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Ep 21: LoserKid emails Deeproot, Robert Mueller responds!
45 Plays6 years ago
We had a few questions before Houston Arcade Expo and we figured that no one could answer them better than Robert Mueller of Deeproot! We share the answer to those questions with you. Also we talk the latest news along with our thoughts on mods.
If you would like to reach out to us, contact us at loserkidpinballpodcast@gmail.com
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Transcript
Introduction of Hosts and Episode
00:00:06
Speaker
Hey, welcome everyone.
00:00:07
Speaker
Thank you for tuning in to the Loser Kid Pinball Podcast.
00:00:10
Speaker
We are on episode 21.
00:00:13
Speaker
I am Josh Roop, and with me, my co-captain is always... Scott Larson.
00:00:17
Speaker
Hey, Scott.
00:00:18
Speaker
How are you doing today?
00:00:19
Speaker
You know what?
00:00:19
Speaker
It's actually been a pretty crazy time at work.
00:00:23
Speaker
I just got back from a meeting, and it's 9.30, and we're recording now, so...
00:00:28
Speaker
I know it's between my last week and your week this week.
00:00:33
Speaker
It seems like there's a lot of stuff going on.
00:00:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:00:37
Speaker
It's, you know, this is what happens when life gets in the way of pinball.
00:00:41
Speaker
Yep.
00:00:42
Speaker
So, yeah, but it's, it's still good.
00:00:44
Speaker
It's still good.
00:00:45
Speaker
Life is life is good.
00:00:46
Speaker
Just quite busy.
Fall Break Updates and Purchases
00:00:47
Speaker
So what have you, what has been going on in your life in the last couple of weeks?
00:00:52
Speaker
It's been three weeks since we've recorded.
00:00:54
Speaker
Well, it has been three weeks.
00:00:56
Speaker
Well, so we got through the fall break craziness that was over here.
00:01:02
Speaker
And we got a little bit of updates from Brad as Brad on the last podcast from Lit Frames.
00:01:11
Speaker
He was updating us on all the expo stuff and I did score.
00:01:18
Speaker
I tried to order the Brian Allen alternative monster bash thing, but it was sold out when I tried to order it.
00:01:25
Speaker
So I thought I missed out, but Brad had one and I was able to, he was able to find one for me.
00:01:32
Speaker
And so I bought that from Brad.
00:01:35
Speaker
Very awesome.
00:01:35
Speaker
That is on the way.
00:01:36
Speaker
And I also bought a lit frame for the current Stern LCD translights because they're all different sizes.
00:01:50
Speaker
So I'm looking forward to starting to decorate my downstairs room by having some pinball art and maybe some translights of games that I like the art, but I don't have space for the games.
00:02:03
Speaker
And so I can still appreciate them that way.
00:02:05
Speaker
Nice.
00:02:06
Speaker
It sounds like you've been a busy little beaver, even when you're not playing pinball.
00:02:10
Speaker
Yeah.
Epic Royal Mode Upgrade Plans
00:02:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:11
Speaker
And I also, I will, I guess I'll go more into it, but I did put in an order and confirmed my interest in upgrading my medieval madness.
00:02:24
Speaker
Awesome.
00:02:25
Speaker
So I am going to upgrade it to Epic Royal mode.
00:02:28
Speaker
Dude, I can't wait for you to get this in and get it installed.
00:02:33
Speaker
I'm
00:02:33
Speaker
I want to see this puppy in action.
00:02:35
Speaker
I know it's just lights and whatnot, but the whole thing just looks so epic.
00:02:39
Speaker
It looks so good.
00:02:41
Speaker
You know, it's one of those things where, you know, we'll talk about this more when we talk about customizing games, but...
00:02:49
Speaker
There's something about the entire experience and it, there's a reason why pinball machines have moved beyond what, okay, I'll put it this way.
00:03:01
Speaker
You wouldn't buy a white wood pinball machine.
00:03:03
Speaker
You just wouldn't because ultimately it's pretty boring.
00:03:07
Speaker
With a, it's a pitch and bat game.
00:03:09
Speaker
You have a ball come down, you hit it and it goes and does something and comes back.
00:03:13
Speaker
But that's the reason why art's important.
00:03:15
Speaker
That's the reason why lighting's important.
00:03:16
Speaker
That's the reason why sounds important.
00:03:18
Speaker
That's the reason why visual integration is important.
00:03:21
Speaker
It makes the whole pinball experience more enjoyable, even though it really doesn't affect the way the ball and the flippers interact.
00:03:32
Speaker
So I figured medieval madness.
00:03:34
Speaker
My kids love it.
00:03:35
Speaker
Everybody loves it.
00:03:36
Speaker
It comes over.
00:03:37
Speaker
They, that's the first game when people say, okay, I know nothing about pinball, which machine should I try?
00:03:43
Speaker
And I always point them to that because that's the first one where people can do the thing that makes it cool.
00:03:49
Speaker
And, um,
00:03:49
Speaker
They can do it fairly easily, just getting that castle door to, you know, the drawbridge to drop down, the gate to go up, and the castle to explode.
00:03:59
Speaker
They can do that all very quickly, and I can show them this is why Pinball is cool.
00:04:03
Speaker
Yep.
00:04:05
Speaker
When you take that to the next level of adding a light show, adding upgraded speakers, adding that panel, adding the topper, it's just going to take it even more to that epic level.
00:04:20
Speaker
And that's the reason why Attack from Mars.
