If you want to play the stock market or buy gold, go do that.
Speaker: These are pinball machines.
Speaker: It's not on the gold standard.
Speaker: But I see the market really is it's a buyer's market right now.
Speaker: It really is a buyer's market.
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.
Speaker: And he probably has them.
Speaker: You could buy any of the American games.
Speaker: You could buy any of the JJP games.
Speaker: You could buy any of those.
Speaker: I mean, so, you know, it depends on where you want to invest your money.
Speaker: If you're enjoying the game.
Speaker: So, you know, hats off to you.
Speaker: So one thing, too, we talked about is inflation.
Speaker: And one thing I wanted to point out, too, is when Bowley Williams closed their doors in 1999,
Speaker: And they had revenge for Mars.
Speaker: They were doing that.
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,
Speaker: today's inflation is 6,500 bucks.
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.
Speaker: And obviously the games today have a lot more in them.
Speaker: So how do you battle that perception of like you're already overpriced for what you're selling at?
Speaker: Well, let's talk about that for a second.
Speaker: I think of, you know, listen, I sit there
Speaker: I mean, I'm running a pinball company.
Speaker: I can do a calculation in my head pretty quickly of anybody's machines, right?
Speaker: When you're in the industry, you probably could do that.
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.
Speaker: It's like, okay, this is what his BOM is.
Speaker: It's just like, you know, we all know.
Speaker: Bailey Williams, let's talk about that for a minute.
Speaker: Pinball 2000 was groundbreaking.
Speaker: It was earth-shattering.
Speaker: It was an amazing...
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
Speaker: If you ask some people in the industry that know, which I've had that conversation, the license wasn't much more.
Speaker: It wasn't that.
Speaker: It was just them trying to see what the market could sustain.
Speaker: And then when they had lost orders, they were like, you know what, this is not our way.
Speaker: We really want to get into the...
Speaker: into the slot machine business.
Speaker: You know, casino gambling.
Speaker: Now think about it, WMS at that time has now been sold as part of scientific gaming.
Speaker: You know, it's a completely different, you know, entity.
Speaker: Where are they now?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
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.
Speaker: She went over to the slot reel division, Jack Hager.
Speaker: You know, he was on the show.
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
Speaker: I feel for the people in Ukraine.
Speaker: Then you have now this whole thing with Palestine and Israel, right?
Speaker: There's another conflict that's not great.
Speaker: This does drive the price of goods and stuff up.
Speaker: So it's tough.
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,
Speaker: It's comparable, but if I looked at a price list, let's say from 1999 to now, it's significantly lower, right?
Speaker: Your flipper mechs are a lot cheaper, pop bumpers are a lot cheaper, all that stuff.
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.
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.
Speaker: There you go.
Speaker: So, you know, we're trying to make it, you know, that we're not gouging you.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So let's talk about Expo.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: So Expo, you have a big anniversary coming up.
Speaker: So you have the 40th coming up.
Speaker: And if I understand correctly, this time we're also increasing the size.
Speaker: That's correct.
Speaker: The last two Expos, we were at 60,000 square feet.
Speaker: We're going to 90,000, just shy of 100,000 square feet in that facility.
Speaker: We're also expanding Expo.
Speaker: Okay, so go on.
Speaker: Tell me more about that.
Speaker: If you haven't checked out the website, check out the website, but we're starting on Tuesday.
Speaker: Of Expo this year.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Tuesday.
Speaker: And then Wednesday.
Speaker: Then Thursday.
Speaker: Then Friday.
Speaker: Then Saturday.
Speaker: People think we've lost our mind.
Speaker: I might agree with them.
Speaker: That's a lot.
Speaker: Seminars don't start until Thursday.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Seminars don't start until Thursday.
Speaker: And neither does the vending hall open until Thursday.
Speaker: So what are we going to do Tuesday and Wednesday?
Speaker: Well...
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.
