Transcript
Speaker: Thanks for tuning in to the loser kid pinball podcast.
Speaker: You are on episode 17.
Speaker: I am Josh Roop and with me, my cohost, uh, Scott Larson.
Speaker: And how are you doing today, Scott?
Speaker: No, no, life's really good.
Speaker: Uh, been, been pretty busy.
Speaker: I haven't been able to play much pinball, but, uh, been trying to go down just, uh, uh, for 30 minutes a day or so and just, uh, playing around on my machines.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Nothing really big is going on with me.
Speaker: What about you, Josh?
Speaker: It's been busy.
Speaker: We sold the house.
Speaker: We've moved in to what we call the farmhouse with my in-laws.
Speaker: It's off the backside of their property.
Speaker: And I've been able to play pinball here and there a little bit.
Speaker: But for the most part, I've done measuring to make sure I can fit them in there.
Speaker: And I've realized I can make my collection bigger now that we live here.
Speaker: So I'm pretty excited.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: Yeah, good luck with that because you're still having to buy a house and you're still going to have to come up with a big fat check when you go to close the house.
Speaker: So I'd hold off a little bit.
Speaker: Maybe just get a Jurassic Park Pro.
Speaker: Maybe, maybe.
Speaker: Well, and may I'll look for some of the cheaper ones, you know, maybe get some throwbacks or something.
Speaker: Who knows?
Speaker: There you go, earth shakers coming your way.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, and I'm kind of to that point, I think everyone gets to this point in their pinball stuff and correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm kind of at that point where I'm getting a little bit frustrated because I'll have really good games and then I can't keep the ball up to save my life.
Speaker: And so I'm like, is it just me?
Speaker: Do I need to take a break?
Speaker: Because there's not really much to do at the farmhouse.
Speaker: And so I've been playing a ton of pinball.
Speaker: And so I don't know if I'm overdoing it now because every second I get, I go play that.
Speaker: But either that or the new Switch came out with the new Super Nintendo Online, and I've been playing the crap out of Link to the Past.
Speaker: Love that game.
Speaker: Oh, nice.
Speaker: Yeah, I saw that came up.
Speaker: I haven't really had much time to try it out.
Speaker: Dude, it's so worth it.
Speaker: It's so good.
Speaker: Now, I think what happens sometimes is when you're playing pinball, you go down tangents.
Speaker: This is why I think it's not uncommon for people to get a grand champion score when they first get it within the first week.
Speaker: And then for the next six months, their scores don't even come close to it.
Speaker: Because instead of just playing to play,
Speaker: You start going down rabbit holes and saying, oh, well, I want to go down this goal objective on the game or this goal objective.
Speaker: And it's probably not that lucrative scoring-wise.
Speaker: But when you first get a game, all you care about is getting multiball and just trying to hit as many targets as you possibly can before you drain.
Speaker: So that's not uncommon.
Speaker: One, I think, too, I'm trying to also work on my pinball skills.
Speaker: I'm trying to do...
Speaker: drop catches and, and loop passes and all that stuff.
Speaker: And so I think when you, when you're able to do a skill, it feels very satisfying, but when you fail at that skill and you drain out a ball, you're like, gosh, dang it.
Speaker: I got to start this all over again.
Speaker: I I've been working on live catching, um, and, uh, and one handed saves as opposed to slap save, just, uh, trying to, to Nick the ball over to the other side.
Speaker: So I've been trying to do a lot more of that.
Speaker: And yeah, it does change how you play games.
Speaker: It's a little non-intuitive just because of how it works out, but it's still a lot of fun.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: So I'm pretty stoked.
Speaker: I got Attack from Mars in...
Speaker: And started playing the crap out of that.
Speaker: I've owned that for over a year now.
Speaker: I got it for my birthday last year, the limited edition.
Speaker: And as soon as I got it into the farmhouse, I put my name up on the high score twice within like the first three plays.
Speaker: And so I was like, sweet, I'm going to be better here.
Speaker: And then I haven't done jack squat.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, it's the same.
Speaker: It's the same philosophy.
Speaker: It's just getting in and playing for pure enjoyment.
Speaker: But it seems like you get to that point and then you...
Speaker: go down, but at the same time, after you get to a point where you're doing strategies and saying, this is how I maximize the points.
Speaker: And you look at the elite players when they approach a game, they always have a strategy.
Speaker: When Eric Stone was out here, an elite player, and they were giving advice, he said, the most important thing is when you go up to a machine, make sure you have a plan.
Speaker: Like, what are you planning on doing?
Speaker: And if you look at the elite players when they're playing ACDC, they can triple your score with five shots.
Speaker: You could be playing for 10 minutes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just because they know how the multipliers work and how things go.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, my question to you is I haven't got up to Salt Lake yet.
Speaker: I've been dying to do Jurassic park when we were up there two weeks ago, I had my son with me, but the family friendly arcade had not got theirs in yet.
Speaker: And I am not taking my son to a brewery.
Speaker: Well, cause first Utah doesn't allow that, but I haven't got my hands on a Jurassic park pro or premium yet.
Speaker: Have you got to play one yet?
Speaker: No, no, I, I haven't.
Speaker: Uh, well, and the pros are pros are the only ones that are out right now, unless you have a limited edition, but, um,
Speaker: Yeah, I haven't been able to get up there either.
Speaker: It's been busy for me.
Speaker: I'm still very interested in getting one, and I'm looking at which games I want to move along so I can make room for it.
Speaker: But yeah, I haven't been able to get my hands physically on it yet.
Speaker: But still, I have yet to hear a negative thing about it.
Speaker: aside from your usual, Hey, this thing snapped off or this didn't work when I got it from Stern or, you know, or, or any manufacturer really.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But I've never heard anyone say, yeah, the gameplay stale or this gets old or I really don't like this shot.
Speaker: I've never heard anybody say anything like that, which is really rare in pinball nowadays.
Speaker: It seems that everybody wants to, everyone has to tear down a machine, especially on pin side when it certainly comes out and,
Speaker: I haven't heard any of that.
Speaker: So I'm still looking forward to getting a premium Jurassic Park.
Speaker: I haven't heard anybody complain about the gameplay or the rules or the shots.
Speaker: There are your little nuts and bolts of things of, hey, this lock didn't work or this thing was banged up.
Speaker: But that's what you're going to get with any sort of delivery.
Speaker: But I've been pretty impressed with how consistent the praise has been for the game.
Speaker: perhaps it's a combination of having an elite level player like Keith designing it.