00:04:23
Speaker
When you play the LE with the topper and the lights and the thingy that goes woo, it's amazing.
00:04:30
Speaker
You always want to go back and play one more time.
00:04:33
Speaker
Oh, I totally agree.
00:04:35
Speaker
Totally agree.
00:04:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:36
Speaker
Cool.
00:04:37
Speaker
I can't wait for you to get yours in and see you get it installed because it's just, I don't know, it's going to be a hoot.
00:04:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:44
Speaker
No, it'll be a lot of fun.
00:04:46
Speaker
Well, what has been going on with you?
Personal Challenges and Family Updates
00:04:48
Speaker
So I haven't been playing a ton of pinball lately.
00:04:52
Speaker
Last week was pretty chaotic.
00:04:55
Speaker
So for those that have our friends with me on Facebook, they did see that my son went in my six month old son.
00:05:02
Speaker
One of the twins went in for surgery.
00:05:04
Speaker
It was a cyst on his eye.
00:05:06
Speaker
But the cool part about the story is his eyebrow.
00:05:12
Speaker
No, it was it was in between his eye and his eyelid.
00:05:14
Speaker
It was a.
00:05:15
Speaker
what was the technical term?
00:05:16
Speaker
The right orbital inner dermoid cyst.
00:05:20
Speaker
Yes.
00:05:20
Speaker
I don't know.
00:05:21
Speaker
Something like that.
00:05:23
Speaker
But the cool part is, is one of the buddies, one of the guys that we play pinball with Matt Shablom.
00:05:29
Speaker
I hope I'm saying that right.
00:05:30
Speaker
Shablom ship.
00:05:32
Speaker
Okay.
00:05:32
Speaker
I will post the name and you guys, you can guess too.
00:05:35
Speaker
So anyhow, but Matt, Matt's been really good to me.
00:05:38
Speaker
Like he's,
00:05:40
Speaker
And he was the anesthesiologist on the job because, I mean, a six-month-old baby is tiny.
00:05:47
Speaker
They are tiny.
00:05:48
Speaker
But, you know, dude, he took care of us.
00:05:50
Speaker
And it put my wife as an angel.
00:05:52
Speaker
She has been taking care of all the stuff.
00:05:55
Speaker
And, I mean, it's just – it's a very basic –
00:05:59
Speaker
straightforward procedure, but you still worry.
00:06:02
Speaker
And Matt took care of us.
00:06:04
Speaker
And I just want to thank all the people that reached out.
00:06:08
Speaker
We had Zach Many and JJ Babich and
00:06:13
Speaker
Lauren Gray of the Backbox Pinball Podcast all personally reached out among other people.
00:06:19
Speaker
I just, I really appreciate it.
00:06:21
Speaker
Last week was a rough leak.
00:06:22
Speaker
My great-grandmother died too.
00:06:24
Speaker
So the funeral's on Monday.
00:06:26
Speaker
We had a surgery on Friday.
00:06:28
Speaker
It just, it was chaos.
00:06:31
Speaker
And then we had Halloween somewhere in the middle of that.
00:06:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:34
Speaker
And Halloween was freezing this year.
00:06:37
Speaker
I don't know how it was everywhere else, but we went out and it was 35 degrees when we went out.
00:06:44
Speaker
And we ended up, got down to 34.
00:06:47
Speaker
And I just turned to the kids and I'm like, we got tons of candy at home.
00:06:50
Speaker
Let's go home.
00:06:52
Speaker
It was like 45 minutes.
00:06:53
Speaker
It was so cold.
00:06:55
Speaker
The road above us did a trunk retreat, and even that was sparsely attended.
00:07:00
Speaker
I think it was just because it was so cold.
00:07:02
Speaker
Well, they said last week it has hit the coldest recorded temperature in the month of October in the state of Utah.
00:07:09
Speaker
So I know we were hitting negative temperatures last week.
00:07:12
Speaker
And now we're back up to what, 40s, 50s during the afternoon?
00:07:15
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:07:16
Speaker
And it's not as cold, but it's still cold.
00:07:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:19
Speaker
Welcome to Utah.
00:07:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:22
Speaker
Well, cool.
00:07:23
Speaker
You know, there hasn't been a ton of news lately.
Houston Arcade Expo Plans and Raza Prototype
00:07:26
Speaker
So why don't we make some of our own news, Scott?
00:07:29
Speaker
Sure.
00:07:31
Speaker
Let's do it.
00:07:32
Speaker
Let's do it.
00:07:32
Speaker
So what we are going to do is Houston Arcade Expo is next week.
00:07:38
Speaker
And we all know that Raza, the prototype, is going to be there.
00:07:42
Speaker
Robert Mueller and company has told us, please do not judge it based off of artwork or design or design.
00:07:49
Speaker
code right now because it's basically a working prototype that that's pretty much it's an early prototype correct yeah so um i reached out to robert i asked him hey let's come on let's let's do an interview let's talk about this stuff let's let's get let's get some uh what we're going to be walking into next week you know what i'm saying and so he said that um they can't do anything on he can't do anything live right now at the moment so we sent him our questions and he sent them back answers to us at three o'clock this afternoon yeah
00:08:18
Speaker
I was pretty shocked because we talked about this and you said, hey, you know what, what questions?
00:08:23
Speaker
So I submitted my questions and you submitted the better questions.
00:08:30
Speaker
And then you sent me like three hours later, you sent me a response.
