Transcript
Speaker: Thanks for tuning in to Lose a Kid Pitball Podcast.
Speaker: This is episode 121.
Speaker: I am Josh Roop.
Speaker: With me, my co-captain.
Speaker: Almost always, Scott Larson.
Speaker: Almost always.
Speaker: Okay, money was a different deal.
Speaker: We'll get into that.
Speaker: We'll get into that.
Speaker: But before we get into the shenanigans, Scott.
Speaker: I know you want that labyrinth.
Speaker: I know you want that Elton John.
Speaker: Who are you calling if you're getting these games?
Speaker: I'm going to call flipping out pinball.
Speaker: They hooked me up with my pinball alley sign and also my pinball pop cap bumper sign.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And that's who I bought all my stuff through.
Speaker: Actually, so in addition to Elton John, in addition to labyrinth, I was really tempted to pull the trigger on a home pin version of Star Wars.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: They had a great deal on one.
Speaker: So seriously, they have deals coming up all the time.
Speaker: So go ahead and check them out and reach out.
Speaker: If there's something you're looking for, they may be able to find it for you.
Speaker: So definitely.
Speaker: And Zach's always got great inventory.
Speaker: If you ever want to know what his inventory is, hit up their Facebook page.
Speaker: They seem to keep it pretty updated.
Speaker: Yeah, pretty updated.
Speaker: So Scott, it's been, it's been like two weeks since we've recorded.
Speaker: Yeah, but you, you kind of surprised us.
Speaker: You were able to sneak in an extra recording.
Speaker: Let's talk about that.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So let's talk about the Larry DeMar episode.
Speaker: Cause this is what everyone's ranting and raving about.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I have not received so much mail about an episode that I have with Larry and the Larry's episode.
Speaker: It's only been out.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: four days at this point we're recording on Thursday night because, because it's like a unicorn because people, most people don't even know about Larry DeMar outside of the industry.
Speaker: And, and so this is, he, he really, like you said, sorry, I'm stumbling a little bit.
Speaker: You're good.
Speaker: That,
Speaker: You've been working this angle because we got the reference from Josh Sharp because we were asking, hey, who should we have on?
Speaker: What type of guests should we be looking for?
Speaker: And Josh recommended him.
Speaker: And he said he's like the godfather of modern code.
Speaker: No one's interviewed him that I am aware of.
Speaker: And so we've been working on him.
Speaker: And he legitimately sounds like he works all the time.
Speaker: Yes, he really does.
Speaker: And I thought he was kind of blowing me off.
Speaker: I think he's just legitimately that busy.
Speaker: Yeah, he's really that busy.
Speaker: And I just had an epiphany that like, hey, I'm going to be in Chicago.
Speaker: I know he lives in Chicago.
Speaker: Maybe I can convince him to come on.
Speaker: And that's why I was excited when he said, yeah, let's do it at Expo on that Thursday.
Speaker: And then he messaged me on that Monday like, my wife has had COVID.
Speaker: I haven't received I haven't gotten it yet.
Speaker: So I was really nervous.
Speaker: It still wasn't going to happen.
Speaker: But the cards played right.
Speaker: And Saturday night I was I was recording with Larry and Ron Hallett, a slam tilt reached out and said, congratulations.
Speaker: This is amazing.
Speaker: You know, Larry has never done an interview outside of like.
Speaker: tilt the battle, say pinball, which is the pinball 2000 documentary.
Speaker: If you haven't watched the super sad, uh, the end of pinball documentary.
Speaker: Well, no, I'm sorry.
Speaker: That's a special one.
Speaker: That's special one, but they're both kind of sad.
Speaker: Yeah, they are, but he was in that.
Speaker: And I was nervous.
Speaker: He, if you watch that documentary, Larry is, uh,
Speaker: It's only been like five years since William had closed when they did that.
Speaker: And so, and he was a higher up.
Speaker: The wounds are still fresh.
Speaker: Yeah, the wounds are still fresh at that point.
Speaker: And so...
Speaker: Anywho, long story short, I mean, we've received so much mail.
Speaker: Larry, right before we started recording this episode, he sent a message.
Speaker: Thanks, Josh.
Speaker: It was fun to talk to you about bits and pieces of my career.
Speaker: Can't believe anyone wanted to hear me rambling for two hours about my time in pinball.
Speaker: Reviewing this episode, I'm a little sad to see that I only mentioned a small number of amazing people I had the opportunity to work with on making many games over the years.
Speaker: The magic of Williams Valley Midway was the enormous number of smart, talented, fun, creative, innovative people that were all under one, then two, then three roofs.
Speaker: For those of you that I missed, you know I'm thinking you're amazing.
Speaker: I think you're amazing.
Speaker: And you are all a big part of the success of this company.
Speaker: That is...
Speaker: this man that's why i felt like looking at larry damar looking at the history of williams and and i say i say it multiple multiple times he has too many hands in the biggest hits of williams right in valley for it to be a coincidence right i mean starting off starting off with a fluke yeah it's not it's not i mean black knight space shuttle uh fun house bonsai run
Speaker: World Cup soccer, which is my personal favorite, that's what got me into pinball.
Speaker: You know, Adam's Family, Twilight Zone, all these games are some of the biggest selling numbers.
Speaker: And to listen to him talk about, like, extra ball, that was a feature he came up with.
Speaker: And, you know, the replay values increasing...
Speaker: Because they were talking about like replays were kind of killing right.
Speaker: You'd have an elite player who would play all day on like one coin drop.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so that's why, that's why the replay values go up and just some of the little stuff.
Speaker: This is now why I understand that Josh Sharp was calling him the godfather of modern pinball code because a lot of the stuff that is just commonplace in code today since the nineties is because, because of him.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because of him.
Speaker: And so it was amazing.
Speaker: And like I said, we've had so much feedback.
Speaker: We've had people, I don't remember people ever being like, you need to listen to this episode.
Speaker: And people are making public posts of, you need to go listen to this.
Speaker: The Spirit is Lit podcast.
Speaker: Thanks for giving us a shout out.
Speaker: You know, just people are, I have a feeling this is going to be one of our
Speaker: biggest listened to episodes.
Speaker: I think as it sits right now, it's so it's unique.
Speaker: It's, it's information that you can't get elsewhere.
Speaker: I mean, there's a lot of stuff we talk about that other podcasts cover, but this is something that is it's historical.
Speaker: It gives perspective.
Speaker: he reinforced what I have said.
Speaker: And I know you have felt this way too, that JJP actually saved pinball again because they, they raised the bar and said, Hey, we're going to make an expensive machine and we're going to sell it.
Speaker: And Stern said, Oh wait, you can do that.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So we're, we're going to make some, some better games.
Speaker: And then, then they just, you know, the, the jets came out and they just flew.
Speaker: I'd love to, that he was very, um,
Speaker: he wasn't reserved in a lot of his comments talking about the perfectionism mixed or marred with the insecurities of designers.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: But I think that's with a lot of really creative people.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And the hardest thing in anything is to follow up hits with another big hit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like it's the easiest job in the world is to go out there when you have nothing to lose.
Speaker: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker: But when you are a high production talent, you have a history of hits.
Speaker: I mean, it's hard.
Speaker: It's hard because if every single game you're releasing out, out does the last one, what are you having on the next, you know, that's why I'm kind of excited about what's coming up.
Speaker: in the fall because it's uh every game has gotten better it's very true yeah so there was a lot of information if you haven't checked out the episode heck pause this one and go listen go listen to it and then come back yeah it's an amazing episode if heck pause this episode go listen to it again if you've already listened to it there was a lot a lot of information there that was all great yeah and like i said i was very honored that larry was the one that picked
Speaker: podcast because he said he's been approached by numerous podcasts and he just turns them all down well i just think he does i legitimately i just don't think he has the time like he's he's a workaholic and you just got him at the moment when he is when he was at a location that he wasn't committed to something else um i think also we connected on a personal level on some some other stuff that i'm not going to discuss because it's personal um but yeah i think
Speaker: I think that's the problem.
Speaker: Like sometimes when people reach out, they're just reaching out like in behalf of.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It was a kid pinball podcast.
Speaker: When you start to get to know the person behind that, then you're like, oh, I kind of want to do this because I know the person now.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Small tidbit to those that may be listening that are doing podcasts.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So it was great.
Speaker: But.
Speaker: Okay, so with that episode and some other ones, you have some news that you told me.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So are you talking about we're at 1,000 followers now?
Speaker: We're at 1,000 followers, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker: Crazy.
Speaker: I have never invited anyone to like our podcast, and for some odd reason, like,
Speaker: Why have I never done that?
Speaker: As soon as I invited all my friends, it's really funny to look through the list like, they've never liked it?
Speaker: Wait, what?
Speaker: I'm not going to call anyone out, but it's pretty funny.
Speaker: But yeah, we gained about 65 followers overnight.
Speaker: It's just exponentially growing.
Speaker: And Facebook has given us some kind of like tier three something or other.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: So it's been fun.
Speaker: By the way, we...
Speaker: We appreciate that this is a ride that we've been on for what, over four years now?
Speaker: Five years in January.
Speaker: Five years in January.
Speaker: And this really was kind of an avenue for us to talk about pinball together.
Speaker: And it does mean a lot to me.
Speaker: And I know it means a lot to Josh that it has connected with many people on that level where you're...
Speaker: You are invited to be like the silent third chair where you're either shaking your head at what we're saying or you're nodding along.
Speaker: But either way, you're included.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: The one thing I do appreciate, because we had plenty of people come up and say hello at Expo and how much they love our show and the appreciation they have for it.
Speaker: The people that I met this weekend that really like our show were people I seemed like we would hang out with.
Speaker: So it's kind of nice we attract the people that...
Speaker: that we want to be around too.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Welcome to the low drama club.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And you all seem awesome people and low drama.
Speaker: So you're welcome to hang out with us anytime.
