Ep 112: Save That Cat!

Transcript

Speaker: Thanks for tuning in to the Loser Kid Pinball Podcast.

Speaker: We are on episode 112.

Speaker: I am Josh Roop.

Speaker: With me, my co-captain, as always.

Speaker: Scott Larson.

Speaker: And Scott, rumors are dropping.

Speaker: Man.

Speaker: Games are being released.

Speaker: Fireworks.

Speaker: Good.

Speaker: Cry me.

Speaker: If you want that sweet, sweet game, who are you going to be calling?

Speaker: Well, flipping out pinball.

Speaker: And let me tell you what I did.

Speaker: I actually bought five insider connected kits.

Speaker: Dang.

Speaker: And I put them in.

Speaker: Actually, Iron Maiden already had one.

Speaker: I put one in Infinity Quest.

Speaker: I put one in Jurassic Park.

Speaker: I put one in Deadpool and I put one in Led Zeppelin.

Speaker: And I immediately got the GC on Led Zeppelin.

Speaker: Uh, I'm not saying it was because of that, but it's pretty much, I think I put some Zach mini into the game.

Speaker: Nice.

Speaker: So of course I got it basically on my first ball and then the last next two balls, I totally drained, but yeah, we, we won't really talk about that.

Speaker: I don't blame you.

Speaker: But absolutely.

Speaker: Zach and Nicole, they've always been good for us.

Speaker: So reach out to them.

Speaker: Flipping out pinball.

Speaker: I love their honesty.

Speaker: I helped a friend get a Godzilla premium from them this week.

Speaker: And they said, well, here's the situation.

Speaker: We do have one.

Speaker: But there is a hole in the box.

Speaker: And we understand if you do not want that.

Speaker: And the family is like, we want it.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: He says there's no damage to the game, but I just wanted to let you know.

Speaker: And that's fair because, you know, it's, you know how easy he could have just shipped that out and then it could have got to the homeowner and he could have just claimed, Oh, it must've got damaged in transit, you know?

Speaker: You know what?

Speaker: He was upfront and honest about it.

Speaker: And I think that creates less problems.

Speaker: And that is a lot of transparency you want in a company.

Speaker: No nonsense.

Speaker: No nonsense.

Speaker: Well, cool.

Speaker: Speaking of releases, I think the biggest news we have this week out of everything that's starting to swell is Centaur 2.0 or Revisited as they're branding it.

Speaker: Resurrected.

Speaker: Resurrected.

Speaker: From Haggis Pinball.

Speaker: They totally should have used that.

Speaker: They should have.

Speaker: Like, why should you like, and come on Centaur, the dude looks like he's some, some beast from hell.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: No, I totally.

Speaker: Absolutely.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: What are you thinking release wise of this game?

Speaker: Do you, let's, let's talk about the actual game itself before we get into any of the haggis shenanigans.

Speaker: Do you think Centaur is a smart game to, to revisit?

Speaker: It's a well-respected game.

Speaker: I would argue, though, it's probably more known for the art package than the gameplay.

Speaker: I would agree because it's very limited in production as well.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And it certainly looks cool.

Speaker: And I do like that they went with more of that retro feel.

Speaker: It kind of looks like a Pulp Fiction cabinet.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: No, I agree.

Speaker: So I do like that.

Speaker: Man, I will say the price point they're shooting for, wow, you have to be a big fan of this game.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And that's the challenge is that it's super expensive.

Speaker: The Australian dollar on it's $15,000 for the base model and then $25,000.

Speaker: This is Australian for the Orblivian model.

Speaker: But no, I agree.

Speaker: I think the art is very classic.

Speaker: It's very unique.

Speaker: You don't see this on almost any other pinball machine.

Speaker: I'm not just talking just about the black and white.

Speaker: I'm talking about the actual art package itself.

Speaker: Well, let's also point out something.

Speaker: This is interesting because it does have...

Speaker: it does have an attractive woman on there, but it's not the, it's not the objectified version, which you see so much from this version in pinball.

Speaker: I mean, I would say both the centaur and, you know, and the woman in the back glass, they, they look like they're both really tough.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And which is, is totally unique for this, uh,

Speaker: for this era of pinball.

Speaker: And so I do appreciate that.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I like, if you've never played Santar, I don't know if pinball arcade, I guess they still don't have it.

Speaker: Cause it's a, it's a ballet game.

Speaker: I know.

Speaker: I still have it on my phone.

Speaker: Cause I bought it before they lost the license.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It's a very unique play.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: rule set and what's even more unique is you can work on earning adding more balls into your multi ball yeah so it's kind of like a risk reward and cashing out and getting more you know four three times four times whatnot and the shots are intriguing because there's that left

Speaker: Like, you know how Godzilla goes behind the flipper?

Speaker: It's got that little cove that goes around the backside of the flipper.

Speaker: That's similar on Centaur, but when it comes out the other end, it has a captive ball and you can hit that and it goes up through some inline drop targets.

Speaker: It's very unique in its play.

Speaker: It's very brutal.

Speaker: It is not a forgiving game.

Speaker: No.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Well, most of these games from this era are.

Speaker: I mean, they're known for just being coin takers.

Speaker: Oh, yeah.

Speaker: I'm excited to see this because, like I said, the production's low.

Speaker: It's a very sought-after game.

Speaker: But like you said, I think the biggest hurdle on this one is the money.

Speaker: But to counteract that,

Speaker: I feel like they went with less of a run, right?

Speaker: There's only 250 of the Rebellion model.

Speaker: Is that what it is?

Speaker: I can't remember.

Speaker: And then the Oblivion's only 50.

Speaker: So 300 units total.

Speaker: I mean, we talk about supply and demand on the show all the time.

Speaker: If you definitely want to up your price, you lower your supply.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Because there are people who are collectors and they want that thing that no one else can have.

Speaker: Yep, and this is definitely going to make it to where people aren't going to be able to obtain it.

Speaker: We've also talked about the economy of pinball and the economy in general taking a dip.

Speaker: Do you think Haggis sells out?

Speaker: Because these have officially started selling.

Speaker: They start this Wednesday, actually, at like 11 in the morning.

Speaker: I don't know if that's – it's probably their time, so it's probably like 5 o'clock our time or something like that.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: The high-end will.

Speaker: For 50, you are going to get, there are at least 50 whale collectors out there.

Speaker: And that's a gambling term.

Speaker: The whales are the big fish that the casinos are all trying to get.

Speaker: And I know, I know whales, not a fish, but you ever watched James Bond's casino Royale.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: All the whales are sitting there, you know?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So that, so at such a limited number, you are going to get buy-in from these collectors.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: This is definitely taking it to a more exclusive club.

Speaker: I'm not sure about the entire run though.

Speaker: I, so I think the, the high ends.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: The entire run, maybe you are also competing with Godzilla Premium.

Speaker: You're competing with Jurassic Park Premium.

Speaker: You're competing against Foo Fighters, all these games.

Speaker: So whether or not you can actually command that price, you have to make sure that the collector wants to secure that spot in his or her lineup.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And I think...

Speaker: You know what?

Speaker: I agree with you on the 50.

Speaker: Do you think that the colorization of the play field will be a, do you think it'll be a perk or do you think it'll actually be a hurdle?

Speaker: Because it's so iconic with the black and white.

Speaker: I thought it was very interesting to decide to go with color on that limited 50, which truly makes it stand out as a limited edition because you're never going to see that anywhere else.

Speaker: In 50 games, I mean, that's nothing for the world.

Speaker: You know what I'm saying?

Speaker: That's a tiny bit.

Speaker: I, I, it's hard to tell because anytime you put color in, you are at risk of, of what's the, what's the comment that people always make when people throw in just like a bunch of LEDs into the game.

Speaker: It's like palm puke or whatever.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So as, but it looks like from when I'm looking at it, that it looks more subdued.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So this doesn't feel like a, there is that tipping point where it looks like,

Speaker: it looks like a casino game.

Speaker: I mean, cause the casino games are drenched in rainbow color, just every, every color there.

Speaker: They're just trying to scream for your attention.

Speaker: This seems a little more subdued just on the pictures that they're giving anyway.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So I think it's going to be fine.

Speaker: I don't think it actually detracts that much.

Speaker: The back glass is still that classic, you know,

Speaker: It's mostly black and white.

Speaker: Yeah, there's a few color in there, but I don't see this as being much of an issue because it does look like retro colors.

Speaker: Yeah, I agree.

Speaker: I think they've done very well with it.

Speaker: I think the actual product of the game is very nice.

Speaker: I do have a hard time.

Speaker: I think they said translated.

Speaker: Don't quote me on this.

Speaker: Don't be calling flipping out because they are the exclusive U.S. dealer for this game.

Speaker: I heard that the U.S. dollar was 12,000 for the base model, 15 for the limited.

Speaker: So it's not too far out of the park where pinball prices are at right now.

Speaker: I mean, that's that lines up with a J.J.P.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And they're.

Speaker: we played fathom mermaid.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It was great.

Speaker: It was amazing.

Speaker: It felt solid.

Speaker: It felt, it felt like it was amazing.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It like that one felt like it was resurrected from a previous version of itself, like a Phoenix rising.

Speaker: What was amazing is if you've ever played these older games,

Speaker: you can always tell that they're definitely used, right?

Speaker: Like they're sluggish.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: There's a lot of floatiness to it.

Speaker: Mermaid did have a little bit of that floatiness, but the flippers felt amazing and traditional.

Speaker: And I would say the floaty felt era appropriate, like era appropriate.

Speaker: Absolutely.

Speaker: So it didn't feel like a, you know, it is interesting though.

Speaker: I did message you and the triple drain guys.

Speaker: We talk a lot in the background.

Speaker: And I went and played my friend's Medieval Madness Royal Edition.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And I've played it before, but there is something that feels slightly different about that version of the game versus my version.

Speaker: And I have the standard version.

Speaker: I'm pretty sure it was made in the Stern factory.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And it feels very much, it feels very similar to a Stern game.