Speaker: So that is a cool thing.
Speaker: So you're going to get to go to Chicago Gaming.
Speaker: You're going to get to go to Stern.
Speaker: You're going to get to go to American Pinball.
Speaker: You're going to get to go to Jersey Jack.
Speaker: So you've got four manufacturers that are opening their doors for the 40th to see how pinball machines are made.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: So that is a huge undertaking for a lot of us.
Speaker: That's huge.
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.
Speaker: So three hours of the day.
Speaker: What else are people going to do those days?
Speaker: So we're also going to be going, well, so the first tour is on Tuesday afternoon.
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.
Speaker: Galloping Ghost is what, on your schedule, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, Galloping Ghost for the rest of the evening.
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.
Speaker: Then the seminars and the expo room and everything else just kicks off Thursday afternoon at noon.
Speaker: And then we just go into the whole thing.
Speaker: We're also talking.
Speaker: We may have a special speaker come to Expo.
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.
Speaker: And he only did one pinball show in his history and it was ours.
Speaker: And we're trying to bring him back for meet and greet, you know, some kind of a deal.
Speaker: So we're in negotiations right now with him coming back.
Speaker: That's going to be good.
Speaker: As soon as we know, we'll let you guys know.
Speaker: But I think you guys can gather from my hints who it is.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: But again, it's the 40th, right?
Speaker: Think about it.
Speaker: 40 years ago, Pinball Expo got started.
Speaker: And here's a little trivia question for you two guys.
Speaker: So Josh and Scott, what was the game that we gave away at the very first Pinball Expo?
Speaker: Okay, so let's rewind. 1984.
Speaker: Oh, no, no, no looking at ID.
Speaker: No, I'm not.
Speaker: I'm not.
Speaker: I'm okay.
Speaker: I'm thinking that's in, was it that year?
Speaker: Was it a black night 2000?
Speaker: No, Black Knight 2000.
Speaker: I'm sorry.
Speaker: I'm thinking, I'm sorry.
Speaker: Black Knight.
Speaker: Was it a Black Knight?
Speaker: It was 80.
Speaker: Okay, well, you said, so 83.
Speaker: 84, 85. 84.
Speaker: Was it a space shuttle?
Speaker: Ooh, good guess.
Speaker: Ooh, that is a really good guess.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It was a very good guess, but the factory was still dark.
Speaker: And space shuttle was the first game to keep the lights on, as it were.
Speaker: Because that's right after the arcade crash.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Ooh.
Speaker: Okay, give me a hint.
Speaker: Give me a hint.
Speaker: Barry Osler.
Speaker: Pinbot?
Speaker: Pinbot.
Speaker: Very good.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: It's actually behind you.
Speaker: It's off.
Speaker: It's not that one.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: But it's very interesting.
Speaker: And that's when David Fix got his first pinbot.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, but Pinbot was the very first game that we gave away.
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.
Speaker: So there you go.
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.
Speaker: He's the first one that won the very first tournament at Pinball Expo.
Speaker: That's good to know.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: A little history in that, you know, it's kind of fun, but expo has been this growing thing for many years.
Speaker: And, you know, you know, people say, Dave, how are you doing this with American and pinball expo?
Speaker: Can you keep doing it?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So I've already told Rob, I says, Rob, I'm going to help you out with the 40th.
Speaker: Let's see where we, where we go with that.
Speaker: But I don't know after this, I mean, you know, the company is getting bigger.
Speaker: I'm,
Speaker: getting pulled two ways.
Speaker: I'm not as young as I used to be.
Speaker: The hairline is growing back.
Speaker: I mean, I'm losing hair.
Speaker: You're like 39 now, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Going on 59.
Speaker: Thank you very much.
Speaker: I wish.
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.
Speaker: And I'm kind of a bear around the office.
Speaker: Some people will say, oh, he's trying to do this, that, the other thing.
Speaker: He's getting everything ready, and then he's also doing expo.