Speaker: The other funny part.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So I met Dan Rostenstein in person.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Now as a pinball podcaster, he, before, uh, last year he brought his daughter with like a side.
Speaker: I didn't meet him last year though.
Speaker: I met his daughter cause Amanda brought his daughter by and we signed her like yearbook thing, her expo book.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And, uh, you know, it was just a fun way of getting to know, know her, but I never, I never met Dan last year.
Speaker: So I'm good for him on getting his, uh, getting his homebrew thing going up.
Speaker: So this ties into, uh,
Speaker: It's really funny because we got pulled aside by Jersey Jack.
Speaker: And they said, we're doing a big media.
Speaker: So this was Wednesday night.
Speaker: We're doing a big media press on Thursday.
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: Yes, Thursday morning.
Speaker: No, no, no.
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: I apologize.
Speaker: This was Thursday night.
Speaker: We're doing a big push on Friday morning.
Speaker: But we're inviting you and Joel with Flippin' Out and a couple others to preview the game before anyone else.
Speaker: We want you to come record some stuff.
Speaker: We want you to show it off.
Speaker: And so I was like, sweet.
Speaker: So we got in this room.
Speaker: It was just us.
Speaker: a handful of other people that were more excited about the free drinks Jersey Jack was getting up in the game.
Speaker: So Joel and I spent some, a good amount of time on Ellen John that night.
Speaker: I remember when rock was young.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so I got topper footage, which I guess I was the only one that really get topper footage.
Speaker: That was cool.
Speaker: Like I love seeing those.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And then we got some good footage of the game itself, but it was funny cause we were, we went to dinner and,
Speaker: later that night with Dan and we were talking about like, we were going to this experience or whatever.
Speaker: And Dan's like, just proves you guys are tier one podcasters.
Speaker: And I'm like a tier three or not, or lower.
Speaker: I was like, dad, no.
Speaker: And he's like, no, no.
Speaker: We're all, we're all top tier, my friend.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: that's what exactly what I said.
Speaker: He's like, don't sell yourself out.
Speaker: You're top tier.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's why he's like your top tier.
Speaker: He's like, we, we know there's a hierarchy and we know who's top.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: In fairness, we, we have been recording.
Speaker: We're one of the longest tenured podcasts right now.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Up there with slam till.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And, uh,
Speaker: I'm trying to think who else is out there.
Speaker: I don't think because when we started, we were like, okay, well, it's slightly crowded.
Speaker: We'll just see what we do.
Speaker: And then immediately, like after we started, like four of them said, okay, peace out.
Speaker: Pinball show.
Speaker: That's another one.
Speaker: Ten year eclectic gamers.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There's a pinball show started after us.
Speaker: Well, I'm including this week in Pumball because they did this.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: It's still the same shenanigans, just different name, you know?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Well, it's like, okay.
Speaker: But then that Tealus and Marty final round, I mean, heard they went curtains on their last episode.
Speaker: That's terrible.
Speaker: And I am moving past that.
Speaker: But a pinball podcast with Jeff Rivera and Jessica DiNardo, they actually just released an episode last week.
Speaker: So are they still going?
Speaker: I mean, does that still technically add to it?
Speaker: They seem to be like pop-ups for me.
Speaker: I'm like, oh, so go check them out.
Speaker: But I've always appreciated Jeff because I started listening to his podcast when I started getting into pinball.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I made the connection that he was just, uh, about, you know, 40 miles North of me.
Speaker: It's, it's really funny because I was, I felt awkward getting into podcasting because we already had Jeff in Utah and I was afraid we'd be stepping on his toes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Jeff's already listened to him and Jeff didn't care.
Speaker: More people the merrier.
Speaker: Uh, I've got some great stories about him, but those are for a different time.
Speaker: But yeah, so there was a lot of... I hung out with Joel.
Speaker: Joel is freaking amazing.
Speaker: If you don't know Joel Engelberth... Okay, don't tell him that because he already is like one of the nicest guys in the world and he'll just get a bigger head.
Speaker: So... He's one of my three favorite people in the Triple Drain podcast.
Speaker: He is one of my three favorite people.
Speaker: So... It was great to hang out with Travis and Tom.
Speaker: Travis was only there until like Thursday night because...
Speaker: they had to buy a house and move stuff around well you know adult things and tom was tom's a beast at at streaming when they post on fox cities it was like a cumulative like 468 hours in the last 28 days or something yeah i had no idea how like that no one want first off no one wants to watch me play pinball that long and so that's always impressive that
Speaker: that they've been able to do that because it is fun watching high quality players play pinball because you can see what you can possibly do.
Speaker: So I guess I'm kind of jumping around.
Speaker: Should I just start at the top of the top?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Got there Wednesday.
Speaker: Carter and I, my son Carter went with me.
Speaker: We got there.
Speaker: How old's Carter?
Speaker: Carter is going to be 13 December.
Speaker: He is mildly decent at pinball.
Speaker: He enjoys it.
Speaker: Uh, so I was like, this could be a fun bonding experience out of all the things I remembered to do when I shifted from going in on Thursday, cause fall break for us started on Wednesday.
Speaker: So the kids had no school.
Speaker: So I figured I'd go an extra day and take him downtown for one of the days.
Speaker: I forgot to bump my hotel up one more day.
Speaker: Ah, so I got in, I try to check in.
Speaker: I figured I'd do it nonchalantly, but like, Oh, I'll just take my room today.
Speaker: It's not a big deal.
Speaker: No, the convention center had back to back to back conventions and pinball expo just happened to be the sandwich in the middle of the sandwich.
Speaker: And so they're like, we have nothing available.
Speaker: And I was like, you don't have a room of it.
Speaker: They're like, no, we have nothing available.
Speaker: And mind you, this is 15 floors of like a hundred rooms.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: This is a lot of rooms.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's ridiculous.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: and I can't remember who I ran into, but they're like, Don's got a room from Don's pinball podcast.
Speaker: Uh, and I think it's just him.
Speaker: I want to say it may have been Brian Cosner, whoever it is.
Speaker: I apologize.
Speaker: Cause I guarantee Don and his pinball machine that he travels with, you know?
Speaker: And so Don's like, yeah, you and your son can come stay here.
Speaker: So, uh, Don was very generous, like total shout out to Don.
Speaker: The funny part though is, is, um,
Speaker: My son Carter, he's like, that is the last time I share the room with two podcast hosts because you guys know how to talk.
Speaker: It was like two in the morning when we finally went to bed.
Speaker: Oh, see, yeah.
Speaker: The difference is if you and I were sharing a room and Carter was there, it'd be like, okay, I power down at 10 o'clock.
Speaker: Like that's when my energy is just gone because I get up early.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So we got up about eight o'clock on Thursday morning because that's when we could check in at our hotel.
Speaker: I went and checked in.
Speaker: They were nice enough to take my bags and hide them behind the counter.
Speaker: And they said, as soon as your room's ready, we'll let you in.
Speaker: But it didn't matter to me at that point because the Stern tour was happening.
Speaker: So hopped on the bus.
Speaker: We zipped down to Stern.
Speaker: As soon as we got there, Joel, Julie, Craig, Bobby were all kind of in the front of the line.
Speaker: Don joined with us.
Speaker: We all kind of got bumped to the front of the line.
Speaker: And yeah, I'm not going to apologize.
Speaker: But the first thing you do is when you walk in, it was like a four-year area.
Speaker: There was Gary Stern, Seth Davies, the new president.
Speaker: And our tour guide was Brian Eddy, a.k.a.
Speaker: Medieval Madness, Attack from Mars, Stranger Things.
Speaker: So it was really cool to be hanging out with him.
Speaker: end they they were very much like you do not take pictures if you get caught taking pictures you're getting kicked out yeah and like you can't you can take some pictures at the beginning of the tour at the end of the tour but that is it and so um i didn't take any pictures during the tour i swear i did so tell me what the next five releases are okay
Speaker: I'm not going to get into that because I'll get in trouble.
Speaker: But it was awesome.
Speaker: It was awesome to see them moving games.
Speaker: It was weird because the office space was dead.
Speaker: There was no one in there.
Speaker: There was no one in their cubicles.
Speaker: In the factory, it was hopping.
Speaker: There was people moving.
Speaker: It was funny because- What was on the line?
Speaker: Deadpool was on the line, was one of them.
Speaker: They were doing wiring harnesses for Falcon.
Speaker: Do you know what the code name Falcon is for?
Speaker: Because everyone's like, that's the next game.
Speaker: That's the next game.
Speaker: No, it's not.
Speaker: It already came out.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Rush?
Speaker: No, it is Foo Fighters.
Speaker: Falcon.
Speaker: Named after Taylor.
Speaker: Because his last name was Hawkins, if I remember correctly.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: Gotcha.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So that was Falcon.
Speaker: People saw Waffles and was like, well, that's got to be the next game.
Speaker: Do you know what Waffles is?
Speaker: Let me think.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I'm just going back.
Speaker: So there's, you know, there's Godzilla, rush, venom.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Farther back.
Speaker: It's farther back.
Speaker: They just re-released it like a month ago.
Speaker: Oh, stranger things.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: So which makes sense because I've never watched the show.
Speaker: I need to watch the show.
Speaker: I've never watched the show.
Speaker: There was, if they named a bloody nose, then I would have known.
Speaker: uh, Jaws was also there.
Speaker: Jurassic park.
Speaker: It was just, it was funny.
Speaker: Cause you've got people just pointed out and speculating and like, Oh, you know, and there was nothing out there.
Speaker: Of course not.
Speaker: And they, they have, they have the proprietary stuff locked down.
Speaker: Even the factory workers don't know what's going on behind the scenes.
Speaker: They did have the new Elvira at the end of the tour.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Blood Red Kiss.
Speaker: Beautiful game.
Speaker: In person.
Speaker: This one, I've seen the 40th.
Speaker: I've seen the original edition.
Speaker: I've now seen this one.
Speaker: I would say the art.
Speaker: If you want something cabinet-wise that really stands out, this one stands out the best out of all of them, in my opinion.