Speaker: Now, I don't notice much of a difference with

Speaker: with attack from Mars, cause that was definitely made in a CGC factory, but for some reason, just maybe what I'm used to with mine, it feels different.

Speaker: And so I don't know if anyone else has had that situation, but with this remake, I mean, if you are a centaur fan, you're going to buy it.

Speaker: Definitely.

Speaker: No, I agree.

Speaker: Overall.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: I'm,

Speaker: Happy for anyone that is getting this game.

Speaker: I think you've got a solid game on your hands.

Speaker: I don't go reading through every comment on the forum, but everyone that has received their Haggis game, whether it be Celts or Fathom has been very happy with it.

Speaker: I haven't heard of any issues across the board and they're built like a tank.

Speaker: Like they are not, I mean, with that, that nice plastic coating on top, it protects your play field.

Speaker: It,

Speaker: And it's not like a plastic playfield protector.

Speaker: It's something that feels like a playfield without ruining the playfield.

Speaker: So just you're getting a good quality product.

Speaker: I think this is a smart move by Haggis to keep the numbers down.

Speaker: I am a little nervous just because if you remember when Fathom was released, they gave it like two weeks or something like that to sell out.

Speaker: And it seemed like they're at the tail end

Speaker: dealers bought out the rest to kind of sell out that run right and that was at a cheaper price point than what we have at centaur so i'm gonna be interested especially with just zach being the dealer for america if if they'll sell out like they did before uh time will tell we'll see we'll see hopefully haggis will keep us updated as things progress on wednesday so uh i gotta mention one thing though before we get off this topic

Speaker: I love you guys.

Speaker: I love you, Haggis.

Speaker: I really respect Martin.

Speaker: Guys, that song, I've been making fun of it for like three days now, four days now.

Speaker: And I don't think it's the song itself.

Speaker: Like, you can definitely tell it is very inspired by Rammstein.

Speaker: But the lyrics...

Speaker: Oh my goodness.

Speaker: We have been yelling half man at each other at my household and people have just been randomly messaging me half machine.

Speaker: It's like, Hey, that's great.

Speaker: It's like, it's like the lion man, lion man.

Speaker: It's, it's like you typed into chat GPT, what lyrics you wanted for a Rammstein song.

Speaker: And it, and that's what it gave you.

Speaker: Who's to say that's not what they did.

Speaker: Oh my goodness.

Speaker: It's just, it's rough.

Speaker: The lyrics are rough.

Speaker: It takes me out of the experience.

Speaker: What do you think it should sound like?

Speaker: That's my question.

Speaker: You know what?

Speaker: And honestly, I got to think about the Rammstein feels probably correct for Centaur.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: It's the lyrics.

Speaker: It's the lyrics that get me.

Speaker: Cause the funny part is, is,

Speaker: I was listening to this super quiet.

Speaker: It was 4th of July night.

Speaker: We all got in bed because they just revealed it on the 4th of July Independence Day for America.

Speaker: And I had it so quiet.

Speaker: I'm like, is that Rammstein?

Speaker: And as I'm watching the video, all of a sudden I heard like, half man.

Speaker: And I'm like, what was that?

Speaker: But the problem was, is like,

Speaker: I'm in bed.

Speaker: The kids are asleep.

Speaker: I don't want to be blaring music.

Speaker: So I was like, I'll just listen to it in the morning.

Speaker: And then we all got on our chats and we're just listening to the song together.

Speaker: And it was just, Oh my goodness.

Speaker: Like keep the, why even put lyrics to it?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And, and that's, that's probably where they would, they should retool it is just have it, uh,

Speaker: Kind of that thrash metal type vibe, yeah.

Speaker: Did you order the song off of Wish?

Speaker: Like, where did...

Speaker: Who wrote the lyrics to this?

Speaker: Maybe they ordered it from the, the Rammstein wish site, but it doesn't always come out the way you think.

Speaker: Maybe they gave a sandwich to the same guy that was supposed to do the USB stuff for home.

Speaker: Oh, wow.

Speaker: We are going to get into that.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: For haggis and the reveal and everything.

Speaker: They're going to, they're going to retool that.

Speaker: There's no way that's going to be the, the end, but Hey, we, it was memorable.

Speaker: That seems to be the new meta, right?

Speaker: We've got this now.

Speaker: Space Hunt.

Speaker: What was some of the other ones we were talking about this?

Speaker: It's come out just this year.

Speaker: All the songs, for some odd reason, have just been really rough for reveals.

Speaker: Like Galactic Tank Force.

Speaker: Not everybody can reveal to Welcome to the Jungle.

Speaker: True.

Speaker: Oh, that brings up the slash Godfather theme.

Speaker: Like, I had a lot of people like, oh, that's just a little too much.

Speaker: And it's just it's just funny because I don't feel like anyone this this year has released a pinball machine.

Speaker: And they've been like, you know what?

Speaker: The music has been so spot on.

Speaker: Nailed it.

Speaker: And with Foo Fighters, it's their music.

Speaker: So how do you like.

Speaker: If you have a music pin, I mean, there's a reason why you're making a music pin because their music is iconic.

Speaker: Correct.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And if you're Scott Denisi, I mean.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: You know, no one goes like, why did he put that in this?

Speaker: They usually buy Final Resistance because of this music.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: So just.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Hopefully it gets retooled.

Speaker: And then I was the thing by the end of the trailer, the second or third time I watched, I'm like, are they going to put the song in Centaur?

Speaker: Maybe.

Speaker: I just don't feel like it'd be era appropriate.

Speaker: And granted, it won't be in the, it won't be in the original code, right?

Speaker: The original code is going to strive as much as possible to make it feel.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Feel like pretty much like Fathom where you have the updated code and the original code, the, the OG, the OEM.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Okay, I'm off my soapbox.

Speaker: Just next time, next person that reveals a game, please.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: Just run it by Josh.

Speaker: Don't do lyrics.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker: Oh, my goodness.

Speaker: Speaking of home pin, let's move on to some home pin magic because I've got money in my pocket.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: To start with now, Josh, we'll get into this.

Speaker: You just got back from the Pinball Hall of Fame.

Speaker: Correct.

Speaker: Correct.

Speaker: So Mike from home pin has said all the people who are complaining about his game, his games are the ones who haven't played it.

Speaker: And it's, according to him, they're just trying to, it's kind of like hating Nickelback.

Speaker: It's like, well, I, you hate nickel.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: The cool kids hate Nickelback.

Speaker: So they should.

Speaker: So that's kind of the assertion that if you don't like this, you're just piling on to get your, his words, 15 minutes of fame.

Speaker: Not sure you're getting much fame off that, but you actually played these two games.

Speaker: So give me the skinny.

Speaker: Sorry.

Speaker: So I'm going to refer to you.

Speaker: So Aussie pinball podcast, Dr. John front of the show.

Speaker: Dr. John.

Speaker: He did an interview with Mike from HomePin.

Speaker: I don't even know if his last name – it's always just Mike from HomePin, right?

Speaker: And like you stated – I think his first name is Magic.

Speaker: I'm going to bring up some stuff from the interview first because I know that it's been talked about.

Speaker: But there are some things that have not been talked about this interview because it was just dripping with so much information.

Speaker: I don't know if else you want to call it.

Speaker: But like you said, for someone to –

Speaker: Mike feels picked on because jumping on the bandwagon to hate his games is so you can only get your 15 minutes of fame.

Speaker: His last name is Kalinowski.

Speaker: Oh, good to know.

Speaker: Kalinowski.

Speaker: Mike Kalinowski.

Speaker: I agree with you.

Speaker: It is similar to hating Nickelback, which I am not a fan of Nickelback.

Speaker: But that's the thing.

Speaker: Nickelback has multi... They sold like 16 million albums.

Speaker: Somebody bought them.

Speaker: Nickelback's a multi-platinum... It's like when Machine Gun Kelly wanted to become famous.

Speaker: He dissed Eminem so much that Eminem felt like he finally had to reply.

Speaker: And he got the publicity of Eminem dissing him.

Speaker: Right?

Speaker: I don't feel like anyone, even in the pinball industry, attacks Homepin for the fame.

Speaker: Well, let me bring up some numbers.

Speaker: Could I took some numbers down for you?

Speaker: Guess how many Stern followers?

Speaker: This is just Facebook, Facebook alone.

Speaker: How many followers do they have?

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: This is me just shooting from the hip.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: I'm going to give you a range.

Speaker: I would say between 10 and 20,000.

Speaker: Stern pinball.

Speaker: Maybe even north of that.

Speaker: Stern pinball, 80,000 followers.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: 80, 800,000 followers.

Speaker: I apologize.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: 800,000.

Speaker: Just shy of a million.

Speaker: Million.

Speaker: We're okay.

Speaker: That's for a very niche product, which pinball is still niche.

Speaker: That's a very respectable number.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: JJP is in second.

Speaker: Mm-hmm.

Speaker: 43,000.

Speaker: That's still pretty respectable, right?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Okay, but now compare it.

Speaker: Now, you said how much did you say for Stern?

Speaker: 800,000.

Speaker: 800,000.

Speaker: Let that soak in.

Speaker: 800,000.

Speaker: And the next closest is JJP with 43,000.

Speaker: Which is 120th.

Speaker: Yeah, it's 5%.

Speaker: Which is probably comparable to the market share, to be frank.

Speaker: Spooky, who's been around for more than a decade.

Speaker: 30?

Speaker: 12,000.

Speaker: 12,000, okay.

Speaker: Still respectful.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: American Pinball, they've been around for about five, six years now.

Speaker: I'm guessing five.

Speaker: I think 2017 was the inception.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: But still. 5,000?

Speaker: 7,000.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: All right.

Speaker: Haggis.

Speaker: So Mike from home pin accused Haggis of stealing the plastic protector for the play field.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Guess how many followers they have?

Speaker: 2000.

Speaker: And this was before sent Centaur.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: 2000.

Speaker: 4,000.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: All right.