Speaker: And so it flows well for everybody.
Speaker: That's one option too.
Speaker: Keith is the new kid on the block and he's been able to bring something that previously has not been in pinball.
Speaker: And so maybe we're still in the honeymoon stage.
Speaker: Either way, it's an excellent game and I can't wait to get it downstairs.
Speaker: Well, and I agree with you there.
Speaker: I think,
Speaker: I think the level of pinball is definitely the bar of pinball is being raised.
Speaker: between Scott Denise's TNA, Eric Meniere's Pirates of the Caribbean, and now Keith Owen with Iron Maiden and with Jurassic Park.
Speaker: I think the game's changing.
Speaker: We're seeing a whole different kind of game, and it's a great time to be in pinball right now.
Speaker: Like you said, no one's complaining about Jurassic Park.
Speaker: We still have Eric Meniere's game, which, cross your fingers,
Speaker: October, November is my guess.
Speaker: We don't have any confirmation, nothing like that.
Speaker: And then from my estimation, we'll hear about Scott Denise's haunted house party by the end of the year, just because of Charlie and them saying that they'll be wrapping up Alex, Alice Cooper's in December, and they're going to have to have another game on the line then, you know?
Speaker: Yeah, they're going to have to.
Speaker: And if Spooky can get to a game a year, and really if Jersey Jack can get to a game a year, I know they say they want to have two games a year, but let's start first things first.
Speaker: If they can get a game a year, that will be a big step forward into the predictability of the manufacturing process from all the manufacturers.
Speaker: So I like this new direction.
Speaker: It certainly is opening avenues.
Speaker: The great part about having some of these legacy designers is they're legacy designers for a reason, because they're producing some excellent play fields.
Speaker: The challenge is if you don't bring in new blood, then you typically recycle similar fields.
Speaker: And that's not a bad thing, but it does feel...
Speaker: So it'll be, it's really an exciting time.
Speaker: The last 10 years have been a wild ride for pinball.
Speaker: It really has.
Speaker: I mean, even just the last five have been such a step up.
Speaker: It's crazy.
Speaker: I keep thinking, you know, we claim some people complain about, you know, black night wasn't their cup of tea or, or Munsters is, is just not up to par, but I'm thinking about it.
Speaker: I'm like, dude, let's, let's look 10 years back.
Speaker: Let's look to 2009.
Speaker: You had,
Speaker: You want to go back to Big Bug Hunter?
Speaker: Even then, yeah.
Speaker: Wheel of Fortune?
Speaker: Monopoly?
Speaker: Really, 2000 to 2010, we had what?
Speaker: Lord of the Rings and Tron.
Speaker: We had two hits in a decade of time.
Speaker: Well, you have Lord of the Rings.
Speaker: You have Simpsons.
Speaker: You have Spider-Man.
Speaker: Wasn't Spider-Man 2010?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: And then you have the Stern Pirates of the Caribbean.
Speaker: Those are the four from that entire decade that really stand out.
Speaker: Well, and I wouldn't even consider like Pirates of the Caribbean from Stern is good, but I wouldn't consider a smash hit.
Speaker: I could be entirely wrong, though.
Speaker: That's just from my personal... I wouldn't say it's a smash hit, but I think it's a solid game.
Speaker: I like mine and that ship mechanism is still quite intuitive.
Speaker: Ingenious, I guess, is the word I'm looking for.
Speaker: It's a very solid game in a doldrums of 10 years.
Speaker: That was when... What's that documentary that's horrible?
Speaker: Special one lit?
Speaker: Yeah, special one lit when it makes everyone look like they're socially awkward.
Speaker: And yeah, it just felt like, yeah, pinball is dead.
Speaker: So in that 10 years, you had four games that really stand out.
Speaker: That seems shocking to me.
Speaker: I agree.
Speaker: And in the last, I guarantee you could at least have 12 to 15 games that I would love having.
Speaker: Yeah, so Spider-Man came out in 2007.
Speaker: Gotcha.
Speaker: But I mean, let's look at the last five years.
Speaker: 2006, 2007.
Speaker: The last turd, the universally, like not praise, sorry, the universally agreed upon turd is WWE.
Speaker: And I remember that one coming out when I first got into the hobby because I thought, who makes the WWE machine?
Speaker: Well, it's one of those things where you have to... This is the challenge with pinballs.
Speaker: When it's growing, there are more audiences they want to go into, and they want to bring new money into pinball.
Speaker: So if you keep releasing the same things, guess what?
Speaker: You're going to be recycling among the same collectors.
Speaker: But if you try different things, and not everything's going to be a success.
Speaker: That certainly was not a success, but I...
Speaker: appreciate that they were trying to find a different avenue in a different market.
Speaker: And really, they had a designer who was willing to try those, I guess, those things, you know, Mustang, WWE, the ones that didn't have that mass appeal.
Speaker: However, I think that even since then, they've been able to upgrade significantly and they have been able to have pretty significant hits, at least solid games.
Speaker: You may not get a smash hit every time, but you can get a solid game.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So after WWE, I'd probably take about any of those games in a home collection.
Speaker: I agree.
Speaker: Even with people complaining about Ghostbusters, I still think the pro is a good game.
Speaker: I mean, yeah, the code needs to be worked on, but if that's really your weakest point, the nice part about code is it can always be fixed.
Speaker: It just depends if they go back and fix it.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: Yeah, I don't really see them doing much with Ghost.
Speaker: I think they'll try to make it a passable game because the theme really did sell so much.
Speaker: I think there are other issues with it.
Speaker: The air balls, the linearity of the rule set, which, yeah, you said you can fix.
Speaker: The flipper gap is still just a challenge.
Speaker: The one thing that...
Speaker: I feel you don't really, people have universally said they don't like is adjusting that lower third of the play field.
Speaker: They're used to the slingshots where they are and they're used to the flippers where they are.
Speaker: You can have different in lanes and out lanes, but as long as that geometry is similar, then people are going to at least connect with the machine easier.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, let's get into some of the news.
Speaker: It's all kind of the same old, same old, but I feel like I got a couple different perspectives than what people have been talking about.
Speaker: The first one I want to talk about, we've talked about this a couple times now, but Dutch pinball.
Speaker: It sounds like people are finally getting big Lebowski's.
Speaker: And here's my thought, because we've talked about this, not just us, every podcast for the last two years, there's always some kind of update.
Speaker: Dutch is doing this, Dutch is doing that.
Speaker: here's my perspective on all this.