Speaker: Well, because this also takes a little bit of a hint from Centaur, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's kind of like the black, white, and red look.
Speaker: Yeah, and then the play field's black and white, but the inserts are still their respective colors from the game.
Speaker: So there's still a lot of color on the play field, but it is black and white for the most part.
Speaker: So a really beautiful game.
Speaker: They didn't have it turned off.
Speaker: You couldn't play it.
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: Well, okay.
Speaker: The problem with Elvira, though, is every time I've gone to play it at a show, there's always some junior up there who's trying to GC it for an hour and a half.
Speaker: And it's like, no, you're at a show, dude.
Speaker: Just like sentimental time, like 10 minutes.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I've, I've got, I'm walking away, but it's a, so I, I stood in line one time for like 25 minutes and I just, I just moved on.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, I forgot to mention, sorry.
Speaker: Rewind to the night before backwards.
Speaker: If, if, if you got a pre-order or sorry, if you pre-bought your tickets for expo, there was a get together at Interium, which was not too far from the hotel.
Speaker: the cool part though is and i they never mentioned this in may they did and i just didn't notice it when you're buying your ticket they i did the math and for some odd reason it wasn't adding up like if you bought tickets at expo it actually saved you like 30 a ticket for the whole weekend versus if you pre-bought and i was like that makes no sense well come to find out so the night before we're hanging out with stern employees you got you've got you know jack danger you've got white you've got and they're also doing the stern pro circuit there so you know extra less costs blowing it up and
Speaker: Um, but the arcade was available.
Speaker: And the interesting part is they gave everyone a swipe card for interium, which gave you unlimited free play for two hours.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That's interim.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And those are well-maintained machines.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And they provided food for everyone that came.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so, and it was like slider, like cheeseburger sliders, fried macaroni, cheese balls, uh, deep fried raviolis.
Speaker: I mean, the food was amazing.
Speaker: Like,
Speaker: It was delicious.
Speaker: So that in itself was worth the extra 30 bucks.
Speaker: So Carter loved it.
Speaker: I mean, give a kid an unlimited, the only game it didn't work on.
Speaker: So it didn't work on the ticket games, the ticket redemption games.
Speaker: So you can win a bunch of stuff off of those.
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: One of my games must be updating.
Speaker: That's the beeping noise.
Speaker: And then it didn't work on.
Speaker: They had a King Kong down there, but it's $10 a game.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: King Kong is like Hercules though, right?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: So King Kong, the virtual reality.
Speaker: Oh, the VR one.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You put it on, you set in the thing.
Speaker: It's like a roller coaster.
Speaker: It moves you while you're playing.
Speaker: The gloves react and stuff like that.
Speaker: No, I, I, we did play that at Texas last year.
Speaker: No, was it expo or Texas?
Speaker: No, it was expo last year.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Oh, that's right.
Speaker: You're right.
Speaker: Cause I, I wasn't able to go to Texas this year.
Speaker: But totally awesome.
Speaker: The other interesting part, maybe I shouldn't be saying this on air.
Speaker: If you didn't use your Interium card, it's still good for the two hours.
Speaker: So you didn't have to use it for Wednesday night.
Speaker: He went back Thursday night for the Media Mixer, and some people hadn't used the card, and they gave one to Carter again.
Speaker: So he got to play another two hours at the arcade.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That's like a kid's dream.
Speaker: I never got that as a kid.
Speaker: You had like five bucks and the reason, and you spent like an hour and 55 minutes watching everyone else play.
Speaker: Cause you were going to, to gently roll out those quarters.
Speaker: Cause you didn't want to blow it all.
Speaker: So, so rewind, I guess going back to where we were Stern tour gets over, went with Joel, went with Julie.
Speaker: We went with Craig, Bobby, we went to Portillo's.
Speaker: I convinced him.
Speaker: I know it was like 11 o'clock in the morning, 10 30 in the morning.
Speaker: I'm like, let's go get Italian beef because it's right there.
Speaker: And so we went and had that, which was amazing.
Speaker: That's one of the highlights is, is the food, right?
Speaker: I think I need to eat like a bottle of Tums before I go there next time.
Speaker: And then we got back to Expo.
Speaker: We explored Expo.
Speaker: There was a lot going on.
Speaker: If you're going to play some of these games like Labyrinth, or Elton John wasn't out at this point, but get them in on Thursday if you can, because the lines just get worse and worse.
Speaker: So Thursday we explored Expo.
Speaker: We had fun with it.
Speaker: Joel and I went to our VIP.
Speaker: They were calling it a VIP meeting for Elton John.
Speaker: And I even made sure as where I was walking in the people letting us in, I'm like, so you're letting us record this stuff and post it.
Speaker: I'm like, I'm not getting my butt kicked and kicked out of here because of this.
Speaker: Um, okay.
Speaker: You want to be respectful, especially if it's an invite thing.
Speaker: It's like, it's like the stern tour.
Speaker: You want to be respectful.
Speaker: So if they show up and they say, Hey, these is the areas you can't take pictures.
Speaker: Then that, then you respect that.
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: Before the media mixer or before the VIP event, we went to the media mixer, which was all calling with kinetis, like shout out to him and his wife and them bringing their baby, like straight up.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They're champs.
Speaker: And they put together this giant media mixer for all the media
Speaker: people to get together to meet each other and talk and just talk pinball and talk.
Speaker: And it was great.
Speaker: There was people, uh, shout out to Erica from Erica's pinball journey.
Speaker: If you haven't checked out our YouTube, go check it out.
Speaker: She's a, uh, she's doing direct toil work and stuff like that.
Speaker: She's posted something on YouTube.
Speaker: It's fantastic.
Speaker: It looks great.
Speaker: Um, she was really nice, uh, came up, we talked for a while, uh, ran into Jen Rupert,
Speaker: Jen is awesome.
Speaker: Jen's always fun.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, you know, Zach, many was there.
Speaker: Uh, it's, there were so many people I can't, I need to stop naming names.
Speaker: Cause like Larry DeMar said, you're going to have a couple, but you're going to feel forget.
Speaker: So I'm going to forget.
Speaker: So if I forgot, you do know that you're loved and I, I, yeah.
Speaker: And so media mixer went great.
Speaker: Uh, they gave away prizes.
Speaker: So if you, if you showed up to the media mixer, you got to sign your name on a raffle ticket and they put it in the box.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And I should not take my son because he was winning everything, right?
Speaker: He won a shirt from Jersey Jack, which funny part, Eric Meniere from Jersey Jack was at the media mixer and he won.
Speaker: And guess what?
Speaker: He won.
Speaker: Woo.
Speaker: Woo.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: He won a hat from Jersey Jack.
Speaker: Did he take off the one he was wearing and put the new one on?
Speaker: Someone traded him a spooky one.
Speaker: Oh, there you go.
Speaker: He wore the spooky instead of the Jersey Jack.
Speaker: Everyone was laughing.
Speaker: The prizes were unreal for the Mini Mixer.
Speaker: Jersey Jack was very generous in supplying stuff for that.
Speaker: It was amazing.
Speaker: He went to the VIP event, joined the VIP event afterwards.
Speaker: We were up so late the night before that I think I just went and crashed.
Speaker: I think it was like 1030.
Speaker: I was like, I'm going to bed.
Speaker: Maybe I caught.
Speaker: No, I caught up with the triple gain guys.
Speaker: So I went to go to bed and I got a message because I kept getting messages all day from people that had pre-ordered hats.
Speaker: And I needed to get Travis his hat before he left on.
Speaker: Oh, that's right.
Speaker: First thing on Friday.
Speaker: So like we're down in the lobby right now.
Speaker: And I was like, OK, perfect.
Speaker: So Carter had already passed out and I went down there and gave them their hats and we hung out and talked and it was great.
Speaker: Like seriously, like the triple drain guys are, they've got to be like brothers from another mother for us.
Speaker: We just, these guys are amazing.
Speaker: If you haven't been listening to their podcast, uh,
Speaker: really turn it on.
Speaker: They're also pretty good at pinball.
Speaker: Even Joel, even Joel is, but don't tell him that.
Speaker: But the thing I love about them is they're very genuine.
Speaker: Uh, we were kind of talking about this before podcasts, like they are people obviously we would hang out with and you can tell that from their podcasts.
Speaker: They're just, they're great people.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so, um,
Speaker: Yeah, so, and then Friday rolled around.
Speaker: I'm trying to think what we did on Friday.
Speaker: We did, we kind of hit more of, so Jersey Jack invited everyone from the Media Mixer the night before to do just kind of a media only play Elton John.
Speaker: Which, shout out to Ken Cromwell.
Speaker: This is amazing.
Speaker: Ken's great, yeah.
Speaker: Marketing strategy.
Speaker: Like, this, fantastic.
Speaker: The night before, Eric had told me about something in Elton John.
Speaker: which I really wanted to get to.
Speaker: So there's Crocodile Rock Multiball and there's Rocketman Multiball.
Speaker: And they've tied them together.
Speaker: If you start one and then start the other, it starts Crocodman Multiball where Crocodile is riding around on rockets.
Speaker: And I was able to do it, the media thing the next morning.
Speaker: And I thought I had it recorded.
Speaker: I don't know who was holding my camera.
Speaker: You got a great shot at the back of your head though.
Speaker: Yeah, I've got a great shot at my back.
Speaker: But it, it was great.
Speaker: I've got to say, let's, let's talk Elton John really quick.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Should we do elephants in the room first or we should talk about everything that's great about it?
Speaker: I say, let's do negatives and then we land on the positive.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So I'll, I'll take this one because we talked about this before.
Speaker: I've always said that in everybody's marketing strategy is different.
Speaker: And I've tried to emphasize to everybody, not every machine is for every buyer.
Speaker: I'm solidly between like the premium LE, like kind of the stern premium LE prices.
Speaker: But for the most part, I'm kind of in the premium.
Speaker: That's the happy zone I've been in.