Speaker: And this year was even more stressful for me because I took a week off to go to IEPA Europe.
Speaker: which was September in Vienna.
Speaker: That was gorgeous.
Speaker: Did that show, met a lot of people, m ade a lot of sales there, and then came back, did an expo, turned around, went to IAAPA, Orlando, came back.
Speaker: I mean, frequent flyer miles, there you go, it's racking up.
Speaker: And a little bit later on this year, in a few weeks, I'll be heading back down to Florida.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: But it's fun.
Speaker: I'm kind of like chasing the silver ball, as it were.
Speaker: But, you know, the industry is still exploding, right?
Speaker: It's moving.
Speaker: It has a little bit of a pause right now because people, it's like I said, it's a buyer's market.
Speaker: But, you know, there will be a writing of the ship, as I call it.
Speaker: Things will even out.
Speaker: And I think...
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.
Speaker: I would say the numbers you were saying, $73.95, was that correct, on a lot of your models?
Speaker: That's pretty comparable to the base models of competitors across the board.
Speaker: And like you're saying, American games are fairly well packed for what you buy, even on the base model.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: So that's quite the deal.
Speaker: It is quite the deal.
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.
Speaker: It's $79.95, which is a really smoking deal.
Speaker: While they're available, limited is few, but, you know, those might be gone.
Speaker: And then...
Speaker: you know, we still make, you know, nobody's been asking for the classic right now.
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.
Speaker: And all the new updates for legends.
Speaker: So legends now has like the jukebox mode and it has all the extra goodies that's in there.
Speaker: It has the code plays really good.
Speaker: It's been used at some tournaments.
Speaker: Some tournament players are taking note of how to play this game.
Speaker: It's not easy.
Speaker: I know it was on Carl DeAndalus and IE Pinball.
Speaker: And it's been also overseas at the European.
Speaker: I can't think of what his name was.
Speaker: The young man over in Germany or Austria.
Speaker: Who's Daniele?
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, no, no, no, it's on my, it's on our webpage that I do know.
Speaker: But, you know, they, they streamed it, right?
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.
Speaker: So I have to give.
Speaker: Scott and Frank hats off and thanking Steve for making it more of a tournament-ready game.
Speaker: It's come together very nicely.
Speaker: A lot of people are now just discovering it.
Speaker: I've been hearing a lot of people saying it's kind of like a diamond in the rough.
Speaker: It's a quiet little secret.
Speaker: It's got some really good stuff in it.
Speaker: You have to find it out.
Speaker: Looks like it's Abe Flips that's doing the Legends of Valhalla complete playthrough.
Speaker: Gotcha.
Speaker: Well, that brings me to another question as well.
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.
Speaker: What has happened with the third?
Speaker: I don't think I've heard much since Expo of last year, or maybe it was two years ago.
Speaker: Third model?
Speaker: Yeah, I want to say there was like a special plus or like a, I could be wrong.
Speaker: No, there's always been a limited.
Speaker: And so what we do is we make a classic and a deluxe, right?
Speaker: Classic is your street run game.
Speaker: The deluxe is just, you know, shaker, knocker and magic glass upgrade to the classic.
Speaker: So those are the two there.
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.
Speaker: The signature version of Galactic Tank Force right now has got that lenticular back glass, right?
Speaker: 108 layers of artwork from Franchi.
Speaker: So it actually is stacked to a point where it looks like it's two feet back.
Speaker: So when you're looking around, it's like, wow, that is pretty cool.
Speaker: So, you know, we try to make that games when they're limited or special, special.
Speaker: And that's all you get.
Speaker: You know, you just get those for those.
Speaker: So it's kind of cool.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: Well, David, you've been great.
Speaker: I don't know if we, do you have any more questions for him, Scott?
Speaker: Uh, well, I was just going to follow up.
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.
Speaker: And so they, they made accommodations to make sure the international market was going to get some, uh, some numbers.