Speaker: The power of a licensed theme is worth its weight in gold.
Speaker: If this big Lebowski was not big Lebowski, I think Dutch was dead and gone.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: Way, way, way ago.
Speaker: And the reason I say this, I love that people are trying new things.
Speaker: I love there's new pinball companies.
Speaker: Um, I respect what like team pinball's doing and, uh, what sun coast pinball's doing.
Speaker: but they've already limited their games to a certain amount of numbers to help drive the cell of their pinball machines.
Speaker: And so
Speaker: They've all done them under 100, but look at big Lebowski people.
Speaker: The company has proven themselves, in my opinion, that they're not trustworthy.
Speaker: I mean, look at the first-time backers still haven't gotten their games.
Speaker: And the games that originally came out, weren't they 6,500 when they first came out?
Speaker: I don't know, 12,500?
Speaker: Twice, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, they're 12,500.
Speaker: And people are lining up in droves to play this game.
Speaker: And I guess it comes down to one, two things.
Speaker: Power of license.
Speaker: And the playability of the game, the design's good.
Speaker: I've never personally played it myself.
Speaker: I've watched some videos on it, but that's, what's crazy to me is this company that should be gone.
Speaker: We shouldn't even be talking about now.
Speaker: They should be a skip B, you know, with the whole predator fiasco skip B actually didn't even have the license.
Speaker: So true.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: With Dutch pinball, you're right.
Speaker: It is the power and the, um,
Speaker: especially a niche theme like the Big Lebowski.
Speaker: Now, I will say, in its defense, Joe Lemire, from Head to Head, he has said, look, it's a great game.
Speaker: And Joe's an excellent player, and so he would know if a game is clunky or not.
Speaker: And so...
Speaker: the fact that it actually still has uh... eight good layout not the layouts five years old now and so i don't know how well it's aged dot helps it as well it's not a it's not a magic girl has a beautiful theme you know unlicensed theme but it doesn't play well uh...
Speaker: Yes, it does.
Speaker: The challenge is I don't know how you would in good conscience buy something that I don't believe this is a long-term pinball company.
Speaker: And reliability is a big deal for me.
Speaker: And whether or not I can get parts or get other things to maintain my machines, that would make me wary of it.
Speaker: I've said it before that
Speaker: The only way that they probably could go forward with their company is this model, although it is distasteful that they're selling games that are purchased otherwise by other people.
Speaker: But the bottom line is that they didn't have any money.
Speaker: And so they needed to find some model to actually inject revenue back into it.
Speaker: But yes, it is all about the license.
Speaker: And that's really where, when you had Williams versus Dave East back in the day, that's where Williams lost.
Speaker: because Data East saw the writing on the wall and said, look, if we get a pre-packaged license that comes with its own pre-marketability,
Speaker: then we'll be able to sell more machines.
Speaker: If you look at the estimated budgets on machines, the reason why when they say the budget on a, sorry, not a machine, if you look at the budget on a movie and they say, I'll throw out some basic figures.
Speaker: If they say this movie cost $100 million to make, they actually need to make $200 million back because they have spent another $100 million to market that movie.
Speaker: And if you get a license, you buy into that marketing machine that other things have done.
Speaker: And so you're buying that instant connectivity with a product.
Speaker: It's really hard to get that with a...
Speaker: with an original theme.
Speaker: You can do it obviously with, uh, with total nuclear annihilation.
Speaker: Uh, Scott was able to sell that theme and that retro theme and it worked really well, but that's an outlier.
Speaker: It really is.
Speaker: Well, and here's what my thoughts have been also when you speak of Scott Denisi with total nuclear annihilation, um, he, uh,
Speaker: Got hype on that because he took it around as the whitewood before he was even planning on producing it.
Speaker: And people loved it and played the crap out of it and said, you've got to make this into a production machine.
Speaker: And so that's where I think that's, that's the only place in my opinion that you could get around not having a license is if you have a super killer.
Speaker: playing game, but then you have to get it out to the masses and then you're still putting in legwork because you got to take it to conventions.
Speaker: You got to make sure it's always working.
Speaker: Scott Denise, he just did it as a, as a love of the hobby and showing off what the P three could do.
Speaker: And it evolved.
Speaker: You know what I'm saying?
Speaker: Well, he said he wanted a game that he could play with his buddies.
Speaker: That's what he wanted.
Speaker: Because a lot of these games, they're really not the same type of game that you have people over.
Speaker: I do this when I go to other people's houses and...
Speaker: they're playing a game and they have a really long ball time, hey, if they have 12 machines, I'm going to wander over and play a different game.
Speaker: I'm not going to sit there and watch them play Lord of the Rings for 30 minutes.
Speaker: And so that catered to it.
Speaker: Also, don't forget that Scott designed an amazing soundtrack to that and an amazing light show.
Speaker: And so don't undermine...
Speaker: Yeah, don't undermine the power of the soundtrack and the light show integration.
Speaker: It reminds me.
Speaker: So they had a fan convention here in Utah last weekend, and I went to Empire Strikes Back.
Speaker: And it was really, one, it was a madhouse downtown because there was a big religious celebration.
Speaker: There was also a big fan celebration and the symphony.
Speaker: So all these three groups were trying to get downtown at the same time.
Speaker: but we went down and saw star war or empire strikes back with the symphony playing the background.
Speaker: It's a really cool concept.
Speaker: If anyone has, has the chance of doing it because movies are the modern day symphonies.
Speaker: And so if you play the movie and they're playing the soundtrack on the back at the same time, simultaneously, it's amazing.
Speaker: I don't know if you've ever seen it.
Speaker: Have you ever looked at footage of Star Wars, like the last scene where they're walking up and there's no sound or no music?
Speaker: I haven't.
Speaker: It looks ridiculous.
Speaker: It really does.
Speaker: And if you have, if you have Darth Vader there with the, with the actor, I can't remember his name, but it's not James Earl Jones's voice.
Speaker: And so it sounds very B movie esque, but when you add the sound and you add the integration, it really brought people in and,
Speaker: it elevated material beyond probably what it was.
Speaker: And really with what Scott Denisi did by elevating, by putting his soundtrack on it, it probably elevated his machine even more than what it would be if it was just a white wood without any sound or lights.
Speaker: I agree.
Speaker: Well, I guess my point being is, is you either do the legwork with a license or you've got to do the legwork another way if you don't go license wise.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And, and Scott did a great job with that with, he had the total package and really the only thing he didn't have was artwork.