Speaker: Since the prices have escalated, they've gotten a little more uncomfortable for me to get the high end.
Speaker: So this is the challenge.
Speaker: This looks like an awesome game, but they are going to sell less than they would if the price were lower.
Speaker: And that's just a basic for me.
Speaker: They did come down a little bit on the price from what their last release was.
Speaker: But it is still, it still feels a little high to me, but that's my only, now I can say that as a fan because who doesn't want to pay less for like a sports car, right?
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Like, you know, and so there's nothing new about that.
Speaker: And you are competing with Stern who sells the most machines and your price point for a comparable, it's no longer the limited edition.
Speaker: Now it's the platinum edition.
Speaker: And so what you would, the models that compared to that would be like the premium.
Speaker: So you're paying basically $2,500 more.
Speaker: for a Jersey Jack comparable.
Speaker: So you need to decide for yourself if the machine is 25 to 30% better than what you can get with a Stern premium.
Speaker: That, that that's the only, that's how you do it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's how I do it.
Speaker: That's you.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: If I had,
Speaker: $13,000 in my pocket.
Speaker: Would I buy Elton John or would I buy?
Speaker: And right now let's go with apples to apples.
Speaker: Their latest release is venom.
Speaker: So venom premium.
Speaker: Would I get a venom premium or would I get an old John?
Speaker: Uh, I think I like Elton John better, but is it that much more only you can decide that.
Speaker: So that's the elephant in the room.
Speaker: And I, I'm not, I'm not sharing anything that all of y'all haven't thought.
Speaker: So the other elephant that you haven't touched on is this is, this is a Steve Ritchie.
Speaker: That's true.
Speaker: Layout.
Speaker: It's true.
Speaker: And, and everyone has talked about that.
Speaker: Like it is Steve Ritchie.
Speaker: No, what Led Zeppelin did this one.
Speaker: Star Trek did this one.
Speaker: This looks like Star Trek, like Spider-Man 3.0.
Speaker: Cause yeah, your track is Spider-Man 2.0.
Speaker: So this, it feels very similar.
Speaker: Now that's not saying it's the same.
Speaker: But the flow pattern is similar.
Speaker: Now I love Spider-Man and I love Star Trek.
Speaker: So this has a very similar feel.
Speaker: And so that would be great.
Speaker: And Elton John music is great music.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: All that aside,
Speaker: I still think this is a fantastic shooter.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: So now let's talk about the positives.
Speaker: So price out the window.
Speaker: Let's talk about how did you feel playing the game?
Speaker: I loved the game.
Speaker: It was fun to shoot.
Speaker: I don't even know if there was modes.
Speaker: I was so into just jamming on this game.
Speaker: I know there were certain things you were trying to achieve, but I was so...
Speaker: after Eric told me about Crockett, man, I needed to see Crockett man.
Speaker: And, and that was no easy feat.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: I did like that he brought back, you know, in Star Trek Next Generation, where you kind of choose what your award is on the plunge.
Speaker: It's like that on this.
Speaker: You can choose between like a ball lock for crocodile multiball, Rocketman, Fuel, and then I can't remember what the other three were because I just didn't go for it.
Speaker: Like big points was one, which I always thought was a joke.
Speaker: Like big points.
Speaker: Anywho.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The game shot really well.
Speaker: The flippers, these are by far the best flipper, like filling flippers out of all of all of the Jersey Jack.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And that's because the, the analysis mostly on Jersey Jack games is the flippers don't feel quite as springy as stern ones.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And this feels amazing.
Speaker: The other really interesting part about this layout is none of the shots are safe, at least like in Star Trek, like it comes back to your left flipper via the in lane.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: No, like every shot you shoot, it does come back at your flipper, but it's not safely to the flipper via an in lane.
Speaker: So you're going to have to have a little bit of flipper skill.
Speaker: It's still a long player.
Speaker: If, if you can get those flipper skills down, if you, if you trust your dead bounce, the game straight up the middle looks like a death shot though.
Speaker: Like the drop targets.
Speaker: not, not terribly because the drop target slows down the ball and gives you an opportunity to react.
Speaker: So it's not as bad as I, not like attack from Mars.
Speaker: Cause I, I know you have to be very careful shooting that one.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: If, if you're comfortable with attack from Mars or semi comfortable, you'll be comfortable with it.
Speaker: It is slightly angled, which means it ricochets a little bit to the left.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Um, I thought the piano mech was cool.
Speaker: Uh, John's moving his head back and forth.
Speaker: His hands are shaken.
Speaker: looking like he's playing the piano the balls lock inside the piano once you get three in there it drops him out um i thought that was that was a cool idea um like i said i just overall i'm not okay i'm not an elton john fan like i just i know his songs it's just not it's not me the thing i'm impressed with
Speaker: this game really felt like it was rocking.
Speaker: Like our biggest concern we've talked about for months now.
Speaker: I was like, Elton John songs aren't really like, where's the ripping songs.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it felt like this was ripping the whole time.
Speaker: The light show was great for pinball wizard.
Speaker: Um, there's every song I played, I really enjoyed.
Speaker: Um, but like, like I said, okay, so let's talk about the songs too then.
Speaker: So yeah, and you did bring that up.
Speaker: It feels rocking.
Speaker: So, uh, rocket man.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's not a jammer, but it's good.
Speaker: Tiny Dancer.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Benny and the Jets.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm good.
Speaker: So the funny thing is none of these songs sound like high tempo, which is what you expect from pinball.
Speaker: You have The Bitch is Back.
Speaker: It's a fast one.
Speaker: Crocodile Rock, actually my favorite Elton John song.
Speaker: I'm Still Standing is good.
Speaker: Pinball Wizard is Saturday Night.
Speaker: So those five are ripping.
Speaker: Your song, definitely not one.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Take me to the pilot.
Speaker: Maybe I don't know that.
Speaker: I don't remember hearing that one either.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Philadelphia freedom.
Speaker: That's kind of a, that's more upbeat.
Speaker: Leave on not fast honky cat.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I would say about half of them are ripping songs.
Speaker: Half of them are, would probably be in the ballad category.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: But I don't know if it's the flow of Steve.
Speaker: I don't know if it was kind of the speed of it, but they all worked and it was very good.
Speaker: If I found an Elton John on location, I would pump a good amount of quarters.
Speaker: Oh, I would.
Speaker: I I'm, I'm going to seek this out.
Speaker: I am not.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I am full.
Speaker: I do not have space and I don't want to sell one right now.
Speaker: So I'm not going to buy an Elton John, but I really, really hope someone close buys one and puts it on location or has it in their house.
Speaker: Cause I would love, I would love to experience it in someone's house because I want to hear the full experience.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like I said, it really is a great game.
Speaker: I think if you're an Elton John fan and you're looking at pulling the trigger on this game, you will be happy with this game.
Speaker: Yeah, do it.
Speaker: If it's in your price range.
Speaker: That's the problem, too.
Speaker: It's just not in my price range.
Speaker: I wish they would make specifically an Operator Edition.
Speaker: Like a Pro Edition, you mean?
Speaker: Yeah, like go back to the Standard or something like that.
Speaker: The challenge, they're going for a different, they're going for more of a boutique pinball company where they're not going to recoup their money on volume.
Speaker: They're going to recoup it by having a premium product with a premium price.
Speaker: I mean, it's basically the Lexus, you know, the Lexus Mercedes strategy.
Speaker: Well, but that brings me to my next question though.
Speaker: Like, is that why...
Speaker: Why did we change it from limited edition to platinum?
Speaker: Is it so we don't have to claim there's a limited edition number?
Speaker: Because as it stood, it used to be 5,000 limited and 500 collectors.
Speaker: Now the platinums aren't numbered and the collectors are to 1,000 now.
Speaker: Well, okay.
Speaker: I actually think this is better though because Stern's highest level was limited edition.
Speaker: So it was a little confusing.
Speaker: Because when you're saying, and to be fair, what they're trying to do is compete and say, Hey, our limited edition, which is basically their premium edition is the same level of bling that Stern's limited edition is, which that is basically the same price range.
Speaker: And if you want like the extra, like, you know, the, the eye candy,
Speaker: of the presentation, then go for the collector's edition.
Speaker: So I do like that they have changed the terminology.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because it makes it a little more, um, individual.
Speaker: And I actually, I, Kate, I will say if I were to buy one, I would get, I would get the plat.
Speaker: I think the platinum edition is more my style.
Speaker: The collector's edition looks a little bit like Liberace.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like it's, it's very flamboyant colored, but it's still looks fantastic.
Speaker: I'm just talking like personal preference on the color pat, the color package.
Speaker: I wish I could have the platinum package with the Christopher Franchi art and that topper from the collector's edition.
Speaker: The topper looks really cool.
Speaker: So describe the topper.
Speaker: You said you got video of it, but describe the topper.
Speaker: So it's like a laser...
Speaker: etched picture of Elton John's face in the Dodger hat is in the, is in the top middle.
Speaker: And right below that is like a, a dome that feeds kind of, I want to say laser lights, but they weren't, they were saying it wasn't lasers.
Speaker: I can't remember exactly.
Speaker: I apologize.
Speaker: They ran so much information through us at that point, but it projects onto the ceiling, a bunch of Elton John stuff.
Speaker: There was like,
Speaker: Elton John.
Speaker: The interesting part is they said they actually hadn't coded in the topper into the game.
Speaker: It was just randomly playing with the game.
Speaker: They said that they were going to fix that.
Speaker: Coordinate it.
Speaker: On both sides of the sketched Elton John, there was
Speaker: those iPad sized screens that they put in toy story.
Speaker: They must have extra ones or something.
Speaker: They put on either side of the topper and it was doing footage.
Speaker: Oh, I see that now.
Speaker: I did not see that is cool.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so this topper is top notch.
Speaker: That is cool.
Speaker: On the collector's edition.
Speaker: Ooh, only the collector's edition.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That would make me kind of want that.