00:08:33
Speaker
And I thought, wow, that was really fast.
00:08:36
Speaker
I did not expect a response that fast.
00:08:38
Speaker
Well, what's funny is I've been talking to Robert for a week
Robert Mueller's Approach to Pinball
00:08:41
Speaker
or so now.
00:08:41
Speaker
And so it's like, I haven't heard anything, haven't heard anything.
00:08:43
Speaker
And all of a sudden just today, this morning, it was like, bam, let's do it.
00:08:46
Speaker
And I was like, oh, okay, let's do this.
00:08:48
Speaker
So I sent you over the questions.
00:08:51
Speaker
Do you have those pulled up?
00:08:52
Speaker
I am pulling them up as we speak.
00:08:55
Speaker
Awesome.
00:08:56
Speaker
So my thoughts are, let's have you read as loser Kim pinball podcast and I'll read as Robert.
00:09:02
Speaker
Okay.
00:09:02
Speaker
And that way we don't confuse people.
00:09:04
Speaker
And that sounds good.
00:09:05
Speaker
And, and we'll, uh, I mean, we can even post screenshots of this.
00:09:08
Speaker
This is just straight up, uh, from a, uh, a message from, uh, Robert Mueller.
00:09:14
Speaker
And so this was our first question.
00:09:18
Speaker
Uh, since starting deep root pinball, how has your approach to pinball evolved?
00:09:23
Speaker
Um,
00:09:24
Speaker
Three things.
00:09:25
Speaker
First, I play a lot less.
00:09:27
Speaker
I remember a friend back in high school telling me he was sick of TV dinners.
00:09:31
Speaker
I was surprised as his dad was a head chef for a five-star resort.
00:09:36
Speaker
My friend explained that his dad cooked all day and cooking when he got home was the last thing he wanted to do.
00:09:41
Speaker
Much like this, I breathe and live pinball almost every waking moment.
00:09:45
Speaker
It's something hard to get back to just standing in front of a machine and loving it for loving it.
00:09:50
Speaker
Second, I am ever motivated to change the past.
00:09:53
Speaker
I remember how many things frustrated me about my Williams-Balley pinball machines back in the 2015.
00:10:00
Speaker
Why did they do this?
00:10:01
Speaker
Why did they do that?
00:10:02
Speaker
Why is it so hard to set up and maintain?
00:10:04
Speaker
Why is everything so complicated?
00:10:06
Speaker
Why are there all these companies so dysfunctional?
00:10:09
Speaker
Why aren't more people into pinball, etc.?
00:10:12
Speaker
All of these formed into a business plan.
00:10:14
Speaker
Then they morphed into a real R&D effort and will soon morph into a business.
00:10:19
Speaker
I have been brash, maybe too much so, but I also know that when the world sees the forest for the trees, a lot of the mysteries will make sense.
00:10:26
Speaker
Third, I am more passionate about bringing value to pinball more than I ever was before, when we first started the R&D work.
00:10:34
Speaker
I don't mean value as making games that don't cost a lot, but value at every level.
00:10:41
Speaker
Build, art, animation, sound, interaction with the ball, production value, player experience, maintenance, etc.
00:10:48
Speaker
We are not about selling high-priced art or animation first.
00:10:52
Speaker
Hoping to hide a tired, cheap pinball design.
00:10:54
Speaker
I hope the value speaks for itself very soon.
00:10:58
Speaker
Okay.
00:10:59
Speaker
Now, so that is, that is Robert's response.
00:11:01
Speaker
That is, that is a well thought out, I think a very measured response, which, which is, um, it's, it's less of the, the hype.
00:11:12
Speaker
Um, I guess the PR, this seems a more of like an intimate view of what he feels.
00:11:17
Speaker
Uh, what do you feel about that response, Josh?
00:11:20
Speaker
What jumps out at you?
00:11:22
Speaker
I think, um,
00:11:25
Speaker
we're going from a very brash individual.
00:11:27
Speaker
Like he even says that in the middle, I've been brash, maybe too much.
00:11:30
Speaker
So I think he's, he's learned that he needs to dial it back.
00:11:33
Speaker
I think, I think the response is really good.
00:11:35
Speaker
I think there's a lot of thoughtfulness into it.
00:11:38
Speaker
I'd like that.
00:11:39
Speaker
He's bringing,
00:11:40
Speaker
Because we've always heard like they're either going to be super cheap or they're going to build really expensive.
00:11:45
Speaker
And here he's talking about, you know, it doesn't necessarily mean the value of making the games doesn't cost a lot.
00:11:50
Speaker
It means that there's going to be value at every corner of this.
00:11:53
Speaker
And I like that.
00:11:53
Speaker
I like that we complain.
00:11:56
Speaker
I know the pinball community complains a lot about the quality of the pinball machine isn't always 100%.
00:12:01
Speaker
You know, we take a little, give a little, you know, the artwork might not be up to par.
00:12:07
Speaker
because the gameplay is fantastic or the gameplay suffers a little bit because, you know, the code is not all the way there.
00:12:14
Speaker
And so from this perspective, it looks like they want to hit every angle before they present you a product.
00:12:20
Speaker
And I can, I can really appreciate that.
00:12:22
Speaker
What are your thoughts?
00:12:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:24
Speaker
A couple of things jumped up.
00:12:25
Speaker
The first thing is as a fan transitioning into a, um, a maker, a pinball maker,
00:12:35
Speaker
there are different phases you go through.