Speaker: And then the artwork ended up turning out amazing.
Speaker: I love the artwork.
Speaker: I can't remember who they got to do it, but it's fantastic.
Speaker: And I think, I think it's the same thing with Archer.
Speaker: you know, yeah, Archer was a theme that people recognize, but they got their hands on it because Keith was taking it around to conventions.
Speaker: I'm like, this is what I want.
Speaker: This is what I want playing in a game.
Speaker: And so I think you either take it around to conventions and you... The problem is, is we've gotten into a weird place because like Dutch and Skip B and John Papaduke has made the pre-order model non-existent in pinball.
Speaker: And so...
Speaker: And everyone doesn't want to show off their project until it's 100% done.
Speaker: They want to unveil and say, hey, this is our new game.
Speaker: We have 10 of them ready.
Speaker: Buy them right now, and we're going to produce more.
Speaker: So you can't really be like, okay, we've made this game.
Speaker: We want feedback.
Speaker: Let's take it around to the conventions.
Speaker: Cause if you do that, then people are going to start taking pictures and put it on the internet and it's going to be so-and-so is producing the new back to the future or, you know what I'm saying?
Speaker: And so you can't really get outside general public opinions because you got to hide your product.
Speaker: And so I think that's where the hurdle comes.
Speaker: You either use the license to get you over that hurdle of people don't need to play it before buying it, or you put the legwork in and you take it around the conventions and you let everyone know, hey, this is what I'm making.
Speaker: Tell me if it's good.
Speaker: Tell me what I need to change.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: Yeah, there's a few things.
Speaker: Now, I will say the pre-order model is not specifically unique to pinball.
Speaker: These crowdsourcing investment ideas, there have been a lot of problems with a lot of Kickstarters.
Speaker: Um, and I, I've been a part of different Kickstarters, not really too much, but one of them was, uh, the coolest.
Speaker: And it's a, the bottom line is it's a cooler that has a blender and a speaker and it, it raised are like over $10 million.
Speaker: And I thought, you know, that sounds like fun.
Speaker: I'll just go ahead and buy one.
Speaker: Well, they ran out of money.
Speaker: And they basically said, Hey, we're, so they said, we're selling these new ones on Amazon and that money we're making from that is going to go toward the early backers.
Speaker: Does this sound familiar at all?
Speaker: And we'll be able to get you your products after we get these other products, or you can pay us, you know, I think it was like 150 bucks and we'll just get it to you.
Speaker: And so I just paid the money and yeah,
Speaker: So I think it's this internet, you know, it's the, it's the GoFundMe stuff.
Speaker: It's the, the internet.
Speaker: Everybody can contribute a little bit and still have some ties because the internet makes us more interconnected.
Speaker: So the challenge with that is there's a reason why most companies don't succeed is because, you know, manufacturing, anything is hard.
Speaker: It's not just pinball manufacturing.
Speaker: Anything is hard.
Speaker: So that's why when you see on Shark Tank or you see any of these shows, they may have a great idea, but either they can't make it for cheap enough money or there's no market for it.
Speaker: And we've seen individual people bringing stuff around.
Speaker: Look at the Wrath of Olympus game.
Speaker: The Wrath of Olympus game is a great game.
Speaker: And it was taken around to so many shows, but I don't think that it was really practical to manufacture.
Speaker: And so it really didn't get the attention that it needed if it was going to be mass produced.
Speaker: So, and it's a, it's a theme that, you know, okay.
Speaker: It's a, it's a, a general theme about, about gods and people understand them.
Speaker: It's, you know, it's a little bit like what American pinball is going after, but it still wasn't able to manufacture it the way that something like Archer was, you know, Keith was able to look at that and say, well, this is something that we can manufacture or even Scott Denise's game.
Speaker: Now also Scott Denise's game with a total nuclear annihilation, uh,
Speaker: That also, that's a success at 550.
Speaker: I guarantee the Stern wouldn't look at that as a success.
Speaker: Stern would look at that as a, like for Stern's business model, 550 would be a complete disaster.
Speaker: Because Stern's business model is they're going to produce 500 limited editions, probably 500 premiums or so, and then 1,000 to 1,500 pros.
Speaker: And that's really what the market's going to sustain.
Speaker: If there's, you know, we've estimated 10,000 to 15,000 machines a year.
Speaker: And if Stern is putting out three cornerstone games and they're capturing the vast majority of it, they're at least covering, you know, 7,500 or 8,000 of those machines.
Speaker: And so really, if you break down the numbers, it's not really a lot of games.
Speaker: And 500 would have been, you know, one, one fifth what they needed to sell to have a good game.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, and the thing with, with total nuclear annihilation Stern actually did approach Scott Denisi in buying that.
Speaker: If I remember correctly, he was on head to head and he said that he had multiple people offers on the table and Stern was even one of them.
Speaker: But if he wasn't Stern, he'd have to... I don't think it was an offer.
Speaker: I think it was a, hey, let's talk.
Speaker: Maybe that's what it was.
Speaker: Because he clarified that.
Speaker: He's like, you know, because he knows the guys at Stern too.
Speaker: And he said, you know, it was a, let's talk.
Speaker: But I also think that really for what Scott Denisi did, Spooky was the best place.
Speaker: But really, Spooky, they went outside their...
Speaker: business model because spooky isn't a horror stuff.
Speaker: And so for them to do a Scott Nisi, I mean, really that's a futuristic sci-fi thing that really isn't Charlie's thing, but it was a contract game that they could make money on.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Well, and Charlie's even said himself that they're so grateful for the contract games they have had because it's kept the doors open during the other titles like Jetsons and, and Domino's and what have you.
Speaker: So, well, let's, let's move on to the next topic.
Speaker: Uh, clear coat that seems to be quite in the news lately.
Speaker: I really don't have much to say about this just for the simple fact.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: I feel like if you want to hear about a four hour discussion, listen to the last two episodes of this week in pinball.
Speaker: I think Dennis and Zach covered it very well.
Speaker: And then the guys from poor man's pinball podcast.
Speaker: Hey guys.
Speaker: Hey Ian.
Speaker: Uh, they did really well as, as well, because if I remember correctly, Ian is the one in the clear coding industry right now.
Speaker: And so he gave his full opinion.
Speaker: My opinion right now of the whole clear coat situation, if something's going to be breaking the pinball machine, the very last thing I want to be is the play field.
Speaker: Because that's the thing that consumes the most time and money in my opinion.