Speaker: That's why I'm like, I want that topper on the platinum.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's just,
Speaker: That's what it is.
Speaker: Well, hey, if you want to pay for the bling.
Speaker: So how much was the collector's edition?
Speaker: $15,000.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So not really much different.
Speaker: Like it's $2,000.
Speaker: Well, okay, $3,000 more.
Speaker: So the platinum edition was $12,000.
Speaker: The collector's edition is $15,000.
Speaker: But the summary, what I'm taking from it is if you're a Nelton John fan,
Speaker: And it's in your price range, then you are going to be happy with this machine.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I think you'd be very happy with this machine.
Speaker: And I, I am on board with that.
Speaker: That is, uh, okay.
Speaker: I paid, I bought rushes Ellie because I'm a rush fan.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: You're not a rush fan.
Speaker: Like, like the, the band.
Speaker: And so there's no reason for you to have paid for the LE.
Speaker: Like you would have just got the premium.
Speaker: So this is, this is that situation where you ask yourself, okay, how big of an Elton John fan am I?
Speaker: And it, it will be a fantastic shooting game and I guarantee it'll sound good.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: So this, and I, the thing I like most about this is this is the first time I've
Speaker: that they have taken an artist that's not considered like a, a party rock artist.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And I, I guess rush isn't a party rock artist, but you know what I mean?
Speaker: Like that 70s, 80s, 70s, like the jam and feel.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Jam and feel this has like half of the songs are jammers.
Speaker: Half of them are ballads, but I, I guarantee if, um, now we know the demographic in pinball is heavily male dominated.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Based on our statistics, 80 to 20.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, okay.
Speaker: That's just an eyeball.
Speaker: We'll probably tell you something like that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: This is the first, um, first game.
Speaker: That's not geared exclusive exclusively toward like dudes who grew up in the eighties.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And this is something that I guarantee if you have a Foo Fighters and you have an Elton John and you go in there with your significant other and your significant other, like there's a good chance if they are not a pinball person, you know, male or female, there's a good chance they're going to go to Elton John first.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Everyone that played it loved it.
Speaker: It really is.
Speaker: It's a good game.
Speaker: So good for Steve, right?
Speaker: And then after the media mixer was, or the media push was done, Labyrinth was very close.
Speaker: So Carter and I went and got in line and Don and Brian Cosner were very nice enough to let them cut us, get us cut in line to the front.
Speaker: I apologize again to those that have been standing in line.
Speaker: So I got some video of that, which I can't remember if I've posted yet or not.
Speaker: But this game, for a first outing from a pinball company that no one knew about, pretty impressive.
Speaker: Shot really good.
Speaker: Flippers were strong.
Speaker: They didn't feel mushy.
Speaker: The game feels very straightforward.
Speaker: It's a typical pinball layout.
Speaker: You shoot the left.
Speaker: There's a left orbit.
Speaker: There's a left ramp.
Speaker: There's a bash target slash something up the middle with a little horseshoe that goes around that with a right ramp.
Speaker: And then obviously the left orbit comes out on the right orbit.
Speaker: And there was some stuff further down the left.
Speaker: But what the play field did that you weren't expecting is there's diverters built into the play field.
Speaker: And it does just little nuanced things like...
Speaker: if you shoot the right orbit, I can't remember exactly how it works, but it will come back to left orbit, but a diverter will pop up and push it behind the ramp, the left ramp.
Speaker: And then the left ramp will actually open and it'll shoot it at you or it'll hold onto it as a locked ball.
Speaker: One of the other cool features was,
Speaker: I can't remember exactly where it was on the play field, but if you shot it, it would bring up forks and capture the ball.
Speaker: So all of a sudden that spot became an actual capture ball.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And then you could hit it and it would hit through a spinners.
Speaker: It was just really good kinetic satisfaction.
Speaker: Um, the interesting part.
Speaker: So if you haven't listened to the Aussie pinball podcast, they go a lot more in depth in this kind of everything that they've built up to this point.
Speaker: Let them tell their story.
Speaker: go check it out.
Speaker: But the other cool part was, is so if you remember on wizard of Oz, the monkey, like there's a monkey man in the back that comes to the ball and takes it up.
Speaker: So it sounded like they wanted to do something similar with the Muppets zipping back and forth on that back spot.
Speaker: When they got into it, they learned that those screens were a heck of a lot cheaper than making mechanical Muppets.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: And so it was like a third the price or less.
Speaker: This is all in that podcast.
Speaker: And so they just put the screen back there.
Speaker: And that screen is actually pretty awesome.
Speaker: It was easy to get quick info without feeling like I'm losing the ball.
Speaker: I felt like I could keep track of where the ball was going.
Speaker: Game played great.
Speaker: I think if you're a Labyrinth fan, which I don't know if you can.
Speaker: I know they're still selling these.
Speaker: my understanding is I talked to one distributor on, on Friday and they said that they have sold so many labyrinths that it actually scares them because they're taking a lot of allotment on this because there is, they've just sold that many.
Speaker: They did not expect for this game to be the way it was.
Speaker: And they, they just, they love it because that, you know, it's money in the bank.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But, um,
Speaker: But it's a new company.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's a new company.
Speaker: And it's now.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So who's David Van Ness?
Speaker: So David's.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's the guy of the company.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so people are going to legitimately say, who is this guy?
Speaker: If you want to know more about David Van Ness, Jeff Teolas of Pinball Profile just released an episode.
Speaker: Perfect.
Speaker: Go listen to it.
Speaker: David Van Ness and the other guy.
Speaker: Sorry, other guy.
Speaker: But there's another guy that is part of the company.
Speaker: The CFO and the COO, right?
Speaker: And they go over in-depth this as well.
Speaker: But David Van Ness was originally at Spooky.
Speaker: And Brian Savage.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: They've got people that were working on Williams games that are working there.
Speaker: I mean, it just...
Speaker: It's a good company built of people that are tried and true.
Speaker: They took some time.
Speaker: So they're not new.
Speaker: They're not the new kids on the block, but they are the new company on the block.
Speaker: We've talked with a lot of friends about this and someone had pointed out, this is the best first pinball machine of a company.
Speaker: And I will, I'm actually going to give it second place.
Speaker: But the first place is a really good showing, and that would be Wizard of Oz.
Speaker: And when I saw this, I thought, this actually gives me Wizard of Oz vibes with like a 90s Bally Williams feel.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Is that what you got, Josh?
Speaker: Even the cabinet looks like a Bally Williams.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It looks great.
Speaker: And if you're a fan, how much was this?
Speaker: I think $10,200.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then if you want to go all out.
Speaker: It's just around that $10,000 mark.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: If you want to go all out, it's like $12,500.
Speaker: And that's the topper and the.
Speaker: mirrored back glass and this thing is very it's the same as every high end right yeah every high end game is tickling that 13 000 mark so my understanding is is there's only one tier but you can change you can do different add-ons yeah so it's it's very the spooky a la carte we're doing one model but you can you can customize your ride essentially yeah you can get the shooter rod you can get the topper
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Limited to 1100 units.
Speaker: So after we played labyrinth, we started, we started exploring the floor.
Speaker: Pulp fiction, amazing game.
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: If you're a pulp fiction fan, this game shoots great.
Speaker: Like it's,
Speaker: It's absolutely amazing.
Speaker: I love the ambiance of this game.
Speaker: There's just something about that.
Speaker: What's that song?
Speaker: Jungle Boogie, I think is what it's called.
Speaker: There's just something about locking the ball into the briefcase area and having Jungle Boogie just for a second.
Speaker: And you're like, oh, I want to hear the rest of that.
Speaker: And just locking those other balls so you can start the Jungle Boogie multi-ball.
Speaker: And it's just...
Speaker: The game's fantastic.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I can't own one at this point, but with my young kids.
Speaker: It's also not like it doesn't connect with me.
Speaker: It's the same thing as Big Lebowski.
Speaker: I'm not going to pay the money for a Big Lebowski.
Speaker: I've seen the movie once and it didn't connect with me on theme, but it's a solid execution of the theme.
Speaker: And there are so many fans out there that this is, if you are a fan, it's a must buy.
Speaker: It's the same as Big Lebowski.
Speaker: If you're a fan of that, that's a great buy.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: We went and played Ninja Eclipse from Turner Pinball.
Speaker: So, okay, talk about that because I think that very few people know enough about it.
Speaker: And so, okay, we know that this is Turner who bought the assets from Deep Root.
Speaker: And no one's going to be surprised my feelings on Deep Root.
Speaker: So let's, let's try to give him a fresh take and say, okay, he, he is not Robert Mueller.
Speaker: So let's see what he's bringing to the table with whatever assets they made.
Speaker: So go ahead.
Speaker: So they got rid of the coin door because they want to look to the future and use your phone to pay instead of putting coins in the game, which by the way,
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I actually agree with that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I agree with that.
Speaker: The coin Mac is antiquated.
Speaker: And really, if you look at most arcades, they have some sort of digital pay system.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The cabinet itself looks like the, because they decided to cut the, you know, there's eight inches of air inside the thing.
Speaker: So the cabinets don't hold what they used to back in the sixties.
Speaker: You know what I'm saying?
Speaker: Like you don't have relays and max and score reels and all that jazz.
Speaker: They don't need to be as deep unless you have a, a building in Godzilla that's raising up and going down.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: So they've cut, they've cut the cabinet pretty small.
Speaker: It almost like, I hate to say this, but it almost reminds me of a zizzle.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's the downside is because visually now we're not talking about quality.
Speaker: We're not talking about playing.
Speaker: I would say visually, when you look at it, it's going to remind you.
Speaker: of a zizzle machine yep so it's still a full size yep it's still full size um they've got some interesting different things that they're trying to implement into pinball okay um like almost like think of a hood on a car how you pop that open that's how the glass works on this so it pops open um some merit to it
Speaker: So the game itself, it played all right.
Speaker: The problem is the flippers are mushy.
Speaker: They are bad.
Speaker: It just, woof.
Speaker: The game was all right.