Speaker: Is that correct, Dave?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Here's the thing.
Speaker: We sat down as a company and we had made a decision as a group, but I got the final say on it.
Speaker: And I said, okay, as a group, we said, we're going to do 300.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: And we went day one and we announced it.
Speaker: And within 24 hours to the day of the announcement, eight o'clock the next day, we had well over 500.
Speaker: So we brought it back.
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
Speaker: I was my first launch with the company and the ownership said, no, let's try three.
Speaker: I said, okay.
Speaker: Then I called him back in 24 hours and said, we got over 500 orders.
Speaker: I bumped it to 500.
Speaker: He says, okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I think that was a reasonable move because there was a reason behind it.
Speaker: Like there was an understandable reason.
Speaker: It wasn't a...
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.
Speaker: However, yours seemed to be a, well, we set this limit, but sold out way faster than we thought.
Speaker: So we're making accommodations, especially for the international market.
Speaker: Correct.
Speaker: And then there were still more than that, right?
Speaker: There were still well more than that.
Speaker: We were like, I think it was 630 or 640.
Speaker: So, you know, we could have went 600, right?
Speaker: But no, we kept it at 500.
Speaker: And, you know, it took us some time to build all those.
Speaker: And, you know, we got some of the classics out to some of those other people that wanted it still.
Speaker: And then we had a few...
Speaker: distributors who, you know, like, Hey, we got like five or whatever it is.
Speaker: And they kind of said, well, hold on to them.
Speaker: We'll get back to you.
Speaker: And then they finally came back and canceled.
Speaker: So all of a sudden I have a little, little inventory.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Which happens with every company actually.
Speaker: Correct.
Speaker: But here's the, here's the nice thing, right?
Speaker: Until December 15th, call your distributor, put an order in, you're going to save 400 bucks.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That's pretty good.
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?
Speaker: The one we've made the most?
Speaker: Yeah, the most of.
Speaker: Houdini, baby.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: With the original, the OG.
Speaker: The original OG?
Speaker: Listen, we are making Houdini right now.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Take a look, Josh, if you can, real quick on IDPP.
Speaker: What game came out in 2017?
Speaker: That's a question.
Speaker: What game came out 2017?
Speaker: October of 2016, we announced Houdini.
Speaker: Texas of 2017, we brought Houdini to the market.
Speaker: Which is nuts.
Speaker: It's insane.
Speaker: Yeah, that's crazy.
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?
Speaker: It looks like you're going up against Alice Cooper, Guardians of the Galaxy.
Speaker: Multimorphic had just hit the scene that year, too, so they had a lot of their games.
Speaker: Star Wars, which is a beast of a theme, and no one can deny that.
Speaker: Going up against faults of ACDC.
Speaker: Attack for Mars was announced that year as well.
Speaker: And that's, that's going up against another monster of a game.
Speaker: That's, that's impressive.
Speaker: You guys are still making Houdini's.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Well, I, I, I just ran to, my wife came in for a second and the cat got trapped in here.
Speaker: So the cat was freaking out.
Speaker: So I went over, but I looked down and the funny thing is I saw my original pinball expo lanyard sitting over there.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: Nice.
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.
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.
Speaker: Like your remarks are not as credible, I guess.
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.
Speaker: Five-year mark.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Opinion approved.
Speaker: Opinion approved.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Opinion approved.
Speaker: You can get your chip.
Speaker: You know, I guess it kind of goes back to your last episode.
Speaker: I mean, we can go back there a little bit and just talk about that for a second.
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.
Speaker: Make sure that you're talking about the rich history, right?
Speaker: Make sure you got all the facts correct.
Speaker: Don't be mistaken.
Speaker: And understand that, you know, what you're saying is, you know, going to be impacting a lot of people.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You're talking about an industry that, you know, you can, you know, people think, oh, so what is it?