00:12:38
Speaker
And even remember when we talked with Keith Elwin, he had been basically an operator, a fan, a competitor for years, but he never worked on the inside as a manufacturer.
00:12:53
Speaker
And so he said basically the same thing.
00:12:56
Speaker
I used to have the same complaints that other people had.
00:12:59
Speaker
Hey, why didn't they do this?
00:13:01
Speaker
Well, that was kind of weird.
00:13:02
Speaker
Why didn't they do that?
00:13:04
Speaker
But he said, once I got behind the scenes, I realized, look, they're not haphazard about doing things.
00:13:11
Speaker
There is a reason for certain decisions.
00:13:14
Speaker
And yes, there are going to be challenging situations and sometimes creative responses to dealing with that.
00:13:21
Speaker
Those are my words, not Keith's.
00:13:24
Speaker
But there is a reason why a business operates the way it does.
00:13:30
Speaker
And so this seems like a mature, measured approach to say, I have the same questions that everybody else.
00:13:39
Speaker
However, these are the goals that I want to achieve.
00:13:43
Speaker
I want to find ways of examining things and making it better.
00:13:48
Speaker
And looking at different things.
00:13:49
Speaker
Yes, certainly he was brash in many of these interviews.
00:13:55
Speaker
I will also point out that, um,
00:13:58
Speaker
He hasn't taken a dime from anybody.
00:14:01
Speaker
Legitimately, he hasn't taken a dime from anybody.
00:14:03
Speaker
This is all his own money that he is fronting to build this pinball machine from scratch or this pinball company from scratch.
00:14:11
Speaker
And so I actually think that, you know what, if he wants to go all out and promise the world, that's fine.
00:14:20
Speaker
It's him.
00:14:21
Speaker
He may be setting the expectations pretty high, but...
00:14:24
Speaker
But the bottom line is it's not like he's doing it as a smoke and mirrors to take money from people.
00:14:29
Speaker
That's one thing.
00:14:31
Speaker
Two, he has gone out of his way really – and we'll talk about this in the next part.
00:14:40
Speaker
But he's gone out of his way to really rectify a situation that wasn't his situation.
00:14:46
Speaker
Right?
00:14:47
Speaker
with the Zidware thing.
00:14:50
Speaker
I understand why, even from a business standpoint, it makes sense.
00:14:55
Speaker
John Papaduke is a major pinball designer talent.
00:15:01
Speaker
Everybody has a designer they like.
00:15:04
Speaker
And the bottom line is there are a lot of people who like Papaduke's stuff.
00:15:09
Speaker
And so it makes sense to go and get someone who knows how to make interesting layouts.
00:15:15
Speaker
The challenge is there was some bad PR in the pinball community that if you're going to hire this guy with a complicated backstory, then you also, it would be smart to make amends or at least try to rectify the situation.
00:15:35
Speaker
The mess that this guy made when he wasn't even part of your company, I might add.
00:15:40
Speaker
And so there's two things he's done.
00:15:43
Speaker
He is trying to start a pinball company from scratch.
00:15:48
Speaker
And two, he also has gone out of his way to also clean up somebody else's mess because he wanted to incorporate that designer into it.
00:16:00
Speaker
So already there's two major things.
00:16:03
Speaker
Yes.
00:16:03
Speaker
Is it challenging?
00:16:04
Speaker
Yes.
00:16:05
Speaker
Are there design aspects that you want to improve on every aspect?
00:16:09
Speaker
Yes.
00:16:10
Speaker
And so I'm waiting patiently to see how he's going to rectify these situations because legitimately, again, a pinball company is going to make decisions for legitimate business reasons.
00:16:27
Speaker
And so there's a reason why Stern does their business the way they do.
00:16:31
Speaker
There's a reason why JJP does their business the way they do.
00:16:33
Speaker
Spooky does the things the way they do.
00:16:35
Speaker
And so I'm interesting to find his solutions to these challenging problems.
00:16:41
Speaker
I totally agree.
00:16:41
Speaker
So let's move on to the next question.
00:16:44
Speaker
Okay.
00:16:46
Speaker
For consistency, let me keep reading the questions and you can keep doing it so no one will be confused.
00:16:50
Speaker
Okay.
00:16:51
Speaker
So that was question one.
00:16:53
Speaker
Question two.
00:16:56
Speaker
Is there something that Robert of today would tell Robert of the past to do or avoid?
00:17:03
Speaker
It's always irritated me when I hear people say that they have no regrets.
00:17:07
Speaker
We all have regrets.
00:17:08
Speaker
Regrets are an important part of life to learn and grow.
00:17:11
Speaker
So yes, I have a million regrets.
00:17:13
Speaker
And yes, if I had to do this over again, I would probably...
00:17:17
Speaker
I would probably would try to do things a lot differently.
00:17:20
Speaker
If you want one example, I think my desire to try and to help the Zidware customers got in the way of focusing on what was most important.
00:17:29
Speaker
It has sucked time and money out of the pinball project.
00:17:32
Speaker
I don't think I or we will ever get that recognition I had hoped for, for the efforts expanded.
00:17:39
Speaker
Do we need to do it?
00:17:40
Speaker
No.
00:17:41
Speaker
Was it the right thing to do?
00:17:42
Speaker
Maybe yes, but maybe not the right timing.
00:17:45
Speaker
I would go back and tell myself to get pinball launched first, then do the right thing.