Speaker: It shot fine.
Speaker: It felt like a standard pinball machine.
Speaker: There wasn't anything that was game-breaking.
Speaker: The interesting part is it's got a scoop on each side.
Speaker: And the video I recorded, I didn't know this until I went back and watched it.
Speaker: one of the scoops caches it and shoots it over to the other scoop.
Speaker: And then like, and the scoop like shoots it back at your flipper.
Speaker: So it was like, why are we playing this back and forth?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: It's cool.
Speaker: Visually.
Speaker: It's cool.
Speaker: Visually.
Speaker: It was cool.
Speaker: But why do you, why do you catapult the ball into a Jackie visually?
Speaker: It looks cool.
Speaker: And on a Aerosmith looks.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: So, so, um, okay.
Speaker: So this is from, from someone who hasn't seen it since I didn't go to expo.
Speaker: I look at this and say, this is a great looking high end homebrew.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And that's not an insult, by the way, because it's a solid effort for a first game.
Speaker: Now this is going to be a different question on the price point though, because we talked about, again, we're only speaking for our buying, but Elton John's a little high for my buying habits right now.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Is this worth what they're asking for?
Speaker: I don't know what they're asking.
Speaker: I really didn't develop.
Speaker: It's around $9,000.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Probably not.
Speaker: So is it, let's be honest.
Speaker: If you can get a Godzilla for nine or get, I mean, that'd be used.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: You could get a Godzilla for nine or this.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: But this is not going to be your only game though.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like if you're buying one game, you're not buying Ninja eclipse.
Speaker: I think there's still, heck, Alien is cheaper than this with the new Ripley stuff.
Speaker: I just, I don't think... $9,777.
Speaker: Yeah, it's quite the pill.
Speaker: It's limited to 100 editions for limited to 100 first edition units.
Speaker: That's interesting.
Speaker: Yeah, so they're kind of going the book style.
Speaker: They're leaving the door open.
Speaker: Yeah, they're leaving the door open that they could remake it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, like I said, I just, I will tell you this.
Speaker: It was not the worst game there.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So jury's still out.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: It's, uh, I, I would say talk about the worst game there.
Speaker: Ooh.
Speaker: Uh, yeah.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: I try to get positive, but okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So wrap up on Turner.
Speaker: If you want a unique one and you're willing to take a risk on, on a,
Speaker: on a company with a interesting connection to a very flawed company.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Then sure.
Speaker: Uh, that is something you could consider.
Speaker: Um, so the one that I, okay.
Speaker: Is this the, the least impressive of the show?
Speaker: Is that the best way of putting it?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We'll put it that away.
Speaker: Elements by pinball adventures.
Speaker: Oh, this, this game, uh,
Speaker: Okay, here's the thing that's why it makes it the least impressive.
Speaker: I couldn't even play it, and they just had the glass off so you could push switches at that point and move the ball where you needed to just so you could flip.
Speaker: It was a high-end working whitewood.
Speaker: I don't know why they brought it.
Speaker: They had to have known that Elton John was being shown.
Speaker: They had to know.
Speaker: I mean, come on.
Speaker: The pinball industry is pretty small.
Speaker: Like you're going to see this.
Speaker: And so it, it, it makes me cringe a little bit to think that there was no awareness to say, this is probably not our show.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's all I can say about when you can't play a game, it looked all right.
Speaker: Like it just, it looks like a homebrew, a non-working homebrew.
Speaker: It just, it was bad.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So it looks cool.
Speaker: Do you know what it looks like?
Speaker: It looks like 1970s fantasy art.
Speaker: Is that, is that in, is it?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: If you're old enough to remember the video games, the early video games, then, you know, where the graphics were not good.
Speaker: So how they sold the video games is they had some pretty awesome fantasy art on the box.
Speaker: You know, and like, just think of, think of 1982 Dungeons and Dragons art.
Speaker: That's what this reminds me of.
Speaker: The, the challenge is, man, if you can't play the game, how, how in the world are you going to sell it?
Speaker: Yeah, they should have.
Speaker: That's the thing, too.
Speaker: Punny factories just started shipping within the last six months.
Speaker: Why not just push Punny Factory and let this bake a little more?
Speaker: That's what they should have done.
Speaker: It's really hard.
Speaker: Well, people will forgive timing because we have seen that with Chicago Game Company.
Speaker: I mean,
Speaker: I own four Chicago Game Company games, and they are not fast, but they are quality.
Speaker: So don't rush because that's the first impression people are going to get.
Speaker: I agree.
Speaker: So yeah, that's all I have to say about laments.
Speaker: There's not much more I can say.
Speaker: So, okay.
Speaker: I think it's fair to say this is, this needs to be put back in the oven before we actually evaluate it.
Speaker: It was a poor showing at this show and we can't make a final, a final evaluation of it at this point.
Speaker: It's it, it got an incomplete grade.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Next, I got invited to the At Games booth.
Speaker: So they are teaming up with Zen Pinball.
Speaker: Zen Pinball has done like pinball arcade style.
Speaker: I can't remember what theirs is called.
Speaker: I know it's just Zen Pinball.
Speaker: It's the Williams Arcade.
Speaker: So At Games is making a virtual pinball machine for the home setting.
Speaker: And
Speaker: they're doing it in conjunction with Zen and using the games that Zen has already put on Xbox or your phone or wherever it may be.
Speaker: Uh, it's an Adams family style game.
Speaker: It's all 4k resolution.
Speaker: The game itself retails for $1,500.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Their point is we're trying to get you to go from like, this is the next stepping stone between going from the video game version should be this then to your actual pinball machine.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: For $1,500?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: The problem is you've got one-up arcade with the same tables from Zen for half the price.
Speaker: I don't know if it's half.
Speaker: Well, if I recall right, they have two of them, don't they?
Speaker: Or three, maybe?
Speaker: Three.
Speaker: They have Marvel, they've got Williams.
Speaker: And then they have Attack from Mars.
Speaker: Yes, so that is the Williams one.
Speaker: But that one, that's the thing is like.
Speaker: So they have a Star Wars one.
Speaker: Star Wars, yes, that's the other one.
Speaker: Star Wars, Marvels, and Williams.
Speaker: Williams, yeah.
Speaker: But the Williams ones have like Attack from Mars, and Medieval Madness, and Whitewater.
Speaker: The weird part about this Addams Family,
Speaker: And I know that they're, they're, they're setting it up so you can add more games to it later.
Speaker: But at the show, they only had Am's family and then like some random ones that they've made themselves.
Speaker: And then some that like, not a lot of people are going to be aware of.
Speaker: Like, I don't know many people that know about Farfalla, which was a Spanish company.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that was in there.
Speaker: Um, it just, one of the cool parts is when you flip the flippers, it feels like you're flipping the flippers.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Uh,
Speaker: I don't know if there's knockers in there or whatever.
Speaker: So you're getting that feedback.
Speaker: You're getting the clack of the flippers.
Speaker: And then the other part, too, is they're going to put in like haptic feedback features.
Speaker: They didn't have this at the show, but they're saying when you shake the cabinet, it should shake the ball inside.
Speaker: So it's reacting like as if you were actually nudging a game.
Speaker: Well, it's kind of like that you have on your smartphone.
Speaker: I mean, that was the reason why Labyrinth was included with your first iPhone because you're like, oh, I can tilt it and move the ball.
Speaker: So I think –
Speaker: Here's my opinion.
Speaker: I think this is a good idea for a pinball machine or like a virtual cabinet.
Speaker: I think they've done a good job.
Speaker: My, my other problem with is there was delay.
Speaker: You flip the flipper and it was not flipping when it should flip.
Speaker: And the arcade has the same thing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So it's not that it's a, a virtual pinball problem.
Speaker: Like it's not specific to this machine.
Speaker: It's, it's, it's a virtual pinball problem.
Speaker: Um, overall, it's a really cool concept.
Speaker: I think, um,
Speaker: I have our time with them bringing us to pinball expo.
Speaker: Cause I don't actually think that's your target demographic.
Speaker: Um, because I think a lot of people have bought, have bought their pinball machines and this would feel like you're reverting.
Speaker: Maybe I could be wrong.
Speaker: I, I think you are a little wrong in this, in that there are people who will go to these expos and,
Speaker: And they look at, okay, this is, okay, I'll give you the example.
Speaker: There are, you go to like some sort of shipwreck find where they found all this crazy gold.
Speaker: Like, it's like the, there was one that I went to like,
Speaker: 20 years ago.
Speaker: It's called the Ochoa or something like that.
Speaker: And you went and you saw all these crazy things.
Speaker: And because it was salvage rights, they actually were able to pick up these things and you could get like a bar, you could get, you know, a goblet or something like that.
Speaker: And they were crazy prices.
Speaker: They were like,
Speaker: $15,000 for, you know, just something like some piece.
Speaker: And when you're walking out, they're like, or you can get these toothpick things that are made of the metal that we got down there.
Speaker: And we've molt, you know, we have forged them out of this thing and it's only $50.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so many of those things went out.
Speaker: Like no one was buying the super high end stuff.
Speaker: but people were buying the small stuff.
Speaker: So I, there are going to be people who come to these shows who just want to have a good time and play around.
Speaker: And I would say that unless you are into pinball, you don't really appreciate how expensive a single machine is.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So they see that those things and they're like, well, what can I do?
Speaker: And it's like, I don't want to just play it on my phone.
Speaker: What's something I can do.
Speaker: So, um,
Speaker: I actually got a message about a week ago from just one of the guys that I work with at the hospital.
Speaker: And he sent a picture of the, the arcade one up star Wars.
Speaker: It was a Costco.
Speaker: And he said, are these any fun?
Speaker: And I, and I told him, I said, well, yes, they're fun.
Speaker: They are not the same thing as a full functioning game, but they're also 600 bucks now, or 700, whatever he paid.
Speaker: And I said,
Speaker: It's kind of a low risk thing if you're going to see if you like it and you can buy it and play for a while.