Speaker: It's a podcast.
Speaker: They can't hurt.
Speaker: Listen, you're not Siskel and Ebert.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Siskel and Ebert sat there in their front row of their balcony and said, this movie sucks.
Speaker: This movie was good.
Speaker: You know, it was like.
Speaker: By the way, you immediately targeted like the 50 and older crowd with Siskel and Ebert.
Speaker: I know, I know, I know.
Speaker: I had to.
Speaker: You know, hey, I'm that age, so, you know, I remember this.
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.
Speaker: There you go.
Speaker: Right here in Chicago.
Speaker: I'm old enough to remember Siskel and Ebert, yes.
Speaker: And you know what the funny thing is?
Speaker: Is Siskel and Ebert, if they said the movie stunk, I went and saw it.
Speaker: They had interesting tastes, I will definitely say.
Speaker: They definitely did.
Speaker: Go ahead.
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 Kids.
Speaker: I like you guys.
Speaker: You guys have always done...
Speaker: A very nice show.
Speaker: And you're informative, just like I like Nap Arcade.
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.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And there are other people that I think, you know, just, you know, do a nice job.
Speaker: And I go on their podcast an awful lot.
Speaker: So, or at sometimes.
Speaker: And then it's funny because I got a lot of heat.
Speaker: I think it was around April and May this year.
Speaker: They're like, where did Dave Fix go?
Speaker: You know, he kind of disappeared.
Speaker: He's not talking on podcasts or anything anymore.
Speaker: And, you know, one of the podcasters says, yeah, he's running a pinball company.
Speaker: Leave him alone.
Speaker: He's trying to do work.
Speaker: Getting busy.
Speaker: Not the PR guy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, not the PR guy.
Speaker: But like I said, I wanted to jump on here with the Loser Kids and definitely just give you guys a quick update.
Speaker: Thanks for having me on.
Speaker: Is there any other questions that Josh or Scott, anything you guys got out there?
Speaker: Anything?
Speaker: You know, the stock picks, what my next game title is, anything like that?
Speaker: Yeah, if you just want to share those.
Speaker: Those four next titles, I think we were talking like Golden Girls, I think was one of them before we started the episode.
Speaker: Hello Kitty, I heard you said the stock was good on that.
Speaker: So you guys snatched that up and that was good to go as well.
Speaker: The Nerds is up there.
Speaker: Animal House.
Speaker: Animal House, yeah.
Speaker: For the classic crowd, yeah.
Speaker: Big Trouble in Little China, I hear that one's coming too.
Speaker: You know, there's a lot of titles out there, right?
Speaker: And there's a lot of stuff that can be made into a pinball.
Speaker: But understand that, you know, there's just so much time and you want to hit the market just right, right?
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.
Speaker: And that is huge for me.
Speaker: You know, we're a small, we're a small company.
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?
Speaker: Barrels of fun, right?
Speaker: You've probably watched their little video, you know.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That's a very solid, I would say that that's a very solid opening for a new company.
Speaker: Oh, very solid.
Speaker: Good for, good for them.
Speaker: Hey, I just take the Gary Stern approach.
Speaker: Welcome to the swimming pool.
Speaker: Jump on it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Actually, this conversation has made me think of one more question.
Speaker: Earlier in the podcast, you talked about one of your future titles is going to be a continuation of a previous game.
Speaker: Is that a previous American game or is that a previous game?
Speaker: Can you elaborate on continuation?
Speaker: That's a very vague and interesting description.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It is not of an American game.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That's as far as I'm going to go with that, but it is a continuization.
Speaker: So people, I think people are going to go really crazy about that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They're going to go back in Dennis Norman's catalog and go, Oh my goodness.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Could it be somebody else?
Speaker: I think, Oh my goodness.
Speaker: I think they're doing uno.
Speaker: That's what they're doing.
Speaker: They're doing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Uno, there you go.
Speaker: Hey, that is a licensed theme right there.