Speaker: So whatever it takes, figure out the play field issues.
Speaker: I would rather anything else in the game break.
Speaker: Like I would even take a broken circuit board over a broken play field
Speaker: but not by much because these circuit boards are freaking ridiculously priced.
Speaker: And if you have a good warranty, like I've bought the Chicago gaming games and the limited editions come with a two year warranty, but they're even still pretty good to be flexible with you.
Speaker: Cause they know that they're in a home environment, a lot of the limited editions and they're not getting a beat on.
Speaker: And so that's my biggest concern.
Speaker: Like, I don't care if I have to repair it myself.
Speaker: So just, just don't be at the play field.
Speaker: That's, that's literally the only thing I do not want to fix is the play field.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We, um, we were talking a little bit back and forth with our, uh, friends, especially when lit with, uh, Ken and Bill and, uh, and.
Speaker: the challenges from from an engineering standpoint you have to look at it from okay so what has changed because this seems like something that that creeps up every few years every three or four years where they're having some issues with the play field and that seems to go away for a while and then it comes back uh... uh... i'd i did some research and i i asked some people in the industry and uh... one person to get back and he said uh... well
Speaker: I can't really say much about it.
Speaker: However, there was a crackdown in the 90s with the EPA over certain chemicals used.
Speaker: And so that leads me to think that whatever process was successful in the past, it may have been successful, but probably not really manufacturing friendly or health friendly.
Speaker: And so they have had to try to figure out new processes.
Speaker: And so whether or not the chemicals are no longer available,
Speaker: or they're trying to go through because we're still having a similar system where you have a pitch and bat game under glass with a steel ball going around and hitting all these things.
Speaker: So once they figure out what the magic lexicon of how they're going to make the play fields, then they can move forward.
Speaker: The challenging thing is I don't think it's a cost issue because it's more of a...
Speaker: the manufacturer is trying to figure out the right recipe.
Speaker: It's so hard to actually predict the long-term viability of any sort of process because by the time you have made it and sent it out a year later, you may get some issues and then you're trying to fix it on the fly too.
Speaker: So they're very cautious to implement something into a mass production thing
Speaker: Um, so anyway, uh, we did, uh, reach, uh, we, we reached out to, uh, Chris at high end pinballs and he said that he was, uh, he was willing to come on the show.
Speaker: So I'd be interested to hear what his take is, because if you haven't checked out his thread and pin side, it's one of the best threads.
Speaker: And if you have any inkling on,
Speaker: restoring a game it is 100% the best thread because he goes through and all of his games are immaculate at the end I'd be interested to find out what his thoughts are because I know he still clear coats games
Speaker: So I want to find out, well, what's different about his coding process versus something that's mass production?
Speaker: Like, is his process even scalable?
Speaker: Because maybe it's not.
Speaker: And that's why the manufacturers haven't really approached him to give them advice.
Speaker: And the other thing I keep thinking about this, how many really is out there?
Speaker: I mean, numbers would really kind of fix this in my opinion.
Speaker: I'm in the heating and air conditioning business.
Speaker: You're not going to always make a product perfect every single time.
Speaker: With furnaces, they make thousands and thousands and thousands a year just for North America.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: their, their warranty rates like 0.019%.
Speaker: And it's just because that's actual failures from the factory.
Speaker: And when you think about it, if you're making even at 10,000, a hundred come back cause they're bad.
Speaker: That's not really that much.
Speaker: And so I don't know if this is like the whole,
Speaker: There was one bad batch and the squeaky wheel gets the oil because they go on to Facebook and complain or they go on Pinside and complain.
Speaker: I don't know how many of them actually have reached out to Stern.
Speaker: I know there was a gentleman that was on Facebook that was talking about...
Speaker: his iron maiden and the clear chipped and Stern sent him just a little vial of clear to stick over the spot.
Speaker: And then it got worse.
Speaker: But then when he started talking about on Facebook, Stern, Stern reached out to him on Facebook and said, Hey, contact us.
Speaker: We'll get this resolved for you.
Speaker: I think that's really what it comes down to.
Speaker: If I have an issue, I just want the manufacturer to stand behind it.
Speaker: I get that.
Speaker: I get you get, you get one of two of the spectrums.
Speaker: You get spooky who have, I guess, obviously gotten their clear process down to a T and they're not sharing that with anyone because they don't have issues with their clear coding process.
Speaker: But because of the quality control that they have behind their product, it takes a little longer for their product to get out.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Versus stern that, that man gets other people to manufacture different parts of the machine.
Speaker: They stick it all together in a box and they ship it out.
Speaker: And so they can't guarantee that the clear coat process is perfect because when they get it, it looks great to them.
Speaker: They're like, this looks good.
Speaker: You know, you slap all the stuff on it, you slap it in a box and you ship it out.
Speaker: And so.
Speaker: it's not till you're out in the main public, then these things start showing up.
Speaker: Same with JJP.
Speaker: But like, like I've said, Stern has saying that it's not a widespread issue.
Speaker: And Jersey Jack has said that he's not going to come out until he gets back to the States.
Speaker: I just, I don't know how big of a problem that says, I know Mr. And Mrs. Pitt and said on head to head that they noticed the same problem with the Wonka's on theirs, but they would have never noticed it because it's so minuscule.
Speaker: that they just didn't know and so that's one of those things now they're like well crap do we do we throw a fit about this do we set and watch what do we do you know what i'm saying yeah it it also seems that what what what are you looking for i if you look at um the play fields in the 90s in the heyday of valley williams
Speaker: they had issues too.
Speaker: Not necessarily play fields, but the manufacturing process, it wasn't perfect.
Speaker: The home market didn't exist.
Speaker: And so all the arcade operators would have to tweak everything that they would get anyway.
Speaker: I also think that it's, you know, this is a sad reality in a lot of
Speaker: what we see in society nowadays that it's focusing on the negative.
Speaker: And really when your lenses are finely tuned to that, that's pretty much all you see.
Speaker: You don't see all the amazing other stuff.
Speaker: And I'm not being dismissive of it because I understand it's frustrating.
Speaker: If you buy a new car and there's a scrape on it or paint flaking off or something, then yeah, it's going to bug you.
Speaker: But there is some level of, I guess, understanding that this is a boutique product and it doesn't matter even how big Stern has become.
Speaker: It's still a boutique company.
Speaker: They're the biggest boutique company.
Speaker: But you're going to have some issues because you don't have the volume of doing 30,000 Toyota Corollas or something like that.