00:17:50
Speaker
Wow.
00:17:52
Speaker
This statement kind of like, there's a lot there.
00:17:55
Speaker
There's a lot to dissect because we were just talking about this.
00:17:58
Speaker
He didn't have to do it.
00:17:59
Speaker
He did.
00:18:00
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:18:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:02
Speaker
And it sounds like that's what's kind of inhibited them getting maybe the five days of deep root last year.
00:18:08
Speaker
I don't know.
00:18:08
Speaker
It sounds like this is what.
00:18:11
Speaker
Well, it's this whole fiasco that Papaduke created because he wasn't a good businessman.
00:18:20
Speaker
I truly don't think that John Papaduke is a con artist because that's what Skip B was.
00:18:27
Speaker
I believe that John Papaduke fully intended on making a pinball machine, but he didn't know how to do it outside of the design process.
00:18:36
Speaker
And so I think he got in over his head.
00:18:39
Speaker
And I think he was trying to do a lot of things.
00:18:41
Speaker
Now, again, Robert's saying that he is probably right.
00:18:46
Speaker
I think that his everything he has said before about being brash, being over the top.
00:18:53
Speaker
Yeah, I think that people focus on that as opposed to focusing, hey, this guy brought.
00:19:01
Speaker
Thousands of dollars to the table to bail out a failed company that wasn't even his company.
00:19:12
Speaker
And think about that.
00:19:13
Speaker
Now, I know people can say, oh, well, he's worth millions or billions or whatever the thing may be.
00:19:19
Speaker
Okay, that's fine.
00:19:21
Speaker
It's still thousands of dollars.
00:19:23
Speaker
And okay, if you think that that's not a big deal, try pulling $4,000 out of your wallet and hand it to somebody.
00:19:31
Speaker
And legitimate.
00:19:32
Speaker
It's the people like saying, oh, well, you know, all the people who do the white collar crimes, they're just spending a few months in jail.
00:19:39
Speaker
Great.
00:19:39
Speaker
You go spend some time in jail and then tell me it's not a big deal because I guarantee you'll think differently.
00:19:45
Speaker
And so when people are when people are dismissive of other people's
00:19:52
Speaker
either charitable efforts or business efforts that they have done really with, okay, yes, that move was also to enhance his company, but it was a move that was completely unnecessary.
00:20:07
Speaker
I don't mean unnecessary.
00:20:10
Speaker
I mean, there was no obligation.
00:20:13
Speaker
He had no legitimate obligation to bail this company out.
00:20:18
Speaker
But he did.
00:20:19
Speaker
And it's really to help out.
00:20:22
Speaker
And I completely agree with him when he's saying that no regrets.
00:20:26
Speaker
He's right.
00:20:26
Speaker
I have a billion regrets.
00:20:29
Speaker
I don't necessarily... I embrace those regrets, though, because I feel that those regrets have made me who I am today.
00:20:40
Speaker
And so flaws, warts and all, that's what's made me who I am today.
00:20:45
Speaker
And I feel like I...
00:20:47
Speaker
I like who I've become.
00:20:48
Speaker
I like all the challenges have made me grow.
00:20:52
Speaker
Would Scott of today do something differently?
00:20:56
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:20:58
Speaker
Going back in time, absolutely, I'd go back and do things differently.
00:21:01
Speaker
But it's how you embrace and use those failures that will produce success.
00:21:09
Speaker
And if you're going to start a company, you're going to have a billion failures.
00:21:14
Speaker
So I totally agree.
00:21:15
Speaker
So I, it's, I think that's, it really is.
00:21:18
Speaker
I, I will be the first on the record to say that him paying off the Zidware people, that is amazing.
00:21:26
Speaker
And really that, that should get a gold star banner.
00:21:30
Speaker
Number one option for me, just because again, he didn't have to do that at all.
00:21:36
Speaker
He could have hired John and he could have had John design games and just left John on the hook too.
00:21:41
Speaker
And that would have been totally legit.
00:21:44
Speaker
I totally understand that that would be a good way of doing it too, but he didn't.
00:21:48
Speaker
And that's, that's still pretty amazing.
00:21:51
Speaker
I agree.
00:21:52
Speaker
Well, I think, um, like you said, maybe it wasn't even the right timing to do it, you know?
00:21:58
Speaker
Maybe, but it may have been legitimately you hire John Papa Duke off the, off the scrap heap and the, the, the pinball, uh,
00:22:09
Speaker
The pinball mob is out there with pitchforks ready to burn him at the stake.
00:22:17
Speaker
And you rescue someone who is actually a great designer, and you also make an olive branch to those people.
00:22:26
Speaker
Yep.
00:22:26
Speaker
So, great.
00:22:29
Speaker
I think that the timing may have been inconvenient, but I think it was necessary.
00:22:34
Speaker
I agree.
00:22:36
Speaker
Well, let's move on to question three.
00:22:38
Speaker
Okay.
00:22:39
Speaker
So question three, you decided to start big instead of other companies who started small and grew.
Deep Root's Market Entry Strategy
00:22:46
Speaker
What is the motivation for such a grand approach?
00:22:50
Speaker
Go big or go home, right?
00:22:51
Speaker
I've always done things big and I felt I have a good handle on every aspect of the pinball industry.
00:22:57
Speaker
That would warrant that risk.
00:22:59
Speaker
It's hard to answer this right now because everyone outside of the company knows little to nothing.