Speaker: These are still respectable numbers, right?

Speaker: Still respectable numbers.

Speaker: Like we're not dissing on any of that.

Speaker: Exactly.

Speaker: Especially with, we're going kind of like chronologically.

Speaker: These, these,

Speaker: Companies haven't been out as long.

Speaker: Home pin has been out longer than haggis.

Speaker: Do you know how many followers they have?

Speaker: Well, okay.

Speaker: Home pin, they do not sell to unnamed country.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Oh yeah.

Speaker: It's the U S by the company, X, Y, Z, X, Y, Z, or a country X, Y, Z. Yeah.

Speaker: So they have zero presence in the United States.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: So we're going to take all of that out of the equation.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Let's assume that there are still, I mean, Facebook is still used internationally.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: But yeah,

Speaker: Given that you're showing this precipitous drop, I'm going to just throw out a number that may be 800.

Speaker: You're close.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Just shy over a thousand.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: So.

Speaker: How many games have they made?

Speaker: Like, I'm not talking titles.

Speaker: I'm talking about how many games have they made?

Speaker: They've made three plus whatever Porsche.

Speaker: I think they've roughly made five.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Technically, only two are available publicly.

Speaker: Sure.

Speaker: But how many total games have they made?

Speaker: Oh, yeah.

Speaker: Any idea on that?

Speaker: Not because on the, on the interview, he even talked about, they can do two play fields a day.

Speaker: Something like that.

Speaker: Is that what I heard?

Speaker: Something like that.

Speaker: So if it's two play fields a day, let's just say 20 work days.

Speaker: So the maximum production they can make is 40 a month.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Something like that.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So let's just assume that they're making, they're cranking these suckers out nonstop.

Speaker: Like in a year you're making, there's no way they're making, you know, they can't be that, that that's not even possible.

Speaker: Like there's no chance there's more than 300 of these games worldwide.

Speaker: No chance.

Speaker: So my point being is if loser kid pinball podcast, once there are 15 minutes of fame, we're not going to go after a company.

Speaker: It's not a target.

Speaker: Less followers.

Speaker: then we get more than double the listens per episode.

Speaker: It makes no sense for me to target your company, whether I like it or not, because I'm going to get famous off of it.

Speaker: That is such an arrogant little comment.

Speaker: It's narcissistic.

Speaker: This guy alone, this whole interview just got under my skin.

Speaker: Dude,

Speaker: you suck at pinball you suck at making it you suck at producing it and you sit there and you go off about america being you don't even say america because we shall not be named by the way he had according to him there were four people count them four yeah okay how many live in the united states

Speaker: Isn't it like 370 million?

Speaker: That's what I was going to say, like 330 million.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: By the way, if you look at, if you look at any medical reviews out there, by the way, so any, so my company, like we, we actually are one of the biggest anesthesia providers in Utah and we do easily 500 cases a day, just, just across the system.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And the total amount of reviews we have on Google are like 15.

Speaker: And they're all from people who were ticked off for some reason or another.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Well, you're not representative of the whole thing.

Speaker: So if you're talking to people with PayPal that you felt gained the system and left a bad taste in your mouth, that is such a weird cross section of, you know, okay, well, four people in the entire United States

Speaker: That's not representative of what's going on.

Speaker: And if you want to nuke an entire country, and by the way, the, one of the biggest economies on the, on the planet.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Like, is that, is that really because you had a couple of bad business.

Speaker: Pinball economy.

Speaker: Like, hands down.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Where's pinball made, Josh?

Speaker: Chicago, Illinois.

Speaker: Where's Chicago?

Speaker: Isn't it smack dab in the middle of the United States?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Somewhere right there.

Speaker: A little north of middle, but yeah, I get what you're saying.

Speaker: And so it seems his attitude seems so bizarre.

Speaker: It really felt like he.

Speaker: There were so many things about his attitude that rubbed me the wrong way.

Speaker: Mike has said that he is not interested in score.

Speaker: He said the whole point of pinball, or at least for his the way he approaches it.

Speaker: is I just want to have a game that I can, you know, drink with my buddies and bang it around.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And that's, that's really his, his attitude.

Speaker: It's like, I don't care if, if someone gets like a hundred points more than me or whatever, it's like, that's not the point.

Speaker: Well, okay.

Speaker: If it's not the point, why even have any rules?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Why have any scoring whatsoever?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Because if score doesn't matter, you,

Speaker: then why would you even worry about it?

Speaker: I agree.

Speaker: And coming out and saying that, look, all the people who know about pinball, this isn't for you.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: That says, okay, imagine a car company coming out and saying, you know, all the people who know how to drive cars, this car isn't for you.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And the bottom line is because you...

Speaker: it doesn't hold up in comparison.

Speaker: It's still roughly the same price as a fully functional game.

Speaker: And you're, you're basically saying that I am offering you a product that is not that good.

Speaker: It's, it, it, it boggles my mind that like that.

Speaker: So who is your market?

Speaker: Like the, the naive, the,

Speaker: guy or girl who wants to have that cave, the game room that knows nothing other than theme.

Speaker: That's obviously the only market that he's catering to.

Speaker: The only market.

Speaker: And it just... This whole interview is just from top to bottom.

Speaker: John did a great job.

Speaker: He was very composed.

Speaker: Holy crap.

Speaker: I just... I don't get this, man.

Speaker: I don't get

Speaker: How you could uproot your life like majorly twice to make this product and not like you're banking your whole life on this product.

Speaker: And you're marketing it totally opposite.

Speaker: Mike, I've got if this doesn't work out, I've got a couple options for you.

Speaker: A ham company specifically for Jewish people.

Speaker: Oh my gosh.

Speaker: An ice cream company for Eskimos.

Speaker: Ooh, an alcohol company for Eskimos.

Speaker: for members of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Speaker: How about that?

Speaker: That's a good one, right?

Speaker: Yeah, for teetotalers.

Speaker: Alcohol for teetotalers.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: And if none of those work out, you know what?

Speaker: It just wasn't for them.

Speaker: It was, you know... Maybe he can go into Hovercrafts with Andrew Highway.

Speaker: Oh, maybe.

Speaker: Why?

Speaker: Like, just why?

Speaker: You know what?

Speaker: You are welcome.

Speaker: You're getting your 15 minutes of fame from us.

Speaker: Because this is probably the last time I want to even... Okay, but you... Now, okay, we're putting the cart before the horse, though.

Speaker: You played both of these games at the Pinball Hall of Fame.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So tell me.

Speaker: How was it?

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: I played Spinal Tap first.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: It's exactly what he said.

Speaker: It feels like a game made for people that just want to bang the ball around and have a beer with the buddy.

Speaker: I didn't care about score.

Speaker: Honestly, I couldn't drain if I wanted to try.

Speaker: It's very much, he's still stuck in like the 70s.

Speaker: So even though the layout's modern, you've got ramps, you got orbits and spinners and scoops.

Speaker: It still felt floaty and just weak like an EM.

Speaker: And the other part that really sucked, and maybe this is because it's on location, I don't know.

Speaker: You've got a left ramp, and the way that it's pitched is you get like two-thirds through that ramp.

Speaker: And if it still doesn't have enough juice, it still comes back through that ramp at you.

Speaker: It's like a J-pop ramp.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: It's like a J pop ramp.

Speaker: But the funny part is it's not even like, you know, J pop ramps.

Speaker: They are like tilted to the, to the glass.

Speaker: Or like the George Gomez, like the, I can't remember with the left shot, a monster bash where you hit it.

Speaker: It's not steep, but it's long.

Speaker: And so if you don't strike it, it's not going to make it all the way up because the, the habit trail is so long.

Speaker: Exactly.

Speaker: That is a perfect example.

Speaker: That's how it feels.

Speaker: You shoot that shot.

Speaker: You watch it go up around the corner and hope it comes around the other corner.

Speaker: And if it doesn't, it trickles back at you.

Speaker: Like I said, that could be dribbles back.

Speaker: Dribbles.

Speaker: That could be a flipper issue.

Speaker: The flippers felt weak.

Speaker: They just, they felt like mush.

Speaker: It felt like it shot fine.

Speaker: Like the layout shot.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: Define fine.

Speaker: Was that fun?

Speaker: It was very boring to me.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: I didn't feel any energy.

Speaker: I didn't feel any moments.

Speaker: The problem is you're playing a game where none of the scenes from the movie have anything to do with the gameplay.

Speaker: And they're seriously only two, three seconds long.

Speaker: Because you know when you're watching a movie, all you want is two, three seconds, right?

Speaker: Like when you're playing a pinball machine.

Speaker: Okay, other machines have integrated movie assets.

Speaker: Yeah, like Star Trek.

Speaker: Even though it's pulled directly from the movie, I love that those modes...

Speaker: are constantly spitting out lines from the same, like when you're playing, whether Spock and, and captain Kirk are trying to run and jump off the cliff.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And it's just spouting out those lines.

Speaker: It's, it's fantastic.

Speaker: This is just randomly, it has nothing to do with the mode, right?

Speaker: Like there was like banana mode and you had to shoot to like, unpeel the banana.

Speaker: But why even have a mode?

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: All right.

Speaker: The scoop was how you started the modes, which is on the far left, similar to like a whirlwind.

Speaker: Every game?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: You know, granted, the layout, like I said, it was very reminiscent of the 90s Bally Williams.

Speaker: You've got a pop nest in the top right.

Speaker: The thing that confused the crap out of me is the skill shot, right?

Speaker: You pull it back and it looks kind of like, you know how Willy Wonka...

Speaker: you kind of have to get up in between a spot.

Speaker: And if you over plunge, it goes up around the top.

Speaker: I mean, a lot of power games like that, where you have to just hit the sweet spot.

Speaker: This one, I was trying to do that because I was like, oh, I've got to hit the sweet spot.

Speaker: I missed the first time.

Speaker: And the second time I just didn't care.

Speaker: And so I just full plunge.

Speaker: And then I realized, oh, if you full plunge every time, it just gives you the skill shot.