Speaker: And they also have to figure, okay, what is an appropriate response?
Speaker: If you had a scrape on your car, they're not going to send you a new car.
Speaker: I'm sorry.
Speaker: They're going to try to remedy the situation.
Speaker: And so if there's, if there's things, and I'm not, again, I'm not being dismissive of people who felt that, oh, this stinks on my machine.
Speaker: I get it.
Speaker: I'm that way too.
Speaker: I'm pretty focused on making sure everything's fine.
Speaker: at some point you have to just accept that you're not going to get a perfect game i agree moving on i think that's as much as we want to cover until we get uh chris from hep on or hep um i think he's going to give us a lot more insight and we're planning that as our next episode is to have him on did you want to talk about stern's new hats
Speaker: Yes, I do.
Speaker: I think this is hilarious.
Speaker: So Stern put out that they've ran a new batch of hats and they happen to be the exact same hat and model of our hats, the new era 3930.
Speaker: And they look fantastic.
Speaker: They're different colors.
Speaker: Yeah, they look great.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They look great.
Speaker: And they're, they're a solid hat.
Speaker: They're 30 bucks and people are complaining on social media that they're too expensive.
Speaker: Like you're already taking tons of our money.
Speaker: Why are these so expensive?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: First off, we wanted good quality hats for people to wear.
Speaker: We want our philosophy is if it's good quality and you enjoy wearing it, you're going to wear it more.
Speaker: And so we went with the higher end, this new era 3930, because it's a nice hat.
Speaker: It really is.
Speaker: And we're selling ours at 25 bucks.
Speaker: Stern's selling theirs at 30.
Speaker: We're not making hardly any money off these things because they're a really nice hat.
Speaker: And so it kind of baffles me when people are like, why are you charging so much for a hat?
Speaker: And if you've looked at the Stern one, they've actually done some more to their hats than what we've done.
Speaker: We've had ours embroidered and stuff.
Speaker: And Stern's had theirs embroidered, but they've also had like a Stern tag put on the back that actually like clips around the hat and stuff like that.
Speaker: I guarantee they've put more money into their hats than we've put into ours.
Speaker: They're not making any money on this.
Speaker: This is them trying to market and say, we're not going to sell crappy hats.
Speaker: We're going to sell hats that people want to wear.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: We're trying to get our name out there.
Speaker: That's what Stern's talking about, right?
Speaker: It's a lifestyle brand.
Speaker: They're trying to get their name on the street.
Speaker: But you can't do that with cheap hats that fall apart or cheap t-shirts that no one wears.
Speaker: So I understand what their price point is.
Speaker: Their price point is they're probably barely breaking even or maybe making two bucks on it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So give them a break guys.
Speaker: That's all I can say.
Speaker: I will say it's an, it's a nice hat and I'm going to order some because I like wearing my loser kid hat because it's comfortable and I don't wear hats that aren't comfortable.
Speaker: And so if they bought the same thing we did, I I'm all in.
Speaker: Well, I just think it's funny that they did buy it.
Speaker: We've had our hats for how many months now?
Speaker: We've had them probably out about two or three.
Speaker: Yeah, well, okay.
Speaker: Yeah, I guess that's probably right.
Speaker: But you know what?
Speaker: Hey, it's smart.
Speaker: And actually, the other Stern hat that I have is really comfortable too.
Speaker: So you know what?
Speaker: Here's the thing.
Speaker: I would rather pay $5 more for a nice hat than to get a crappy one.
Speaker: So hey, if you want to...
Speaker: Well, I'll put it this way.
Speaker: It amazes me that people will talk about how expensive a hat is, but then they'll buy some matchbox car with LED lights on it for $70 on mod sites to put in their game.
Speaker: That contributes very little.
Speaker: It's just, hey, I just wanted this car with lights in it.
Speaker: So just, hey, if you don't like the price, don't buy it.
Speaker: Well, and the rumor is that I'm making up right now as we talk is that Keith is always wearing our loser kid hat.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: Let's not.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm sure that's it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, I, I, so the guys at Stern were like, Hey, we need to make, th is is such a quality hat that we need to, we should make this same product.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm sure.
Speaker: I'm sure that's it.
Speaker: Actually, I will say the, the, the Stern hat that they made before our hats, I think is extremely comfortable too.
Speaker: I totally agree.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Anyway, just give them, give them a break.
Speaker: It's if you want the hat, great.
Speaker: If you don't, but I'm not going to give them a, you know, how many times have you gone to a concert and bought a $40 concert t-shirts that the concert t-shirts are eight bucks.
Speaker: I mean, they're really, they're, they're crappy quality and they fall apart when you wash them.
Speaker: This hat's not going to fall apart.
Speaker: So go ahead and wear it with pride.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: So just a reminder, we do have hats.
Speaker: I just, I printed off another fresh batch.
Speaker: So, um, we've, we've, they've been going out like hotcakes, man.
Speaker: And the other funny part too is, is, uh, Keith was just on head to head and he was talking with Keith.
Speaker: It was two episodes ago and he brought up the incident, uh, with Katie Martin up in Brooklyn.
Speaker: We had sent her out a hat and the, the, the,
Speaker: It sucks because she got there.
Speaker: She's excited for a product, right?
Speaker: She grabs the box.
Speaker: It's already open and the hat was stolen.
Speaker: And they left the loser kid box on the front porch.
Speaker: And it's like.
Speaker: I'm not going to lie guys.
Speaker: We've only sent one hat to Brooklyn.
Speaker: We've sent two now.
Speaker: Cause we sent, we felt bad.
Speaker: We were just like, you know what?
Speaker: We'll send you another one.
Speaker: And so we sent another one to Katie.
Speaker: But if you see someone floating around New York, Brooklyn area, that isn't Katie, you know, it's, it's supposed to be her hat.
Speaker: So you should at least get a picture of them and say, Hey, it's a small, so it'd be a small kid.
Speaker: By the way, I think it's Kate.
Speaker: Um, and she is the leader of the bells and chimes in the New York area.
Speaker: So give her a shout out when you see her.
Speaker: Speaking of head to head, let's talk about our slam in the top 100 that we did when we had Martin on.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Did you keep up with the poll?
Speaker: You know, I didn't.
Speaker: I got so busy.
Speaker: I just, I disappeared from social media for about a couple of weeks.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, to remind the people at home, we did Twilight Zone versus Time Machine of all games.
Speaker: And you take a guess, Scott.
Speaker: Okay, how many votes do you think we got on this bad boy?