00:23:04
Speaker
As such, I alluded to the forest for the trees in a prior response.
00:23:08
Speaker
There are reasons that might seem inexplicable now, but
00:23:12
Speaker
but will make sense when everyone sees the entire picture.
00:23:16
Speaker
The grand picture is beautiful and special to me.
00:23:18
Speaker
It's very important to me that with all the effort expended, that we get to share the entire picture with everyone at the right time and in the right way.
00:23:27
Speaker
Besides, no one starting small would ever dent Stern's 80 to 90% command of the market.
00:23:34
Speaker
I think deep roots value proposition when compared to all the competitors will speak for itself.
00:23:40
Speaker
And the question of our grand approach will speak for itself.
00:23:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:45
Speaker
I mean, straightforward.
00:23:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:48
Speaker
I agree with him.
00:23:50
Speaker
His personality is not to grow small.
00:23:52
Speaker
He's not Charlie from Spooky.
00:23:55
Speaker
That's not him.
00:23:57
Speaker
He's more of a Jaguar with maybe even a bigger startup budget.
00:24:02
Speaker
So, yeah, he's coming confident and I think legitimately has received some legitimate skepticism about his brashness.
00:24:12
Speaker
And the bottom line is it's still it's still undetermined.
00:24:17
Speaker
So I'm excited to see what he's saying.
00:24:20
Speaker
And he is completely right.
00:24:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:23
Speaker
love what spooky is doing.
00:24:24
Speaker
They're also not going to take a huge dent out of Stern's market.
00:24:28
Speaker
Um, yeah.
00:24:29
Speaker
Like the two that are probably taking the biggest dent, uh, would be Jersey Jack and Chicago gaming company.
00:24:35
Speaker
And compared to how many Stern is releasing a year, that's still Stern is still the king.
00:24:44
Speaker
They're, they're the boss.
00:24:45
Speaker
They're the ones who are driving the bus.
00:24:47
Speaker
And so, yes, if you are shooting for the top, then yeah, you have to be bigger.
00:24:51
Speaker
So, um,
00:24:52
Speaker
I hope he also has a bigger spending budget legitimately.
00:24:56
Speaker
He is funding it himself, but he has a bigger startup budget to be able to maybe accelerate the process as opposed to Spooky, which is it's a bootstrap organization.
00:25:08
Speaker
They are self-funded.
00:25:10
Speaker
And as we know, it was sketched to start going in the first place.
00:25:15
Speaker
So yeah.
00:25:17
Speaker
Well, if you haven't watched the spooky Things That Go Bump in the Night documentary, I highly recommend it.
00:25:25
Speaker
It's an awesome documentary.
00:25:26
Speaker
Buy it off Amazon.
00:25:29
Speaker
Well, I'm hoping that we will find out.
00:25:32
Speaker
Right now, Robert is toning it down and waiting for the right time to do the grand reveal, which is totally smart.
00:25:42
Speaker
So, so I, and I, it's, it is what it is.
00:25:45
Speaker
It's good.
00:25:46
Speaker
I, I'm excited to see what he's doing.
00:25:48
Speaker
He, he doesn't owe me anything.
00:25:50
Speaker
He hasn't taken any money from me.
00:25:52
Speaker
So.
00:25:52
Speaker
Yep.
00:25:52
Speaker
Okay.
00:25:54
Speaker
Let's move on with a question for with the Houston arcade expo right around the corner.
00:26:00
Speaker
Is there anything specific you would like the pinball hobby to keep in mind as we see deep roots first pinball machine?
00:26:08
Speaker
I hope you see something that's pretty much on the level where every other game is.
00:26:12
Speaker
We could, if we wanted, sell the prototypes as is and compete one for one with the best of the competition.
00:26:20
Speaker
However, what those games will not have is slash are most of the innovations that we will not show yet.
00:26:28
Speaker
So to answer your question, I hope the hobby keeps in mind that the best is yet to come.
00:26:34
Speaker
Okay, so what he's saying is this is a prototype game that is – it's a great game, but they're still developing some features that won't be available.
00:26:48
Speaker
That's what I take from that.
00:26:49
Speaker
What do you take?
00:26:51
Speaker
I think – I agree with you.
00:26:52
Speaker
I think it's saying that there might be some big –
00:26:56
Speaker
big mechanic.
00:26:58
Speaker
There could be something really cool that goes inside the pinball machine, but we're not going to see that next week.
00:27:04
Speaker
They just want some data of how the game plays.
00:27:09
Speaker
I don't blame them.
00:27:12
Speaker
It's not a bad move.
00:27:13
Speaker
We've always talked about this conundrum.
00:27:16
Speaker
It used to be back in the 90s, you could drop a pinball machine off at Logan's Arcade in Chicago, wherever it was back in the 90s.
00:27:24
Speaker
You could get
00:27:25
Speaker
two weeks to a month's worth of data out of it.
00:27:28
Speaker
And not the entire world would see it because it wasn't such thing as a cell phone or, or the active internet that we have nowadays.
00:27:36
Speaker
But nowadays you've got the internet, you've got, everyone's a journalist, everyone's got Facebook, social media.
00:27:43
Speaker
And so you have two amateur guys from Utah being podcasters.
00:27:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:49
Speaker
So it leaves you in a rock and hard spot.
00:27:51
Speaker
How do you get real world data without revealing all your cards?
00:27:54
Speaker
I think this is, this is an interesting way to do it.