Speaker: Because, you know, that's skillful, right?

Speaker: Because it actually shot it through that hole and then up through the rollovers.

Speaker: It's a skill shot.

Speaker: And I'm like, for what?

Speaker: I did nothing besides pull back as hard as I want to.

Speaker: And my four-year-old can do that.

Speaker: That's probably the skill level he's shooting for.

Speaker: I'm actually surprised he has a plunger and not just like a button launcher.

Speaker: And you know what?

Speaker: Overall, if you're looking for...

Speaker: This is how it felt overall to me.

Speaker: It felt like if Zizzle got the go-ahead to make a full-size machine.

Speaker: If you want to Zizzle for the price of a Stern... If you want to Zizzle, just wait for Harry Potter.

Speaker: Good criminy.

Speaker: It just... Like I said, overall, it's not the worst game I've ever played.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: But it's not something you'd want to buy.

Speaker: No.

Speaker: Not even close.

Speaker: I feel bad to the people that this was their dream theme.

Speaker: because it feels like the kid that procrastinated his homework project up until the last point and then was like, here you go.

Speaker: And the teacher was like, this isn't even like a coherent statement.

Speaker: I guess that's a little mean to say because the layout does seem fine.

Speaker: It's better than Thunderbirds.

Speaker: Holy crap.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Why?

Speaker: Why shoot this in a ramp?

Speaker: How many times is international rescue like 2025?

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Here's the funny thing about that.

Speaker: In the interview, they asked about it and he said they basically, it was the night before that they said, Oh, we have these lights back here.

Speaker: We don't really have anything programmed.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Why is that not in your planning sessions?

Speaker: Like, that seems very odd that I can understand them not having a good idea for it, but saying, hey, we had all these lights here and we had no clue on what we were going to do with that.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So that seems so bizarre that there wasn't some.

Speaker: So that's like a planning session you have in the first month of the game.

Speaker: It's not when you're about to ship it out the door.

Speaker: Why even put it in then?

Speaker: If you're like, oh, we don't know what this is going to do.

Speaker: And here's the thing about Thunderbirds is that center ramp is so close to those flippers.

Speaker: It's like, where else do I shoot?

Speaker: Because that ramp is right there.

Speaker: It just boggles my mind.

Speaker: Okay, you know, I said this isn't the worst game I have ever played.

Speaker: This would have another dollar in it, though.

Speaker: No, I didn't finish either game.

Speaker: That's the problem, though, is like by my second ball on Spinal Tap, I already earned two extra balls and still just hitting the ball around because that's, you know, hit the ball around to have a beer with the buddies.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And so I finally walked away from it because I just was so.

Speaker: uninterested in the game.

Speaker: It just, and I wanted to like it.

Speaker: I enjoy this is spinal tap.

Speaker: I think that is a great game, a great movie.

Speaker: Thunderbirds and spinal tap may not be the worst game I've ever played, but I'm comparing it to games that have been around for 40, 50 multiple years.

Speaker: This, these two games are by far the worst games being made in production today.

Speaker: I'm not saying quality.

Speaker: I'm not saying I'm saying gameplay.

Speaker: I am saying right.

Speaker: Theme integration.

Speaker: I'm saying artwork.

Speaker: They're just the rough.

Speaker: And it breaks my heart because like, I know I have a friend that loves Thunderbirds, right?

Speaker: That was their show growing up and they loved it so much so that like, it's just been a part of their life, their whole life.

Speaker: So when a Thunderbirds came out,

Speaker: It's one of the reasons it got them into pinball and they went and played it and just was so mad at the disrespect of.

Speaker: I think, I think it's lazy.

Speaker: I think that's what it comes down to.

Speaker: It's the disrespect of the, of the property.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: just being that lazy shows that you're not caring for that property.

Speaker: Like someone that has grown up with these, like this wouldn't fly.

Speaker: If Stern was like, we made Avengers and this came out.

Speaker: What, what these games see, I will say that Thunderbirds, it looks like in the homebrew section at expo, the people who have a passion for a theme,

Speaker: And typically they're, they're rough.

Speaker: Like the, the, I, I respect what they've done.

Speaker: I haven't made a pinball machine myself and I respect how difficult it is, but it still feels like it's a, a fan fiction product.

Speaker: It's not ready for publication.

Speaker: So when you look at Thunderbirds, Thunderbirds feels like I should earn a gumball at the end of the drain.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It's like a novelty game.

Speaker: That's what it looks like.

Speaker: This is Spinal Tap.

Speaker: It looks okay.

Speaker: It looks like a very generic play field.

Speaker: I agree with you.

Speaker: Spinal Tap does feel like a homebrew.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: I, though, would say that Thunderbirds is so bad, it is an insult to say that it looks like a homebrew because I have played

Speaker: multiple homebrews well chicago and at texas yeah and those people i would hire one of those people to design your game yeah before i told you to release what they did for thunderbirds so the the challenge is i don't know if someone playing this would say i i love it enough to

Speaker: Are you going to get people buying these games after they play it?

Speaker: Or is it an impulse buy for a whale person who just has a dream theme and has a game room?

Speaker: Yeah, that's pretty much what it comes down to.

Speaker: But it just it's it stinks because like we know people that work in the industry that have wells that buy from their company, right?

Speaker: And they buy.

Speaker: They'll call up and buy 10 machines at once because they got the money.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: They'll say what he got in stock and they'll buy arcade and pinball.

Speaker: They don't care.

Speaker: It just, I would be surprised though.

Speaker: I mean, it just seems that he's intentionally.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: The point of this is he's pretty relevant on the pinball landscape.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And so, you know, when someone comes out and just starts,

Speaker: like flamethrowing to get attention like Robert Mueller.

Speaker: Maybe I would say that when I listened to the interview, there were elements of someone who is very self-confident and very sure that they have all the answers.

Speaker: And anytime something didn't work out, it was because,

Speaker: it was punitive on regulations, government, whatever.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And every version of anything that he talked about, it made him sound really good.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And other people sound really bad or vindictive.

Speaker: So I, it's, it's a very dangerous personality mix that if you have,

Speaker: there's a fine line between confidence and arrogance.

Speaker: This guy was so far away from the line.

Speaker: The line didn't exist.

Speaker: That's true.

Speaker: Like he was so far into the arrogant narcissism that I, it was hard.

Speaker: If I were in a room with this guy, I probably would just kind of walk away or just wait for the train wreck.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Because nothing that, nothing that he was saying seemed to be making sense.

Speaker: Like he's,

Speaker: Okay, should we get into the USB thing?

Speaker: Yeah, go for it.

Speaker: We've been updating games through USB since when?

Speaker: Dennis Creasel said the invention of it was in 1996.

Speaker: Okay, but when, like, in, okay, Simpsons I know has a chip, okay?

Speaker: Yeah, the EEPROM.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So at some point between that and Pirates of the Caribbean, because I have that stern one.

Speaker: At least since Spike won games.

Speaker: Yeah, okay, so 15, 16 years?

Speaker: At least.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And so this is not new technology.

Speaker: Well, it's not just Stern.

Speaker: It's JJP.

Speaker: Well, JJP has their own issues about updating games.

Speaker: I like my Wizard of Oz.

Speaker: That was kind of a pain to update my game.

Speaker: So I will say that there's still USB though, right?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It's, it took me a while to figure it out, but K Stern has the, it, they have it down.

Speaker: It is very streamlined.

Speaker: And any respectable engineer can retro engineer something.

Speaker: If you give them a product, they can say, I can figure out how that works and I can just replicate it.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: So if you're saying that you are an amazing engineer and these experts in the field can't figure out something that Stern has been doing for 18 years,

Speaker: That makes me question your expertise.

Speaker: A little bit.

Speaker: And when you find someone who can do it for chips and a sandwich, you're not getting top-notch talent.

Speaker: No.

Speaker: I'm sorry.

Speaker: You're not.

Speaker: And so that's not a professional thing.

Speaker: And to claim that all the experts out, the so-called experts out there couldn't figure it out,

Speaker: That makes me question your ability to assess what an expert is.

Speaker: Well, not only that, like to say that motherboards will fail within a couple of years.

Speaker: I'm sorry.

Speaker: Show me the body.

Speaker: Show me the bodies.

Speaker: Show me ever all the games that are put out to the curb after three years then.

Speaker: That means everything made.

Speaker: That means my, my Avengers should have stopped working by now.

Speaker: It was made in 2020 and my world cup soccer over there should not, not even exist because of the motherboards and it should be dead.

Speaker: My oldest game, uh, black Rose.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Black Rose, 1992 ish.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: So that's a 30 year old game.

Speaker: Uh huh.

Speaker: Still working.

Speaker: My amazing Spider-Man from Got Believe in 81.

Speaker: It was still working while I sold it.

Speaker: It had a motherboard.

Speaker: It just.

Speaker: It seemed very strange.

Speaker: The positions he was taking.

Speaker: It was.

Speaker: It really smacked of.

Speaker: I'm smarter than everybody in the room.

Speaker: And I'm going to tell you that.

Speaker: I think.

Speaker: I think we should grant his wish.

Speaker: And.

Speaker: These games aren't for us.

Speaker: So no one should support him.

Speaker: I am curious.

Speaker: None of us pinball people should support him.

Speaker: Sorry.

Speaker: Let me, let me rephrase that, but he's coming to expo next year.

Speaker: That's what he said.

Speaker: So I, I, I'm not catering to the,

Speaker: pinball crowd, but I'm going to a pinball expo.

Speaker: In country XYZ.

Speaker: XYZ.

Speaker: So let me get this way.

Speaker: You think America sucks so much to the point that you won't say their name.

Speaker: It seems a very immature thing to do.

Speaker: You don't sell to pinball people, yet you're coming to a pinball convention in America

Speaker: To sell your product.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Get out of here.

Speaker: I'm going.

Speaker: I'm sure I'll be at pinball expo.

Speaker: I will go up.

Speaker: I'll stand in line.