Speaker: 10.
Speaker: Close.
Speaker: We got 12.
Speaker: So I was impressed there.
Speaker: Was one of them mine?
Speaker: I guess technically 10 because one was mine and one was yours.
Speaker: There you go.
Speaker: Because you can't follow the votes or anything unless if you vote.
Speaker: And so I'm like, well, I wanted to keep it pure, but we couldn't without tracking it.
Speaker: And you voted for Time Machine.
Speaker: No, I did not.
Speaker: I voted for Twilight Zone.
Speaker: Dude, I'm voting Twilight Zone no matter what.
Speaker: So Twilight Zone won 58% to 42%.
Speaker: I'd say that's a solid close vote.
Speaker: It really is.
Speaker: And I did put as part of our segment, you got to vote who had the better argument.
Speaker: And I even gave you the cat driving a Ferrari because of the car.
Speaker: And it probably was the cat gif that really helped you out.
Speaker: I think so.
Speaker: I will take a cat driving a Ferrari anytime.
Speaker: But no one commented.
Speaker: I don't think.
Speaker: I think.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: It just.
Speaker: It made me chuckle.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It was awesome.
Speaker: I will say Time Machine is an interesting game.
Speaker: But yeah.
Speaker: You're not going to compete with Twilight Zone.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Twilight Zone is a beast all within itself.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: And then speaking also of that episode that we had Martin on.
Speaker: We got some feedback.
Speaker: We got an email.
Speaker: I'm sorry if I slaughter your name.
Speaker: Robbie R a B I H. Any who.
Speaker: So we were talking about making pinball more accessible for the general public.
Speaker: We were kind of saying that pinball is kind of hard on a three ball.
Speaker: If you don't fully understand the game, you lose three balls in like 30 seconds and you're like, well, why the crap am I even playing this?
Speaker: And so we talked about, you know, different like time modes and stuff like that.
Speaker: Well, this gentleman reached out to us and he said, Hey guys, thanks for putting out these episodes.
Speaker: And I'm enjoying the interviews.
Speaker: Really love them.
Speaker: I heard you on the last episode with Martin discussing the DMB foray into pinball with P3.
Speaker: So the DMB is Dave and Busters because they just put the P3 out in the Austin, Texas location.
Speaker: So I wanted you to let you know here in Chicago, there are experimenting with pinball on location at similar venues.
Speaker: where they modify the games to make them five ball, newer replays, and five minute time plays.
Speaker: Personally, I'm opposed to both modifications as it takes away from the authenticity of the pinball experience where it's a do or die situation and it's up to your skills if you can continue to progress.
Speaker: But I understand this is an option for novice slash beginners, especially when juxtaposed with arcades and thrill rides that all run on time plays essentially.
Speaker: The suggestion would be include a choice in the very beginning.
Speaker: As you, as you guys mentioned is very clear.
Speaker: The player hit left flipper button, easy mode, timed or right flipper button, hard mode, three balls.
Speaker: Either way, it's tough to find the sweet spot for a venue.
Speaker: I know operators are keenly aware of the pros and cons.
Speaker: My dream venue would be a laid back coffee shop with a pinball room adjacent.
Speaker: That's open all day from all ages.
Speaker: Maybe turn turns into a bars after 9 PM.
Speaker: Sincerely, Robby Robby.
Speaker: Uh,
Speaker: He even pronounced it there at the end.
Speaker: I didn't realize that.
Speaker: But it sounds like there are experiments with this stuff.
Speaker: At least up in Chicago.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I will say that when I first started getting into pinball, I heard there was a Wizard of Oz on.
Speaker: And it did have that option where, hey, you can play for just a – you can play for a time.
Speaker: And I thought that was really interesting since I didn't know anything about Wizard of Oz.
Speaker: I thought that would be an interesting option.
Speaker: So certainly if you're going to put some money in a machine and you're guaranteed five minutes, then yeah, I think that that's something to consider.
Speaker: I think there certainly needs to be a way of rewarding the players as soon as you get better with, I don't know, higher scores, bells and whistles.
Speaker: I'm not really sure.
Speaker: But yeah, you have to look at ways that the market is changing.
Speaker: The market has changed.
Speaker: Arcades are gone.
Speaker: They're kiddie gambling ticker redemptionaries now.
Speaker: So whatever you can do to try to wrestle that away from the ticket munchers, I think you have to look at it.
Speaker: I agree.
Speaker: It kind of sounds like they're describing Keto's really, except for the all ages access, but it's basically like a hipster coffee shop.
Speaker: slash bar that has board games and everything.
Speaker: The only downside is you can't hurt the games because they haven't turned down nothing.
Speaker: Come out to Utah.
Speaker: We'll show you Ketos.
Speaker: It really is really laid back.
Speaker: I'm not a huge bar fan.
Speaker: I'm really not.
Speaker: But Ketos, you don't feel like you're walking into a bar.
Speaker: You walk in there, you play some pinball.
Speaker: It feels like a Starbucks that serves alcohol too.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, but no, I agree.
Speaker: I think, I think that there does need to be some more accessibility and there's one more, there's one more topic I wanted to hit.
Speaker: I forgot I was going to, I forgot to tell you this before in our show notes, we talked about this a couple episodes back, but it was video game themes inside of pinball.
Speaker: And if we should start exploring those again, I got looking at,
Speaker: Cause I went to Nickel Mania in Springville and they've got a Gottlieb Super Mario Brothers, the little kiddie one that's a redemption machine.
Speaker: It's horrible.
Speaker: Actually, it wasn't too bad.
Speaker: It's very, very repetitive.
Speaker: It's hit the magic flute up the middle and then hit the left ramp and it starts a video mode, which kind of makes sense because it's Super Mario Brothers.
Speaker: And then it has a bunch of different video modes, but you're trying to get through the worlds.
Speaker: I didn't think it was too bad, but it got me thinking because everyone complains like Gottlieb is not that great.
Speaker: They have some good games, but I went and looked.
Speaker: There's only one game above Super Mario Brothers, both Super Mario Brothers, that is worth more than the Super Mario Brothers games.
Speaker: It's the Chicago Cubs baseball game.
Speaker: And it made the same amount or less in machines.
Speaker: And so I'm like...
Speaker: That's 20 years later, or 30 years later, that it's still running strong on these Super Mario Bros.
Speaker: games.
Speaker: They're still the only ones that's coveted in the game.
Speaker: Yeah, it's... I think that...