Speaker: And then if you feel like, oh, I would rather upgrade to the other one, it's a low cost to enter.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And there are people who are willing to do it.
Speaker: So he bought it.
Speaker: And he's been having a blast with it.
Speaker: So there is a market for this.
Speaker: Again, not every game is targeted toward all demographics.
Speaker: This game is not targeted to you.
Speaker: You're not going to buy it.
Speaker: I'm not going to buy it.
Speaker: But someone will.
Speaker: And if now, if it has more than one game, that would be the because you're not going to sell these if they have one game.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But it's still, and it looks kind of cool.
Speaker: And there are people who just want something like that in their game room that they're not going to play that much.
Speaker: And I think, I don't know, it's a good alternative.
Speaker: Resale those different though, because you can sell a game for roughly what you paid for it.
Speaker: You know, give or take, like up or down a thousand dollars, you're going to capture 95% of the market.
Speaker: of the, of the, the value of the game with these, you need to understand you're buying it and you're probably not going to get anything out of it.
Speaker: I agree.
Speaker: So, uh, that pretty much wraps up for what I played on the floor.
Speaker: I mean, I've played venom.
Speaker: I've played, I've talked about those games and other podcasts.
Speaker: I don't really feel like I need to rehash it here.
Speaker: Um, or other podcast episodes.
Speaker: Um, Friday also took my son downtown.
Speaker: We, we,
Speaker: Went to 360 Chicago.
Speaker: I had him tilt over the whole city.
Speaker: We had Gino's East for lunch.
Speaker: Very delicious.
Speaker: I like Gino's East.
Speaker: They were good.
Speaker: I had that before.
Speaker: It was good.
Speaker: Uh, that night we went to dinner with George Fisher, Jay Z, uh, Michael Hamilton.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: That's his girlfriend.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm kidding.
Speaker: I'm kidding.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: I, I know he's not dating Beyonce's husband, uh, Michael and Amanda Hamilton, Dan Rosenstein, Craig, Bobby, George's sister.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: is that everyone and it was me and carter we went to luminati's it was kind of funny car was kind of like can we not have pizza like on saturday he's like can you have something that isn't pizza i'm like you don't want to get more pizza we can get more pizza he's no please no no give me one of those those uh sausage burger things luminati's was great and i realized the thing that you need to get there in my opinion is the flat
Speaker: Well, you can get the flat, but if you're going deep dish, so the sausage is really good because it goes all the way to the edges, but get pepperoni with it too.
Speaker: I just, more meat, the merrier.
Speaker: That's just me.
Speaker: So, uh, Saturday was great.
Speaker: We got up early.
Speaker: Um, we went to pinball Olympics, uh, which was fantastic.
Speaker: If you haven't seen the videos, it's fun to our Facebook page, go to our YouTube channel.
Speaker: Scott, Denise, and, and Jay brand, you've got to sell this room thing that you guys built.
Speaker: It's like,
Speaker: So I'm going to hear you explain this.
Speaker: It's a, it's a big room you go into.
Speaker: It's, it's, it's soundproof or it's padded.
Speaker: So it's not so loud.
Speaker: It's not soundproof.
Speaker: I apologize, but it's got led strips.
Speaker: Like every three inches up the wall.
Speaker: I mean, that's not me.
Speaker: Every two inches all the way from floor to ceiling, full size, like JBL speakers.
Speaker: And this is all tied in with a P rock that Scott got.
Speaker: And it's so loud and the room actually shakes and it reacts with the game.
Speaker: And you think it's insanity.
Speaker: And then you get to have to just like, if you can actually get to the point where you need to destroy a reactor, the whole game's going nuts, which by the way, there's fog machines built into it as well.
Speaker: And so the fog machines start going off.
Speaker: It's funny.
Speaker: Cause like,
Speaker: In the video, I have me and Joel and his brother Jared and Carter walking into the room, right?
Speaker: And you can see on Joel's face, oh, what is this?
Speaker: And we get playing, and we get to the point where I'm trying to destroy a reactor, and Joel's like, hit the stand-up target.
Speaker: It's right there, Josh.
Speaker: You can hear this in the video.
Speaker: And I'm like, Joel, I can't see crap.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: just landed by dwight oh dude it was great anyhow they need i told him like you could sell these rooms i guarantee you could sell these rooms to someone and tie them in with tna you you could tie it in with like an arcade one-up game holy crap it's just yeah amazing amazing uh the other cool part was there was a they had found a dryer cut the back end out of it and they'd
Speaker: the way that they'd set it up into the pinball Olympics, you couldn't see there was like a black box behind the dryer.
Speaker: But if you climbed into the dryer, there's a dirty Harry in there and you could play that.
Speaker: I'm trying to think, oh, no good gophers.
Speaker: Everyone loves Buzz and Buck or Buzz and Bud.
Speaker: He paid two comedians to come and heckle you dressed up as chipmunks while you're playing no good gophers.
Speaker: carter loved it yeah he he played he that's all he wanted to play was actually no good gophers because he he was heckling them back and they were like oh that's actually a good one that's probably the best one yeah yeah and so it was great it's pinball olympics yeah it's amazing go check out the video it's it's certainly fun if you've never been and it's fun if you've been so so about three hours into pinball olympics i get a text and it's larry i wasn't expecting this and he's like
Speaker: I'm at Expo.
Speaker: If you want to come do that interview.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Give me, I'm like, can you give me like six minutes?
Speaker: Cause that's how long it takes to get back to Expo.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so I went to Joel cause Joel was all right.
Speaker: And Joel's like, I'm actually kind of done too.
Speaker: And so we, my Carter didn't want to leave.
Speaker: He wanted to stay and play no good gophers.
Speaker: I'm like, dude, I can't just leave you here.
Speaker: Like, I'm not going to leave you here.
Speaker: Anyhow.
Speaker: So I told Larry, I'm like, well, how much time do you have?
Speaker: And he's like, not a bunch.
Speaker: And I'm like, okay, I'll,
Speaker: I'll be there.
Speaker: Just give me an hour.
Speaker: And he's like, okay, sounds good.
Speaker: So we hopped in the car.
Speaker: We hightailed it back.
Speaker: I, we found him.
Speaker: We went and found a quiet corner.
Speaker: I record the two hour interview Carter.
Speaker: The nice part is we'd, I had pre-ordered super Mario wonder, which came out on Friday.
Speaker: So Carter was giddy.
Speaker: Just, he'd been so spent on everything we had done.
Speaker: He's like, I'm going to the room and I am playing super Mario.
Speaker: And so I was like, cool, whatever.
Speaker: But yeah, and then Larry and I talked for well over two hours because we had, I think beforehand and then after we were done doing the interview.
Speaker: And then Saturday evening was kind of a wrap up.
Speaker: Like we'd kind of already done it all.
Speaker: It ended with seminar wise with Dwight, Dwight Sullivan from Stern decides he's got to do these game shows.
Speaker: He loves game shows, which it's great.
Speaker: You and I did.
Speaker: He loves gaming, by the way.
Speaker: Just if you want to play games, Dwight is your guy.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And he did two years ago when you went with me, he did.
Speaker: It was the feud without the family or something like that without the family.
Speaker: That's correct.
Speaker: And it went really well.
Speaker: And the interesting part is we were talking about this beforehand.
Speaker: It was kind of like almost everyone in the audience won something small.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: There was nothing.
Speaker: Like I got a Frisbee and a Godzilla figurine.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I got some stern glasses and like actual pint glasses.
Speaker: And I can't remember what else I got.
Speaker: I may have posted cool stuff, but yeah, you know, it's, it's easily less than 30 bucks.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So he did like, let's make a deal.
Speaker: If you've never watched that before, it's very interactive with the audience and he was giving out these play bucks.
Speaker: It wasn't real cash.
Speaker: And if you got play bucks by the end of the show, you could turn it.
Speaker: There was a stern storage.
Speaker: You could go turn them in and buy stuff at the store.
Speaker: But then there was actual like gameplay and people would come up, they would compete against each other.
Speaker: And then if you won, so everyone that came up got to pick a prize essentially.
Speaker: Um, you could either win something or you would get what's called a zonk, which was, you got nothing or you could get a ticket to the final round.
Speaker: And, um,
Speaker: he was giving away, it wasn't just like a shirt.
Speaker: He, if someone won, they got like a stern banner along with a shirt with along with like glasses.
Speaker: It was like, people were like big, all their arms walking away.
Speaker: And it was, it was nuts.
Speaker: the craziest part.
Speaker: So, okay.
Speaker: They go through this is about an hour long.
Speaker: It took a little longer to set up than Dwight was expecting.
Speaker: They get it all set up.
Speaker: They do it and take about an hour.
Speaker: They're wrapping it up.
Speaker: They're doing the final round, which came down to four people.
Speaker: That's how many big tickets were left.
Speaker: And they start going through like, okay, what did you get in your box?
Speaker: And it was a bunch of stuff.
Speaker: And then someone got a zonk and they got nothing.
Speaker: And,
Speaker: The last person they must have set it up that way.
Speaker: Set it up that way.
Speaker: The last person they opened the box.
Speaker: was a mandalorian topper yeah that's a big deal holy crap like we're giving away toppers now yeah so well okay not just toppers that's a two thousand dollar topper yeah that's the most expensive msrp is two thousand dollars yeah yeah and so it was funny because like then people people could tell it was like wrapping up and those that had their bucks were kind of like done and so they wrapped the front i was like dwight wasn't even done yet because he was still doing like the final show and
Speaker: But all these people are trying to get their prizes and whatnot.
Speaker: Um, somehow I ended up with a shirt, even though I didn't get any bucks or go up front, uh, which then was taken away by Dwight.
Speaker: And he's like, no, you can have it.
Speaker: What is going on?
Speaker: Like, it's just, it was weird.
Speaker: I'm not going to go into depth with that.
Speaker: Uh,
Speaker: It was really fun though.