Speaker: I'll go and I'll play the game.

Speaker: Eventually at some point I will make it down to the pinball hall of fame.

Speaker: Cause it's about seven hours away.

Speaker: And I will give my own assessment of actually playing.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: So the only thing that I've commented on is his attitude, his business decisions.

Speaker: And.

Speaker: how he comes across, which just seems bizarre.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Compare him to someone who was really savvy with the media Jersey Jack.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: We're talking light years difference.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: Like you don't, you don't try to alienate people by criticizing them by, by attacking them.

Speaker: If you're trying to actually sell things to them, then you should probably be more likable.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: He's not like, or the, or the very least not tell the whole country that, that makes pinball machines is the highest economic demographic of the product you're making.

Speaker: Mm-hmm.

Speaker: that were so terrible.

Speaker: You can't even say our name because of four people on PayPal.

Speaker: It seemed weird.

Speaker: But then did you notice that he, that he turned and he said, actually, pen PayPal is fine now because if someone says anything, I immediately file a complaint and it goes to the ombudsman.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: So basically he takes a very aggressive tactic and,

Speaker: As opposed to saying, okay, is this a valid complaint?

Speaker: Because that's what you should do as a business.

Speaker: Yeah, I agree.

Speaker: It's a valid complaint.

Speaker: But he just, he seems, according to the interview, that he just takes a very aggressive defensive thing.

Speaker: Now, there was another guy that we have talked about a lot that was a big talker that had a flamethrower and started trying to throw haymakers at Stern.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: How'd that turn out for him?

Speaker: He's sitting in a prison cell.

Speaker: Hopefully.

Speaker: Hopefully.

Speaker: Or he's at least the very least on house arrest because he still invested millions of dollars.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: That was a con man.

Speaker: This guy.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And by the way, I'm not saying that Mike is a con man.

Speaker: I'm not.

Speaker: No.

Speaker: Because he's made a product.

Speaker: It's completely delivering the product.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It is completely different.

Speaker: However, there are a lot of attitude issues.

Speaker: that are very similar between the two.

Speaker: He is the guy that when you go to your favorite sports team and sit in the arena, he's yelling from the grandstands at the number one athletes in the league that they suck, they're not doing it right, and he could do it better.

Speaker: And I don't know if you ever saw this video, but in the UK, there was a man harassing a female tennis player that he could do it better because he was a man.

Speaker: So she finally said, come on,

Speaker: You come play.

Speaker: He had to put the skirt on though.

Speaker: So he got down on the court, put on the skirt, started playing and got his butt handed to him from a woman.

Speaker: Well, okay.

Speaker: Because, because you will, any elite athlete, if I, if I play tennis against anybody, any elite athlete, regardless of gender, I'm going to get smoked basketball.

Speaker: 100%.

Speaker: Any elite athlete basketball, I will get smoked.

Speaker: I am not an athlete.

Speaker: And I also am aware of that.

Speaker: Yes, exactly.

Speaker: Exactly.

Speaker: And that's what I'm saying, though.

Speaker: Like, it doesn't matter about gender.

Speaker: It doesn't matter.

Speaker: Like, you shouldn't disrespect someone for something that they have trained in a high-level competitive state, manufacturing state.

Speaker: It doesn't matter.

Speaker: Like, it just, I don't know.

Speaker: This guy just, like I said.

Speaker: He was too much.

Speaker: Too much.

Speaker: Too much.

Speaker: Too much.

Speaker: And your games suck.

Speaker: Like, they're not my cup of tea.

Speaker: Which, guess what?

Speaker: I play pinball, so it's not for me.

Speaker: It's probably not for me, too.

Speaker: Yeah, it's not.

Speaker: And it's not for all my friends that are in pinball, that they play pinball because of either it's casually going through the exploration of the game because they want to see the depth of the game and experience the feeling and the story and be immersed in that world.

Speaker: Or the people are playing for score.

Speaker: Guess what?

Speaker: None of it's geared towards you.

Speaker: It does seem bizarre, though, because it's not like you find pinball machines in the 7-Eleven anymore.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: You have to seek out pinball.

Speaker: They're either at

Speaker: bars that cater to pinball or you're at home environment.

Speaker: Those are really the two.

Speaker: Occasionally you get like a, like a, what am I, what am I trying to say?

Speaker: Like a collect, like the, you know, the pinball collective or something where you pay 10 bucks and you go and you play as much as you want, you know, but still that's a very, that's a, you're catering to a specific crowd.

Speaker: People aren't going to bump into a pinball machine unless they want it.

Speaker: I agree.

Speaker: I like to keep things positive on the podcast.

Speaker: So I think this is probably the last time I talk about Haggis because it just gets under my skin.

Speaker: Or not Haggis.

Speaker: Sorry.

Speaker: The last time I talk about Home Pin.

Speaker: Sorry, Haggis.

Speaker: I apologize.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: You're nowhere near Home Pin.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: I will say I will keep it positive.

Speaker: I am positive that I am not interested in these products.

Speaker: I like that attitude.

Speaker: I did find it interesting, though, as I was at the Hall of Fame.

Speaker: I'm going to give a quick review of that.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: That he had all of home pins games, but he only had one Jersey Jack, which was Hobbit.

Speaker: He did have a good amount of Sterns.

Speaker: There's a lot of Sterns.

Speaker: A lot of Sterns there.

Speaker: But it's like he didn't have any American games.

Speaker: He didn't have.

Speaker: I mean, it's kind of weird that he doesn't have these games in the Pinball Hall of Fame.

Speaker: It's an interesting location.

Speaker: It feels very kind of a mix of.

Speaker: a flea market where there's these games that are functional adjacent.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: But they're not, you know, a lot, there's a lot of things that are off and I'm, I'm hoping that they could change their philosophy and maybe hire two or three full-time techs that just go through and make sure everything's ship shape.

Speaker: But it's difficult to the way it's currently being managed to anticipate a long-term viability of it.

Speaker: I agree.

Speaker: And Tim Arnold is getting up there in age.

Speaker: Maybe he will sell it soon.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: But that was the problem about the Pinball Hall of Fame is I got there.

Speaker: The new location is amazing.

Speaker: It's great where it's located right there, right next to the airport.

Speaker: So when you're pulling in, the biggest thing you see from your airplane is the pinball.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: at least half the games were turned off.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And I, that just shows a staffing issue.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Like you're not, there are people that are not being hired and paid a wage to maintain the games.

Speaker: The biggest attraction in my opinion, that's there.

Speaker: It's pinball circus.

Speaker: If you're not aware of pinball circus, there's only one.

Speaker: It's been two.

Speaker: There's two.

Speaker: Is there two or three?

Speaker: I thought there was three.

Speaker: I thought there was two.

Speaker: I thought there was one there and then one in a private collection, but it is also still a gimmick game.

Speaker: It is a gimmick game.

Speaker: I played it once and I got to, you know, through the mouth of the clown at the top.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: The last two or three times I've been there, it's actually been down.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Was it down?

Speaker: It's still down now.

Speaker: It was, you know, it was down a couple of weeks ago from what I saw on Facebook.

Speaker: Going nuts, which there's only been 10 in the world of those ever made.

Speaker: That one was down.

Speaker: I mean, a lot of, just a lot of games were shut off.

Speaker: And yeah,

Speaker: Here's the thing.

Speaker: It is a 501 C3, by the way.

Speaker: It's not a business business.

Speaker: It is kind of a charity type thing.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Maybe they need to transition.

Speaker: Maybe they need to transition to more of a for-profit enterprise.

Speaker: Well, and here's the thing, too, is like you can go in there.

Speaker: I know that people get ticked off when these games are turned off, but you're not paying an entrance fee.

Speaker: It was cool to kind of go through and see some of the history there.

Speaker: And then Tim's got at least 200 games set up.

Speaker: Oh, yeah.

Speaker: There's a lot.

Speaker: There is a ton of games in there.

Speaker: And there's arcade games and bubble hockey.

Speaker: And like I said...

Speaker: there's really i know that people complain that like well this place just sucks because you know half the games are tough they had a lot of sterns that were on a lot of newer sterns i mean they had four foo fighters they've got batman 66 they've got black knight i mean they just they had a lot of games there and so i didn't feel ripped off because i'm like well granted i've been in this hobby for over a day or almost a decade now a lot of those games that were turned off i just was like oh like

Speaker: I'm not playing Black Knight 2000 today.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: It's just, you know, and, but I get it.

Speaker: I get it.

Speaker: Like we had on Martin Gonzalez and he's like, it just stinks when you're new into this hobby, you're so excited and you find, finally find a place that has that game and you get there and it's turned off because it's broken.

Speaker: So I do feel for those people that specifically go to the pinball hall of fame and that their games turned off that they wanted to play.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: I would say that it has the most name recognition of all the location, the destination locations.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: People at least would recognize or know that a lot of people ask me, Hey, have you been to the pinball hall thing?

Speaker: Cause they went to Vegas and they saw a big sign, but there are, there are definitely other places that are more well-maintained and that's not really a knock on Tim.

Speaker: I hope that, um,

Speaker: The business philosophy adjusts for what the demand is.

Speaker: I do find it interesting that there was one thing that kind of almost gave me a heart attack.

Speaker: As we were pulling out, we thought we saw a cat up on the Pinball Hall of Fame sign pretty far up.

Speaker: It was on the letter B. And so we stopped.

Speaker: We got out to see what we could do.

Speaker: And we realized it's a fake cat that they've put on.

Speaker: the letter B for some odd reason, just to hang out up there.

Speaker: Oh, it's like the size of an actual cat.

Speaker: It's not like something that's, Oh, wow.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: I took a picture.

Speaker: Cause I was like, what the heck?

Speaker: But yeah.

Speaker: Overall, like I said, pinball hall of fame.

Speaker: If you're in Vegas, you have some time to kill.

Speaker: I still recommend it.

Speaker: There's still some great games there.

Speaker: I still go.

Speaker: There's a lot of good history there.