Speaker: The best example of how to do a video game feel with a game would be Jurassic Park.
Speaker: Because the way they've done Jurassic Park, it feels very much like you are immersed in the Jurassic world, but you're not following along with the...
Speaker: You're not having to retread the storyline.
Speaker: The challenge is being able to integrate a similar theme with Metroid or a new Super Mario or what have you.
Speaker: I would love to have any Nintendo-based product theme as a pinball machine, as long as you can integrate it well.
Speaker: I think it would be a blast.
Speaker: The challenge is it always feels a little derivative.
Speaker: When you're playing it, it's the, okay, well, this isn't really Super Mario Bros.
Speaker: It just feels like...
Speaker: You're playing with different decals on it.
Speaker: So I haven't felt one where it gives you the same sort of excitement that playing the video game does.
Speaker: It's a little different when you have a movie or a music pin that actually does a similar thing and it gives you that buzz.
Speaker: But the video game, I've never found one that feels successfully crossed over into pinball.
Speaker: But I would be really curious to see if Nintendo started licensing more properties out for pinball machines because I think it would be a big seller.
Speaker: Well, and honestly, even looking at how pinball machines are being built nowadays, like you said, Jurassic Park, it's almost got that video game feel because of the gameplay.
Speaker: Black Knight, I got the same thing because you're trying to get to the bosses and then you're trying to defeat...
Speaker: the creatures or whatever it may be so you can get to the black knight i think we're starting to shift more and more and more towards almost a video game feel for a pinball machine as far as rule sets and codes go because that's where you get a lot of depth yeah and so and you also get a lot of non-linear gameplay that way too so yeah i don't know it's gonna be interesting to see where the hobby goes
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But hey, I'm all for if Nintendo's willing to start licensing it again, I think Stern would do a great job with it.
Speaker: I really do.
Speaker: I agree.
Speaker: And JJP would be great too, and maybe that would be more up their alley because they tend to be more of that wonka, that family-friendly type thing.
Speaker: But I think either of them would be my number one and two, and you could pick either one of them.
Speaker: I think they'd both do a bang-up job.
Speaker: If you're listening to this podcast right now, if you've made it this far, will you do me a favor?
Speaker: Will you guys reach out to Scott and tell him happy birthday?
Speaker: He had his birthday on Thursday and the guy did not party hardy like he should have.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: No, but I did go to Topgolf.
Speaker: That was fun.
Speaker: That is fun.
Speaker: My wife stayed home.
Speaker: My wife stayed home with a sick kid.
Speaker: So I took my, I took one of one of my partners from work.
Speaker: So anyway, it's good times.
Speaker: Dude, Topgolf is so good.
Speaker: I don't know if you people out there in the pinball podcasting world that listen to us have ever done or even know what Topgolf is.
Speaker: It's essentially a driving range, but the balls that you hit are microchipped, and then there's targets in the ground, and you score points off those.
Speaker: But they bring you food.
Speaker: You can order food while you're playing.
Speaker: It's fantastic.
Speaker: Yeah, thinking of that, I don't know why they can't just microchip all balls.
Speaker: And so you don't have to go looking for your ball for all the crappy golfers out there.
Speaker: Just go on to any golf course and you just have a range finder that just beeps when you get close to your ball.
Speaker: I agree.
Speaker: Well, and the golf carts already have GPS and they show the screen of how far you are from the pin.
Speaker: It can't be that much harder just to do some microchip balls.
Speaker: And I guess that's the difference between us beginners and the professionals, because the professionals are going to be wanting to hit the Callaway or whatever it may be.
Speaker: They want that very specific ball.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, it's, well, I'm going to be on the timed ball equivalent of golf for probably my entire life because I will never be competing on that.
Speaker: I was listening to a comedian and he said, you know, we're on the first hole.
Speaker: And I hit the ball and I look around at the other guys because I don't play golf.
Speaker: And I said, is that a good place to be?
Speaker: And one of the guys says, well, that's a good place if you need to take a crap.
Speaker: And he said, well, it's good because I did and I didn't play the next 17 holes with socks on.
Speaker: Like, yeah, I can relate.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We'll wrap it up and, uh, sounds like we'll, uh, we'll try to get, uh, we, if you guys have, uh, ideas for interviews too, we, we tried to mix it up a little bit to have interviews and, uh, discussions, but if there are people that you would, uh, be interested in us reaching out to, uh, let us know.
Speaker: We'll see if we can get them on the show or if there's any topics that you'd prefer that we discuss, go ahead and let us know.
Speaker: And, uh, we'll try to get our takes on it.
Speaker: Well, and really quickly, what shocked me was, is, um,
Speaker: With the Josh Sharp interview that we just did.
Speaker: I was actually talking to Zach and we were just talking about different stuff.
Speaker: And Zach's like, you know who would really like to be on your show?
Speaker: And I'm like, who?
Speaker: And he's like, my brother, Josh.
Speaker: I was like, what, really?
Speaker: And he's like, yeah, Josh listens to you.
Speaker: So when he loves it, dude, I was like, really?
Speaker: And so I was kind of shocked.
Speaker: Like, I'm like, you're pulling my chain.
Speaker: Like, okay.
Speaker: Josh, Josh is, Josh is infectious.
Speaker: His, his charisma for pinball is really contagious.
Speaker: And I, he probably listens to podcasts nonstop.
Speaker: He, yeah, he, he,
Speaker: When you talk to him, you're like, yeah, why isn't pinball everywhere?
Speaker: Just because you can feel his excitement for it.
Speaker: So certainly the right guy to do the IFPA.
Speaker: And so it was a lot of fun to have him on and certainly we'll have him on anytime.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Well, that's the thing too.
Speaker: I was like, dude, I wish we could have had hours.
Speaker: He was at work and he was messaging us.
Speaker: He's like, by the way, if I just randomly stop talking, it might be because the boss came in and I had to switch the screen.
Speaker: Click, click, click.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I wish you guys could be with us behind the scenes sometimes because there's some great stuff.
Speaker: There's some stuff that we can't share and then there's stuff that's just like that.
Speaker: It makes you chuckle.
Speaker: If Josh's boss is listening, he was not being interviewed by us right there.
Speaker: He was at home and taking care of three kids while he was podcasting with us.
Speaker: That's exactly what happened.
Speaker: He would never do it on work time.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We're going to get a text.
Speaker: I can feel it already.
Speaker: But well, cool.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: Always talk to you, Scott.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Well, we'll catch you guys later.
Speaker: Later.