Speaker: Draw four balls.
Speaker: They're doing a continuation of Spy Hunter from 1987.
Speaker: That game is so terrible.
Speaker: We couldn't get James Bond until we were going to do Spy Hunter.
Speaker: All right, Dave.
Speaker: Well, we appreciate you.
Speaker: Stick around for a minute.
Speaker: We want to get you an updated hat.
Speaker: I'm wearing the, did we decide this is the 2.0 or the 3.0 hat?
Speaker: This is the 3.0 hat.
Speaker: We have a new hat for you.
Speaker: We'll get you some stuff.
Speaker: And Josh, send us out.
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?
Speaker: Just call American Pimble.
Speaker: You can call the number.
Speaker: I'm right there.
Speaker: We have people at the front desk who will take the calls or push you over to me.
Speaker: You can also send me an email.
Speaker: David.Fix at AmericanPinball.com I don't hide.
Speaker: I'm there.
Speaker: Now granted, I might not get to you right away.
Speaker: You're still busy.
Speaker: You're still busy.
Speaker: Yeah.
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.
Speaker: Even though I was doing emails at IEPA, it just grows, right?
Speaker: I'm down to 15,000 right now, which is a good little churning moment for me.
Speaker: And, you know, I can get that back down.
Speaker: But it's just, it's a ton of stuff.
Speaker: There's a lot of stuff that goes on with running it.
Speaker: Well, if you want to get ahold of us, we are lose a kid pinball podcast at gmail.com.
Speaker: You can also find us on all the socials at loser kid pinball.
Speaker: That's Facebook, Instagram, X, Twitch, Twitter, YouTube, please subscribe, uh, follow all that jazz.
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.
Speaker: And he, he,
Speaker: Any question I asked, he was like, yes, let's do it.
Speaker: And it was amazing to work with David.
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.
Speaker: And you did something amazing.
Speaker: You stepped up when at the very last day we were packing everything up.
Speaker: We got hit and stolen from our booth.
Speaker: And it happened to be some signed American stuff.
Speaker: And you just stepped up, said, we'll get it taken care of.
Speaker: You got new banners.
Speaker: You got them signed.
Speaker: You got them shipped out.
Speaker: And it was amazing.
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.
Speaker: And so thank you for helping us with that.
Speaker: It's a pleasure, guys.
Speaker: Listen, we loved helping you guys with flipping the script.
Speaker: And if you put something else together, listen, give me a holler.
Speaker: I'm always there to support.
Speaker: Listen, we have to give back to the community.
Speaker: That's kind of my philosophy.
Speaker: And it's not like a philosophy that I've always had.
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.
Speaker: In 1950...
Speaker: there was the Damon Runyon Cancer Fund and Elvin G, Elvin Gottlieb, David Gottlieb, a bunch of manufacturers,
Speaker: donated funds to this cancer research fund in the 50s.
Speaker: So if you go back in history, the pinball companies have always been supportive of different communities to give back, right?
Speaker: It's a cancer research, it's Make-A-Wish Foundation, it's flipping the script.
Speaker: There are many others that we kind of give back to the community.
Speaker: and help, you know, so I mean, even Project Pinball too.
Speaker: So we there are there are many nice things we will definitely help as long as you guys are on board, right?
Speaker: And everything's up and up.
Speaker: I have no problem helping because it gives back to the community in a large way.
Speaker: And that that's what I feel like.
Speaker: Definitely.
Speaker: Thanks again.
Speaker: Thanks again.
Speaker: And I guess I'll see you in, well, maybe in two weeks, Scott.
Speaker: We'll see how December goes.
Speaker: We have something coming up, a team up.
Speaker: Remember?
Speaker: Oh, yes.
Speaker: Yes, we do.
Speaker: A special Christmas up.
Speaker: So, all right.
Speaker: See you later.
Speaker: See you guys.
Speaker: you