Speaker: Just, just know, don't be as disappointed.

Speaker: Whatever happened to, they built that place.

Speaker: It wasn't even like a year later that they were, they said that part of their property was encroaching on another property.

Speaker: They didn't say that.

Speaker: I think that that was a post that they said it was, they, they missed it by like nine feet or something like that.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: Everything around that place, though, has been demolished.

Speaker: It's literally just the pinball Hall of Fame right there now.

Speaker: And now I will say it's not also the best part of the strip.

Speaker: Like we walked there after a football game and we decided this wasn't the best idea.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So that's just it's not it's not terrible, but I would just drive.

Speaker: I mean, the parking lot's fine.

Speaker: Definitely.

Speaker: So, all right, let's move on to what else we got on this list.

Speaker: We've got a couple of minutes left.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: Well, we got queen queen.

Speaker: Queen dropped their price.

Speaker: They were originally 92 99.

Speaker: They've dropped it to 89 99.

Speaker: Why do you think that is Scott?

Speaker: I think it's to get below a certain price point to help move things.

Speaker: I agree.

Speaker: Queen is a better integration than some of the dream themes that we have seen and we've talked about.

Speaker: It's still not a game that I would be interested in buying.

Speaker: I agree.

Speaker: Just because I have other alternatives that I enjoy playing more and that's what it comes down to.

Speaker: So it, it's a smart move.

Speaker: If you want to try that psychology though, of, well, it's technically under $9,000.

Speaker: Yes, absolutely.

Speaker: No.

Speaker: And they do that all the time.

Speaker: They do that with gas.

Speaker: What do they say?

Speaker: Hey, gas is three 59 99.99.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Of course.

Speaker: And nothing's a hundred dollars.

Speaker: It's 99 95.

Speaker: Exactly.

Speaker: So, so yeah.

Speaker: So there is that.

Speaker: I didn't even tell you why I was in Vegas.

Speaker: I went down there to the punk rock museum that just opened up.

Speaker: I don't know if any of you like punk rock out there, but it goes from the decades of the sixties when it first was introduced all the way up through to now.

Speaker: It seems like it kind of stalls out around the mid two thousands, late two thousands.

Speaker: Nothing wrong with that, but it was really cool.

Speaker: I got a guided tour with Dave bash of some 41.

Speaker: That is a pinball machine.

Speaker: I would like to have just throwing that out there, but,

Speaker: Yeah, it was a really amazing experience.

Speaker: And I'd highly recommend it.

Speaker: The guided tour, hanging out with two and a half hours, the guy that inspired me to pick up the guitar.

Speaker: So it was cool to have.

Speaker: It was very, I mean, the group was small and we had maybe 10 people in our group and it was just seeing the history of like the Ramones and they had their jackets there and

Speaker: and black flag and just all those old school punk rock bands.

Speaker: It was really weird though, to see flea from red hot chili peppers.

Speaker: He was a band called fear.

Speaker: That was a punk rock band before red hot chili peppers.

Speaker: And his stuff was in there for them, but not for red hot chili peppers.

Speaker: There's not, well, red hots more of a funk band, but yeah, true.

Speaker: But they did have some punk elements to him, but it was funny.

Speaker: Cause like motorhead was in there.

Speaker: One of the, one of the people was trying to like, are you, they're not really punk rock.

Speaker: And I'm like,

Speaker: Have you listened to Ace of Spades?

Speaker: It's high octane.

Speaker: Vocals are grungy.

Speaker: It's punk to me, I guess.

Speaker: Anyhow, I highly recommend it.

Speaker: If you're in Vegas, check out.

Speaker: They have different people from different bands.

Speaker: The schedule's about a month out in advance.

Speaker: You can just check it out on their website.

Speaker: Definitely go to the Punk Rock Museum if that is your cup of tea.

Speaker: A lot of people were shocked.

Speaker: Like,

Speaker: Billy Idol was in the punk rock hall of fame and Joan Jett's in the black hearts.

Speaker: Yeah, they are.

Speaker: Yeah, they're, they're punk.

Speaker: So rumors are revving up end of this month.

Speaker: 23rd comic-con starts up and Stern supposedly has a booth at comic-con along with the artist of is Ozzy going to be there again.

Speaker: I think Ozzy, something like that.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: You can check out all the details on.

Speaker: Now I am going to clarify some things that some people have said.

Speaker: They said that Todd, Todd McFarlane invented venom.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: That's not true.

Speaker: Venom's actually been a character in Marvel for a long time, but Todd McFarlane got his name out there for being a Spider-Man artist.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And,

Speaker: He did the Spider-Man comic.

Speaker: He actually got his own comic book that was named just Spider-Man because his art sells.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And so obviously he knows how to draw spiders.

Speaker: He knows how to draw...

Speaker: Spider-Man characters, including Venom.

Speaker: And so that definitely makes sense because he left Marvel to make Spawn.

Speaker: That's actually Spawn is his own property.

Speaker: So that's where that came from.

Speaker: He actually left with the creator of Deadpool, Rob Liefeld.

Speaker: They actually started Image Comet.

Speaker: Image Comet.

Speaker: Comics?

Speaker: Comics?

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: that was right back in the nineties when comics were, had a huge rise in collectability.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I think it's, it's tapered down a lot since then.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: But,

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And obviously he's, he's involved in the project because there's zero reason why Todd McFarlane should be there unless he's associated with a stern release.

Speaker: They're only stern release that it's, it's the worst kept secret venom.

Speaker: And obviously Ozzy is going to be involved because there's no other reason why Ozzy would have, would have been there last year.

Speaker: So there has been rumors that this isn't actually venom, that the next release is a remake of,

Speaker: I just have a hard time believing that they're going to do a remake in between now and a Venom release.

Speaker: They obviously pushed Venom back for some reason.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So I'm not sure why, because it takes a long time to schedule, you know, people who have a very full schedule, including Ozzy Osbourne.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And so something significant must have happened to readjust the schedule.

Speaker: We'll have to ask when it finally comes out and see if we can get anything.

Speaker: Because a lot of times they just don't share.

Speaker: But maybe it's obviously stuff beyond their control.

Speaker: It's the same thing as when we talked about, well, Stern apparently dropped the ball when it comes to Harry Potter.

Speaker: Well, okay, maybe.

Speaker: But I always ask, what do they know that we don't know?

Speaker: And what, what were the, what were some conditions or some situations that they thought may not work for their business because that it's a business decision.

Speaker: So obviously something that wasn't working for the timeline is why they pushed it back, but I pushed it back to release in the comic book venue, you know, a comic-con.

Speaker: Well, and so the rumors are right now,

Speaker: There's a cornerstone at the end of this month.

Speaker: And then there's another game looking to be released in December.

Speaker: And they're speculating because George Gomez said there's only two cornerstones coming out this year, shipping this year.

Speaker: And there's so a lot of people are speculating in December.

Speaker: It is a remake.

Speaker: As far as rumors go, I'm trying to think of how much we can say here, but there's,

Speaker: My understanding, there will be something shown in December, but not ship until the beginning of next year.

Speaker: Yeah, and that's not uncommon.

Speaker: No, it's not uncommon.

Speaker: That's not uncommon for them to release.

Speaker: And they have done that before.

Speaker: But that means you could still technically have three cornerstones this year.

Speaker: but only it'd be two because you're technically showing the third one in December.

Speaker: Does that make sense?

Speaker: Do you think that George cares at all about timelines?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Oh, you know, he is tied to it.

Speaker: Sticking to two releases versus three releases.

Speaker: He's 100% tied to it.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And this it's, it's almost like they sacrifice their first born on this promise that they're only good.

Speaker: Basically he was talking that they are modifying their production and

Speaker: scheduled because of because of manufacturing issues this wasn't design issues this was manufacturing issues that they were having so if they start like there's no switch that says okay so we we can only do two this year now let's crank it up and do three next year you know if the if the lag time was

Speaker: you know, four, four months between schedule and it was six months and now they dropped it to five months.

Speaker: Sure.

Speaker: Fine.

Speaker: I, I also don't understand why rush doesn't seem to be on the manufacturing anymore.

Speaker: There seems to be still a lot of demand for rush.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: So I don't understand that, but yeah,

Speaker: I wouldn't be surprised if they released it because who, who cares about an interview he did?

Speaker: I mean, he, he throws out things like, yeah, we're probably going to remake stranger things.

Speaker: And then they had to come out and say, we were not planning on doing that right now, but it's a good idea.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Well, what's funny too, is like he announced last year and it weirds me out because we focused on such the weirdest things and we announced this last year.

Speaker: Like I'm surprised nap arcade hasn't ran this or,

Speaker: You can go back and watch the footage, but George Gomez announced last year a Spike 3 was coming soon.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: You know?

Speaker: Well, of course it is.

Speaker: It's like saying Nintendo is saying, hey, we have the next console in development.

Speaker: I agree, but is it just not as appealing?

Speaker: Like, is it not?

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: It just makes me chuckle some of the stuff that we focus on.

Speaker: But...

Speaker: Do you think it's been five years since we've had a vault?

Speaker: The last vault that's ever happened was Star Trek and they called it like the final voyage.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And it's been five years.

Speaker: Do you really think we get a vault?

Speaker: Because I keep hearing that we're going to get a vault at some point in time.

Speaker: I see.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: OK, so let's walk through the reasons for a vault.

Speaker: So why typically do they make vaults?

Speaker: To fill a gap in the line.

Speaker: To fill a gap in the line.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Have there been any gaps?

Speaker: No.

Speaker: So that's my first question is like, okay, a vault, why would you do it?

Speaker: Do you need to throw out a hundred of these?

Speaker: Now, how, how much development do you have to do to make a vault viable?

Speaker: If you go back to something like Tron,

Speaker: which has a lot of demand out there, that would be a pretty easy one to vault because I don't think you have to do much to change Tron out there.

Speaker: I agree.

Speaker: So that would be something quick and easy.

Speaker: And you could, you could probably spit out 500 to a thousand of them quite easily.