00:27:57
Speaker
So it's also a dialed back approach from when JJP revealed pirates, they blew the doors off of expo.
00:28:10
Speaker
It was an amazing reveal.
00:28:13
Speaker
And,
00:28:14
Speaker
it took a little bit more to get pirates online and they had to work on some of the mechanisms.
00:28:21
Speaker
So in many, in some things, some of the mechanisms weren't ready for prime time.
00:28:25
Speaker
And I agree with Jersey Jack and that it's time to, uh,
00:28:31
Speaker
either fish or cut bait and say this mechanism is reliable enough to go on site or it's not and there are a few things they decided not to and they took a pr hit for it so um what i'm taking from this is there are some things that are not quite ready for prime time and we are going to show you what we can show you but we don't want to set us up for a triple spinning disc challenge
00:28:54
Speaker
Where people, and by the way, Pirates of JJP, amazing game.
00:28:59
Speaker
I mean, Eric knocked it out of the park.
00:29:02
Speaker
People still can't get over the fact that it changed from three discs to one disc.
00:29:10
Speaker
And even though there's about...
00:29:13
Speaker
Eight other crazy awesome things about that game that no other machine had.
00:29:17
Speaker
But people focus on the one thing that they couldn't get working effectively enough in a timely manner for location.
00:29:25
Speaker
Yep.
00:29:26
Speaker
Yep.
00:29:29
Speaker
Alrighty, let's go on to question five.
00:29:31
Speaker
All right.
00:29:32
Speaker
Also, with a prototype at Houston, will it be streamed for the public?
00:29:38
Speaker
No, it will be a low-key affair.
00:29:40
Speaker
We will have staff on hand to record lots of data and fix any issues.
00:29:44
Speaker
I'm sure there will be ample pictures and videos taken by everyone there and posted to social media.
00:29:50
Speaker
So I do like this because I guess this was the biggest question going into my mind is, yes, we knew that the prototype was going to be at Houston Arcade Expo, but I didn't know how much of it was going to be behind closed doors.
00:30:02
Speaker
And pretty much like you walk into this room, but you got to leave your cell phone at the front door.
00:30:06
Speaker
Right.
00:30:06
Speaker
You know what I'm saying?
00:30:07
Speaker
And I like this because he is he is giving a he is giving a soft reveal.
00:30:15
Speaker
He's saying, hey, this is a machine.
00:30:18
Speaker
It's a little bit like the TNA Whitewood.
00:30:21
Speaker
It's a little bit like a, I don't want to say homebrew because I really don't want to undermine what Deep Brew is trying to do.
00:30:27
Speaker
But what I'm saying is that this is a prototype machine.
00:30:30
Speaker
It's not ready for the great reveal, but you can get a glimpse of it, which would probably be 80% of what is going to be in the game.
00:30:40
Speaker
And, and, and it gives, it gives us something to see.
00:30:45
Speaker
And I love that.
00:30:45
Speaker
It's like, I'm not going to deal with this whole non-disclosure agreement thing.
00:30:50
Speaker
We're going to show you the basic prototype of the game.
00:30:53
Speaker
And guess what?
00:30:54
Speaker
We're still going to make it better.
00:30:56
Speaker
I'm like, great.
00:30:57
Speaker
Perfect.
00:30:57
Speaker
Okay.
00:30:58
Speaker
Let's, we got two questions left.
00:30:59
Speaker
Let's, let's wrap this bad boy up.
00:31:01
Speaker
You want to give us, what is this question?
00:31:02
Speaker
Six.
00:31:04
Speaker
With the new division of Deep Root Studios in Utah, I,
00:31:08
Speaker
Is there certain goals you want to achieve with it that are outside of the pinball realm?
Innovations and Future of Deep Root
00:31:14
Speaker
Also, how does the Utah site differ from the Texas one?
00:31:19
Speaker
Yes, Deep Root Studios is an extension of the pinball project, but it is also its own creative force.
00:31:26
Speaker
It was never meant to be considered solely for pinball.
00:31:29
Speaker
I know pinheads would think the statement is sacrilegious, but pinball has been and always will be a means to an end, not the end itself.
00:31:39
Speaker
I think what he's saying is that Deep Root Studios is not the... The sole purpose for making Deep Root Studios is not to create pinball media.
00:31:49
Speaker
It's not to create things for pinball machines.
00:31:53
Speaker
It's a business that part of what he's doing will be to make all the animations and all that stuff for the pinball machine.
00:32:04
Speaker
But that can't be their only job.
00:32:06
Speaker
And I told him at the end of the interview, I'm like, we do live in Utah.
00:32:11
Speaker
So if you ever want us to swing on by and say hello, we'd be welcome.
00:32:15
Speaker
We'd be more than happy to.
00:32:17
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:32:18
Speaker
All right.
00:32:18
Speaker
That's what I was saying.
00:32:19
Speaker
Hey, Robert, come into Utah.
00:32:21
Speaker
We'll come and meet you.
00:32:22
Speaker
I mean, I'm down the street.
00:32:24
Speaker
I could drive to Deep Root Studio in 20 minutes.
00:32:26
Speaker
I'll be right there.
00:32:28
Speaker
Let's take you to Crown Burger, you know?
00:32:30
Speaker
Jeez.
00:32:32
Speaker
Wow.
00:32:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:33
Speaker
Okay.
00:32:34
Speaker
Crown burger is good, but I'm just saying I, I, I'm hoping we can take them to something nicer.