Speaker: Dwight is one of the most sincere, enthusiastic guys that you'll meet in pinball.
Speaker: And now that you've listened to what?
Speaker: An hour and 20 minutes of us.
Speaker: I don't think it's an hour and 20 hour, hour and 15.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That was pretty much expo from, from start to finish.
Speaker: Like I literally once let's make a deal was done.
Speaker: I went and got in bed.
Speaker: Then we were up by two o'clock in the morning, you know, go to get out.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And, and we got home before nine o'clock in the morning.
Speaker: I'm going to take, I'm going to take Larry DeMar off the table.
Speaker: What was your most memorable experience at pinball?
Speaker: Expo.
Speaker: It was either.
Speaker: You know, give me top three.
Speaker: Give me top three.
Speaker: In no specific order, because I don't know if I can order these.
Speaker: The VIP event for Elton John, I felt very honored to be trusted to be in that inner circle.
Speaker: That's something that I would never dreamed of.
Speaker: So I would say high point, definitely.
Speaker: Jersey Jack.
Speaker: Very high point.
Speaker: Jersey Jack with Elton John and their marketing team, including our good friend, Ken Cromwell and
Speaker: the I'm calling it the box of awesome or you're the awesome box Scott Denise and Jay Brands creation at ball Olympics you know pinball Olympics
Speaker: it was great.
Speaker: I felt like I'd done it all before, but that itself was worth the price of admission between that's tacos, you know?
Speaker: Um, but that box of awesome was amazing.
Speaker: Uh, the third, the third thing was probably honestly, all those people that came up to me.
Speaker: Um, there was a lot of people that wanted to talk just cause they knew who I was and they've listened to the show for years.
Speaker: Very humbling to see people where, um,
Speaker: Loser kid shoes has to be one of the coolest things.
Speaker: Oh, dog, Doug Puerta is a, I can't remember if that's exact.
Speaker: I apologize if I saw what you're asking.
Speaker: Doug showed up Thursday, loser kid shoes, loser kid shirt, loser kid hat.
Speaker: Like,
Speaker: The only other thing he could have done is if he went to swiver ball, swag.com slash loser kid and bought that.
Speaker: We have, we have, no, we had the joggers too.
Speaker: So you could buy the joggers and the backpack.
Speaker: You could have literally been loser kid from head to toe.
Speaker: I don't care.
Speaker: The man looked amazing.
Speaker: I loved it.
Speaker: It was great.
Speaker: It was Doug.
Speaker: Thanks for the support.
Speaker: It actually, it, it makes me smile knowing that,
Speaker: that we can at least that you invite us into your home to listen, to listen.
Speaker: And, and we take that friendship seriously.
Speaker: So thank you.
Speaker: There, there is one more person on my list.
Speaker: I did some notes and I've been jumped around this.
Speaker: There's one person I do want to give a shout out to Davey from Stumblers mods.
Speaker: I got to meet him in person.
Speaker: The dude is awesome.
Speaker: Like if you get an opportunity, if he, if he's at a show, seriously, we, he, I apologize.
Speaker: He was one of the other people that went to dinner with us with Luminati's.
Speaker: And the dude is just awesome.
Speaker: Like he's very nice.
Speaker: He's very down to earth.
Speaker: And he just, it was, it was really cool to talk to him.
Speaker: And, uh, if you got the opportunity, sit down with Davey, buy him a pint or whatever you want to do.
Speaker: It just, Davey, I need to order before you stop making them the mods for Godzilla.
Speaker: I have one of them.
Speaker: I need the other two.
Speaker: So it was great to meet him, meet Alec Gleason.
Speaker: He is a part of the electric playground that is doing the Godzilla topper and the Twilight Zone topper.
Speaker: And the Godzilla topper, I didn't realize, it's pretty sweet, so it's like a UFO.
Speaker: Then it has like each city, or not the city, sorry, it has like battle, you know, like in the center of the play field.
Speaker: It's essentially that.
Speaker: They've taken the spaceship from the center of the play field and put it up on top.
Speaker: But if you, I can't remember how you activate it, but a UFO will actually pop out of the topper.
Speaker: And it looks like it's like beaming down onto the topper and then it like slides, it slides back in.
Speaker: That's really cool.
Speaker: Alex, really cool guy.
Speaker: Like I said, I hate starting naming people cause I know I'm going to forget someone.
Speaker: Jeff Tullis.
Speaker: It was great to see Jeff as usual.
Speaker: Uh, nice dude, sweet, sweet hair.
Speaker: I wish I don't dare grow out my locks like him.
Speaker: Well, okay.
Speaker: Jeff's just a sexy man and that's how, how it is.
Speaker: then we should do okay you know what that's that's one thing forget the twippy forget the pinball industry awards which you know i love i love those guys we need to have a like the sexiest person in pinball award you know why don't we have personality wise it's it's jeff within his flowing hair just makes it awesome oh my goodness but yeah it was it was amazing top to bottom
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Top, top three.
Speaker: There you go.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: You have some shout outs too.
Speaker: I want to make sure you get those in.
Speaker: Oh, I've shouted them out during the episode.
Speaker: Uh, Donald Garrison, Dan Rosenstein, Davey Stumbler, Erica from Erica's pin, uh, pinball journey, slam tilt, Ron.
Speaker: Thanks for reaching out.
Speaker: And Glenn.
Speaker: Oh, Glenn Wechter.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: I have not shouted you out yet.
Speaker: Glenn.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: People, I know you're, you're to the end of the episode.
Speaker: You're like, what?
Speaker: We're still going.
Speaker: I apologize.
Speaker: Well, heck, you just listen to Larry DeMar for two hours.
Speaker: Maybe you can listen to me for an hour and 30 minutes.
Speaker: Maybe.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Maybe.
Speaker: So we started doing the YouTube thing, right?
Speaker: And our outro music was actually getting us pinged for copyright stuff.
Speaker: And I didn't know this until about a couple episodes in.
Speaker: And it was still letting us keep the episodes.
Speaker: It wasn't bleeping anything out.
Speaker: but if you don't know anything about YouTube, like if it's been copywritten, it actually like counts your views towards their stuff.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's, it's this weird thing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so like, I was really frustrated with that and I got talking with Glenn and, and I asked him like, would you make us an outro?
Speaker: Cause he's done the slam tilt song, which was amazing.
Speaker: He's, he's done his own personal stuff.
Speaker: He's done songs for our show before.
Speaker: Uh, just the dudes are very good.
Speaker: And I just,
Speaker: Glenn, you're an awesome dude.
Speaker: And so to be a part of loser kid, that's part of the other reason I asked you.
Speaker: Like, so I could be like, Hey, Glenn's helped us out.
Speaker: And, uh, and so Glenn, you haven't checked Glenn out, check him out.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Uh, Glenn was awesome.
Speaker: He actually did your check it out rap.
Speaker: You remember that?
Speaker: Yeah, I do.
Speaker: That's why I said that.
Speaker: Anyhow.
Speaker: So this new outro music is thanks to Glenn Wechter.
Speaker: Thank you again for making this.
Speaker: It's awesome.
Speaker: It's, it's kind of almost creepy, but it's kind of a throwback to our old outro too.
Speaker: It's great.
Speaker: It's great.
Speaker: So anything else, Scott?
Speaker: I'm sorry.
Speaker: I talked a lot.
Speaker: Well, that's because I was interviewing you.
Speaker: I wanted to hear from Expo since I was living vicariously through you.
Speaker: So there's that.
Speaker: And if you guys went to Expo and there were things that you liked or that we didn't cover or that you've
Speaker: that you think we're dead wrong on, please, please send it back.
Speaker: We want to hear from you.
Speaker: We want to hear the things you're looking forward to the current price points, what you're interested in.
Speaker: If there's,
Speaker: It's something you're looking forward to.
Speaker: And that, that helps us out.
Speaker: And we, we love hearing from you guys.
Speaker: So we'll see you in about two weeks.
Speaker: Correct.
Speaker: If you want to get ahold of us, we are loser kid pinball podcast at gmail.com.
Speaker: I do respond to that one very well.
Speaker: So if you do send an email, I will get it and I will either try to respond to it or you'll hear it on our next episode.
Speaker: It just is what it is.
Speaker: Facebook, Twitter slash X, Instagram, Twitch, YouTube.
Speaker: Seriously, if you're at this point and you're listening to our content, please go on YouTube and subscribe.
Speaker: We're trying to get to 500.
Speaker: It does help.
Speaker: They want us to get to like 500 subscribers to get to their level of whatever they need us to and watch our content.
Speaker: Like I said, if you haven't seen the Elton John stuff, if you haven't, I'm slowly rolling out more video onto there.
Speaker: I've got some Labyrinth stuff I'm going to try to put on there.
Speaker: It's hard because I had my son record the video and some of it ended up at my feet.
Speaker: Some of it ended up at my back.
Speaker: Hey, that's great.
Speaker: I love the kid.
Speaker: That's great.
Speaker: It's great.
Speaker: So I'm going to try to edit what I can and kind of put it together so you can get some ideas if you haven't already.
Speaker: Man, it's...
Speaker: I love that he was with me.
Speaker: It was great to actually, you'll, you'll, you'll remember that video, the video of your feet more than you would if he nailed it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And the funny part is too, by the end of all the shenanigans, right?
Speaker: I'm like, have you had fun?
Speaker: I was nervous.
Speaker: Because when you're in your own element, you're afraid that you're neglecting someone that's with you or whatever.
Speaker: It's like, no, I feel like you spoiled me all weekend.
Speaker: I don't know what to do.
Speaker: Just say thank you.
Speaker: I mean, the kid had pizza for like four days straight.
Speaker: And then if he didn't have pizza, he loved Portillo's.
Speaker: I do not want to know what that did to his GI system.
Speaker: Yeah, but...
Speaker: But yeah, that's the episode.
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: If I keep talking, I'll just keep talking.
Speaker: So see you in two weeks, Scott.
Speaker: See you.
Speaker: Bye.