Speaker: Once you start getting farther back, there's going to be questions.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Are you going in Metallica is kind of in that same era.

Speaker: If you want to do a Metallica one,

Speaker: But they also made a billion Metallica games out there.

Speaker: We're hearing that The Vault is Metallica.

Speaker: Other people are saying it's like Stranger Things.

Speaker: I think Stranger Things seems more likely.

Speaker: I agree too.

Speaker: Because they cut it so short because of the lukewarm reception.

Speaker: It's still pretty similar to Attack from Mars, which is a well-received game.

Speaker: So it's...

Speaker: it's not surprising that stranger things turned out to be a fun game too.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So you could do that.

Speaker: Metallica.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: I'm still skeptical on the Metallica rumor because, but you, what's funny about that rumor?

Speaker: Cause do you remember this?

Speaker: We had a listener of the show reach out.

Speaker: We did.

Speaker: And ask like, do you know what the next vault is?

Speaker: And I'm like, we don't have a clue.

Speaker: No idea.

Speaker: We don't.

Speaker: But the interesting part is they were claiming that someone that they knew that worked for Stern had told them Metallica was the next vault.

Speaker: And because of the price that Metallica's were going for,

Speaker: he should sell his Metallica so that way he could.

Speaker: And I think that we said that that was my, I actually said, yeah, you should sell because you can get a crazy price for it.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: But the, so yeah, you could do, so the easy ones that you can make and you can make stranger things, you could make Metallica because there's still, people will still buy Metallica, but Tron, I think makes a lot more sense, but there, you need to look at license availability.

Speaker: Like stranger things is still going on.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Tron is kind of dead in the water right now, except for they have the, the new light cycle ride at Disneyland.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So that, so that's the only reason.

Speaker: There's a new Tron movie coming out though.

Speaker: Is that because it's been in development for a long time.

Speaker: Is it actually going forward?

Speaker: I got the green light.

Speaker: I think it releases here the next year or two.

Speaker: Really?

Speaker: Yeah, it was finally greenlit.

Speaker: okay now you're gonna be looking i am looking it up so because i i mean there was like but like you said though does it make sense to vault a game right now when the whole line yeah especially where they're moving factory and you've got two possibly three cornerstones this year and lineup wise tron aries are you kidding me 2025

Speaker: See?

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Does it make sense?

Speaker: So between a mute move Jared Leto?

Speaker: You have Venom.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Rupert.

Speaker: coming out at the end of the month, and then do you really have time for a vault?

Speaker: And if Eddie's next, and Danger was last, and Borg was before that, that means Elwyn is up to bat.

Speaker: Do you really want to release a vault and then release an Elwyn?

Speaker: Maybe that's the reason to have a vault come out, because it's like, well, if we release an Elwyn, there's no reason to release a vault for the next at least eight months.

Speaker: Okay, so this actually gets into...

Speaker: We've heard there are a lot of people who are really excited for the release, the announcement in December, January.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: We've heard people are like, this is going to be big.

Speaker: I'm super excited.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: I've said this before.

Speaker: What's the one license right now that would sell a billion games in

Speaker: And is could go any in any family arcade would have this thing.

Speaker: And it just released a movie that made billions.

Speaker: Super Mario Brothers.

Speaker: Absolutely.

Speaker: Like, like if you had the choice of doing Harry Potter or Super Mario Brothers right now, you would do Super Mario Brothers.

Speaker: Yeah, you would.

Speaker: Because I agree.

Speaker: If they are super excited and so confident to say, well, what do you want to do?

Speaker: So I actually texted Zach and I said, Hey, I know this is my total speculation.

Speaker: But if Elwynn is doing Super Mario Brothers, I want an LE.

Speaker: It would sell a boatload.

Speaker: Yeah, I'd want an LE as well.

Speaker: And I don't believe in LEs.

Speaker: Yeah, no question whatsoever.

Speaker: It wouldn't leave the house.

Speaker: Yeah, would you... Vault to the floor.

Speaker: So, like, what is the advantage of doing a vault other than just like, hey, you can sell more games.

Speaker: Guess what?

Speaker: You can sell more games of Rush.

Speaker: You can sell more games of Foo Fighters.

Speaker: You can sell more games of almost anything that you are making right now.

Speaker: So why muddy the water or even complicate things to even go after these extra things?

Speaker: It's true.

Speaker: I would be very surprised if it's a vault.

Speaker: I really would.

Speaker: Hey, and this is me just talking like I'm trying to look at it from I would love vaults like the vaults.

Speaker: If you made a Lord of the Rings vault, I would have to buy one.

Speaker: How about this?

Speaker: Let's say is Venom in two weeks.

Speaker: but it's a vault.

Speaker: It's a remake of what of Spider-Man.

Speaker: You'd be getting your vault plus your cornerstone kind of thing.

Speaker: It's like Batman 66.

Speaker: I would be, I would be shocked.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: But I would be shocked because they already did a comic version of Spider-Man vault.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And they didn't do an update with the DMD or with a, with an LCD.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: But why?

Speaker: Why?

Speaker: It's,

Speaker: okay that that would be definitely playing we're we're going through the uh the wormhole on that one i agree with you though super mario brothers and it was funny because i can't remember which i i listened to the pinball show sure and they they went over this being super mario brothers the likelihood of it not being made because nintendo owns the license and they own

Speaker: arcade games and if they were going to make it, they make it themselves.

Speaker: I think right now, I think right now, they didn't make the movie.

Speaker: No, they didn't.

Speaker: But that's the thing.

Speaker: Nintendo is getting more and more loose with their licenses.

Speaker: It used to be, they used to, did you know there was an adult film made of the Super Mario Brothers in the 80s and Nintendo did not want it distributed so they bought up the rights to it to shut it down.

Speaker: That's how tight they were with their licenses, which they wanted.

Speaker: They had an image they didn't want to maintain.

Speaker: I don't blame it.

Speaker: If you're going family friendly, you want to maintain that image.

Speaker: But my point being is if you've ever played Cadence of Hyrule, that is based off of a rhythm action game.

Speaker: They did it.

Speaker: I have no idea what you just said.

Speaker: It is, if you haven't checked out this game, it is amazing.

Speaker: It is top-down, old-school Zelda.

Speaker: What's a rhythm action game?

Speaker: It started its own genre.

Speaker: So it's top-down Zelda, right?

Speaker: Like, remember Link to the Past or... Okay, but Link to the Past, that was Zelda 2.

Speaker: And so you had a side-scroll in addition to the top.

Speaker: That was Zelda 4.

Speaker: Nope, nope, nope.

Speaker: Sorry, Adventures of Link.

Speaker: The Adventure of Link was Zelda 2.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So that's the one that was like a top down and then it had a side scrolling thing.

Speaker: Yeah, it was a weird one.

Speaker: Correct.

Speaker: So I'm talking to Link to Pass that was on the Super Nintendo.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So Link to the Pass.

Speaker: So imagine that, but there's music playing and you move on the beat to get your combo higher.

Speaker: Like Advanced Dance Revolution?

Speaker: Kind of.

Speaker: But you're still playing, but I don't know how to exactly explain this.

Speaker: You're moving on the beat and you get rewarded for being on the beat.

Speaker: You're still playing Zelda, but you're moving to the rhythm of the music.

Speaker: It sounds kind of goofy, but...

Speaker: But Nintendo took a chance because the original game was called Crypt of the Necrodancer.

Speaker: And they took a chance and said, okay, we will give you the assets for Zelda, which is arguably their biggest selling license at the moment.

Speaker: It's the fastest selling game for modern game right now.

Speaker: It blew away God of War.

Speaker: It blew away Pokemon.

Speaker: It just... Zelda's Tears of the Kingdom has just...

Speaker: demolished everything in its path right results is pretty big right so why would they benefit at all by making a random sub genre game that has no blip on the map besides the fact that like they're taking trust of this company this indie company and saying hey you can use our product if you make a good product we'll release it they're doing that more and more so why wouldn't they let star make a pinball machine they want the quality right they don't

Speaker: And if you want volume, if you want quality, you're you would approach Stern.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And so that's why I think Nintendo, the only games they really produce arcade wise is the Mario Kart games.

Speaker: Like last time you went to an arcade, what have you seen in there from Nintendo?

Speaker: It's always Mario Kart for me because that's their top selling arcade game.

Speaker: Yeah, it's so I can understand if it was Mario Kart.

Speaker: It's all Roth drills, but true.

Speaker: But I would understand if it was Mario Kart.

Speaker: But this is Super Mario Brothers.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: I still would die on the they should do it.

Speaker: I guess I'll put it that way.

Speaker: 100%.

Speaker: If they haven't considered it, they should do it.

Speaker: It would be arguably the best-selling modern game by far.

Speaker: I guarantee that Godzilla holds that right now.

Speaker: I know we don't have numbers.

Speaker: They're still selling a boatload of those.

Speaker: Based off the runs and based off what we know, how much they make a week, which you can take the math.

Speaker: We're going to do public math right now, right?

Speaker: They make how many Elys?

Speaker: They make 1,000 now, right?

Speaker: They make 1,000.

Speaker: 1,000.

Speaker: And they're able to pump out Elys,

Speaker: It takes two weeks to pump out all the LEs, and that's still with other lines running other games.

Speaker: You're running probably about 1,000 games, if not more, a week.

Speaker: You times that by four.

Speaker: That's 4,000 games a month.

Speaker: Times that by 12.

Speaker: They're roughly putting out about 48,000 games a year.

Speaker: And if you're doing two to three to four runs of Godzilla a year, I mean, it's not hard to make the math really quick.

Speaker: You know what I'm saying?

Speaker: You're at least, the very least, double digits in Godzilla right now.

Speaker: God certainly has the opportunity to, and I don't want to say eclipse, but basically set a new benchmark for a modern game.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Sorry.

Speaker: I said that wrong.

Speaker: Not, not double digits, five figures.

Speaker: I bet you they're over 10,000 right now.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: But that's what I'm saying.

Speaker: Like I, and who knows, maybe Stern would announce if they ended up starting knocking on that 15,000, 20,000 mark.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I think they should.

Speaker: Here's the thing.

Speaker: So we've been talking about, you know, we talked about Spirit of 76 and which did not have more than Adam's family.

Speaker: I found that out.

Speaker: But I have been looking.

Speaker: I found.

Speaker: Rock Ola, which used to be the old jukebox company, they made pinball machines back in the 30s.

Speaker: They have one called World Series.

Speaker: World Series is up there.

Speaker: It has 50,000 units made.

Speaker: But Jigsaw has over 70,000 units made, produced.

Speaker: And so that's pretty insane.

Speaker: But then again, the game was half the size, no flippers.

Speaker: You have to take a lot into account.

Speaker: But my point being is, you know, we always talk about these numbers.

Speaker: Anywho.

Speaker: I will say it's the same as athletes.

Speaker: Like I really hate when people talk about greatest of all time.

Speaker: I say it really doesn't fit.

Speaker: You have to say greatest of their era because in that era, it's a different game than what it was 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago.

Speaker: And so they're competing against the genetic equals in athletic talent.

Speaker: And they surpassed all of the people of their generation.

Speaker: So that's why it doesn't really translate from like the 1950s basketball to now.

Speaker: Just wouldn't do it.

Speaker: Well, and technique and everything has changed since then, too.

Speaker: The bar has been changed.

Speaker: The rules have been changed.

Speaker: And if you're going to go LeBron, Jordan, I'm still going to pick Jordan over LeBron.

Speaker: Oh, I would.

Speaker: That's just me.

Speaker: I would also consider Bill Russell.

Speaker: Bill Russell has 11.

Speaker: But it was a different game and a different era.

Speaker: Like our boy John Stockton from the Utah Jazz, he holds so many records and a lot of those records will never be broken.

Speaker: I don't mind zero rings.

Speaker: Yeah, zero rings.

Speaker: But I don't I would not fight you and saying that like John Stockton

Speaker: was the greatest of his time because he still holds those records that haven't been broken.

Speaker: And they even said like for LeBron to break his stealing record, it would still take like every game, playing every game, getting like 20 steals per game for the next seven seasons or something like that.

Speaker: It's insane.

Speaker: You've never checked out John Stockton's stats.

Speaker: They are insane.

Speaker: He missed 38 games over 12 seasons.

Speaker: Yeah, the guy was a machine.

Speaker: I will say I loved when...

Speaker: When Jokic was told that he had like a crazy amount of triple doubles and he asked, he's like, how many, how many did Jack have?

Speaker: And I think he was legitimately asking,

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And Shaq said, Shaq had such a great line.

Speaker: He's like, well, big honey, I never passed the ball.

Speaker: That's great.

Speaker: So I will agree though, that Lionel Messi is probably one of the goats right now.

Speaker: And you could, you could argue that I'm just saying that, you know, the, the greatest of the era.

Speaker: So right now I would say the greatest of the era is

Speaker: is probably Godzilla for the, for the, you know, for the foreseeable past because it has, it found the secret sauce of being accessible to entry level players and elite players.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: It's definitely the game that has raised the bar for the whole industry and hopefully influences pinball for generations to come because I think that this is the right direction.

Speaker: It's weird to play Godzilla.

Speaker: I got Iron Maiden, and Iron Maiden's a great game.

Speaker: But it's interesting to see how polished and in-depth Godzilla is.

Speaker: I'm not saying that Iron Maiden isn't.

Speaker: But I owned Guardians, and Guardians was a good game, don't get me wrong.

Speaker: but you can feel the transition.

Speaker: Oh yeah.

Speaker: And Guardians and Godzilla are not even five years apart.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And the funny thing is I'm looking at your screen and three of the four games I can see are Elwynn games.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And I do have the Ninja Trolls arcade here.

Speaker: I saw that.

Speaker: And Foo Fighters is going in its spot, which comes this month.

Speaker: But even then it's like Foo Fighters leave if Elwynn does release another game by the end of the year.

Speaker: It's just I find that L1 games are the best for the home environment.

Speaker: Don't get me wrong.

Speaker: I appreciate Deadpool.

Speaker: I appreciate Guardians.

Speaker: I appreciate Mandalorian.

Speaker: But I would rather play those on location and go enjoy them on location than spend the money, have the headache of, do I sell this?

Speaker: When do I sell it?

Speaker: Now I'm selling it.

Speaker: Now I'm getting lowballed because someone's offering me half.

Speaker: That person's never going to get let down.

Speaker: You know that.

Speaker: I have a family crisis.

Speaker: Can you take like $500 off?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: My mother's dying.

Speaker: Can you take like $1,500 off?

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: True story.

Speaker: That actually happened.

Speaker: That happened.

Speaker: It was just unbelievable.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So...

Speaker: awesome what's ended on that no big fan of godzilla yeah okay but you didn't put you didn't put something in here that i do want to talk about okay let's go for it really quick stern has the masters of the universe license yeah that's what that's what nap arcade jason nap has been on fire lately dude like where do you get these rumors and it's funny because i had okay good or bad thing good

Speaker: Why not?

Speaker: Maybe like, okay.

Speaker: I, I do better or worse than Ninja Turtles.

Speaker: Cause it's the same era.

Speaker: It's eighties.

Speaker: It is the same era.

Speaker: I would say that the turtles have more current,

Speaker: Cool.

Speaker: Caché, some relevance.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I did, surprisingly.

Speaker: I was on call over the weekend, and this is even before the rumor came out.

Speaker: I actually watched the show that Kevin Smith did on Netflix.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: And it was interesting, and I saw, wow, this feels very much like the...

Speaker: the cartoon, but better than I watched as a kid.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: And I was like, okay, well this is, it's actually really well done.

Speaker: And I even had like the action figures as a kid, you know, and I had castle Grayskull and all that.

Speaker: I, I don't know.

Speaker: I, it's, it's not a theme that I connect with anymore.

Speaker: And so like turtles, I can still kind of like, okay, like it takes me back.

Speaker: This one, it just feels like that was an era that for a couple of years, it was really big and they sold a lot of toys and then everybody moved on.

Speaker: It's funny because I don't think He-Man is still relevant, but for some odd reason, Skeletor is.

Speaker: There's so many Skeletor memes and like... Well, it's usually the laughing meme.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Or the...

Speaker: like highly like weird philosophy memes.

Speaker: So I agree with you.

Speaker: I don't, if they make it, I think there are, I think it will sell.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: To a certain demographic.

Speaker: I also think there are other themes that would sell more on theme alone.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I agree.

Speaker: So.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Once, once again, I think I, yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I'm not much for a He-Man game.

Speaker: I'd have to, I'd have to play it kind of thing.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And I, okay, to be fair, I said, I'm not interested in the Godzilla theme.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And I still am not like, it's not a theme that I love, but it's, it's a fun campy theme that has worked out fabulously.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: You know what's funny is we did a joke.

Speaker: So the second interview we did with Keith, was it second or third?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Where we floated it out there, like what would be the worst theme for pinball?

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Because we didn't tell anyone that Ellen was coming on.

Speaker: And we got some of the funniest themes.

Speaker: Mm-hmm.

Speaker: And we read them off to Elwin and some of them include like C-SPAN, the government general that watches Congress.

Speaker: And he picked out Laundry Day and started explaining like the mechs he would put in there.

Speaker: And the rules.

Speaker: And the rules.

Speaker: And we were kind of blown away.

Speaker: And what's funny is we actually have people that still message us to this day that say we would actually like a Laundry Day pinball.

Speaker: If Elwin was making it.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: He is.

Speaker: What's the fairy tale where they spin straw into gold?

Speaker: Godzilla is the perfect example of spinning straw into gold.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And it's alchemy.

Speaker: Because Godzilla, you got to admit, it was not right.

Speaker: Godzilla was a C-list, maybe D-list theme.

Speaker: Because even the new movies have been fine.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: They're a popcorn movie.

Speaker: Yeah, I'm glad they actually went with the campy rubber suit fighting guys.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Which, by the way, if you're looking to make a new pinball machine, apparently Alien is the new meta too.

Speaker: You've got Aliens and Godzilla.

Speaker: You've got Aliens and Foo Fighters.

Speaker: You've got Galacta Tang 4 about aliens.

Speaker: You've got Space Hunts about aliens.

Speaker: You've got, you know what I'm saying?

Speaker: Like,

Speaker: Really, Godfather is the only one that stepped out of that equation at this point.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: What it reminds me, though, do you remember that the kids show Bolt when the pigeons come up?

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: Hey, hey, we got a great idea.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Wait for it.

Speaker: Wait for it.

Speaker: Wait for it.

Speaker: Aliens.

Speaker: Oh, snap.

Speaker: Aliens.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: There it is.

Speaker: And then they show at the end of the movie.

Speaker: Aliens show up.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Aliens show up and adopt the girl.

Speaker: And they turn off the TV.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: Oh, that's okay.

Speaker: That's a great note to the end.

Speaker: We're going to end it there.

Speaker: If you want to get a hold of us, we are loser kid pinball podcast at gmail.com.

Speaker: We're also on the socials, Facebook, Twitter, Twitch, Tik TOK, which we have not released a video on there.

Speaker: YouTube.

Speaker: I know we, I figured we'd get the name all at loser kid pinball.

Speaker: So if you want to find us, follow us that way or just shoot us a message on messenger between Josh Roop or Scott Larson.

Speaker: If you're not friends with a bunch of pinball people, it might be a little bit harder to find us because Scott Larson's kind of a generic name.

Speaker: Josh Roop isn't.

Speaker: It's not.

Speaker: R-O-O-P is very different.

Speaker: Yeah, get a hold of us that way.

Speaker: Give us a last thought, Scott.

Speaker: You know what?

Speaker: I am super excited and please Stern make Super Mario Brothers work.

Speaker: The sound of the sun

Speaker: Begin or begin the task.