00:32:38
Speaker
So, okay.
00:32:38
Speaker
Okay.
00:32:39
Speaker
All right.
00:32:39
Speaker
Last question.
00:32:41
Speaker
With all the veteran talent on deep roots roster, are you concerned that your company will be stuck in pinball in the pinball designs of the past?
00:32:51
Speaker
If not, what are some of the things your company is doing to push pinball further into the 21st century?
00:32:58
Speaker
LOL.
00:32:59
Speaker
I'm sorry.
00:32:59
Speaker
I had laughed.
00:33:01
Speaker
I'm sorry.
00:33:01
Speaker
I had laughed.
00:33:03
Speaker
I'm sorry.
00:33:04
Speaker
I had, I had a laugh out loud when I read this question.
00:33:08
Speaker
Any who have seen what we've have been cooking, whether hired or third party visitor have been blown away by the sheer level of innovation in each game.
00:33:17
Speaker
There's a reason why the nineties William Valley games are still some of the most beloved, the production level and the balance of elements were spot on.
00:33:25
Speaker
we build upon the perfect recipe.
00:33:27
Speaker
Each of our first 13 games will have multiple unique innovations never before seen in pinball and then add in innovations on top of the William belly era.
00:33:38
Speaker
Sorry.
00:33:38
Speaker
And then add in innovations on top of the William, William's belly era and current machines.
00:33:45
Speaker
We can't wait for you to experience why pinball can and should be redefined for the next century.
00:33:53
Speaker
Woo.
00:33:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:55
Speaker
I...
00:33:58
Speaker
I'm refreshed because I, I thought that Robert was a little over the top and brash at the beginning.
00:34:04
Speaker
Um, I still feel it's his right to do that because, uh, again, he didn't take any money and he's starting a company.
00:34:11
Speaker
Uh, this seems a more measured approach, but he still is confident.
00:34:15
Speaker
And so I like that he is still confident.
00:34:19
Speaker
He is still committed to the product and he is still excited to show us what he has.
00:34:27
Speaker
Um,
00:34:27
Speaker
This seems to be also closer to the end of the production line, and he probably has something to show us now, as opposed to a few years ago when it was more of a grand idea.
00:34:42
Speaker
Well, what's crazy to me is it says 13 machines.
00:34:46
Speaker
So I kind of wish he would have given us a timeline, which I know he's not going to.
00:34:51
Speaker
Well, if you think about it, if you're competing with Stern, this is me projecting.
00:34:57
Speaker
I don't have any inside information.
00:34:59
Speaker
I've never met Robert.
00:35:01
Speaker
But if you're competing with Stern, how often does Stern release a game?
00:35:06
Speaker
About every three months, right?
00:35:09
Speaker
Cornerstones every three months.
00:35:10
Speaker
Okay, three to four months.
00:35:12
Speaker
And so if you're going to be attempting to compete head-to-head with Stern, then it makes sense that you will try to release every three to four months.
00:35:22
Speaker
And so he has 13 machines that are in development.
00:35:28
Speaker
I actually guarantee that Stern has 13 machines at any given point in development.
00:35:35
Speaker
Yes, each team is developing one at a time.
00:35:37
Speaker
I totally get it.
00:35:38
Speaker
So there are probably four or five that are in process at the time in Stern, but they're also still working on future releases at the same time.
00:35:49
Speaker
And so that's not out of the question.
00:35:52
Speaker
When people say 13, guys, he's not going to release 13 in one year.
00:35:57
Speaker
Because the money's not out there.
00:35:59
Speaker
You're not going to be able to sell 13 machines.
00:36:02
Speaker
Well, and we went over last episode about how many machines have been released just this year alone.
00:36:07
Speaker
I think we said six.
00:36:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:10
Speaker
There's been three quarterstones and then the other three that aren't part of the main line.
00:36:16
Speaker
Well, you're just talking Stern.
00:36:20
Speaker
Correct.
00:36:21
Speaker
Just Stern.
00:36:22
Speaker
Plus, we still have rumor of Brian Eddy's game coming out before the end of the year.
00:36:27
Speaker
So, I mean, 13 is unrealistic for a two-year span.
00:36:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:33
Speaker
And any business is going to be that way.
00:36:36
Speaker
Any business is going to have a plan and be able to do things.
00:36:40
Speaker
And if you look at all the designers they have, they have Perry over there.
00:36:47
Speaker
They have Dennis over there.
00:36:49
Speaker
They have John over there.
00:36:50
Speaker
So they have all these designers.
00:36:53
Speaker
these designers who have done it before.
00:36:55
Speaker
And remember, I will point out that Dennis Nordman left Highway Pinball because the guy was promising things that Dennis didn't agree with.
00:37:09
Speaker
Right?
00:37:10
Speaker
He left.
00:37:10
Speaker
He said, this is unrealistic.
00:37:12
Speaker
This guy's up in the night.
00:37:13
Speaker
I'm out of here.
00:37:14
Speaker
And he left that dumpster fire early because he said, this guy's crazy.
00:37:20
Speaker
What has Dennis done since going to Deep Root?
00:37:24
Speaker
He has said nothing, which means that I would just counter.
00:37:30
Speaker
That's a completely different response than what he had with Highway Pinball.
00:37:34
Speaker
He, he is with a, a brash owner and by him staying there and working on things, I will take that.
00:37:43
Speaker
I will interpret that to mean that he is saying, this is a good place.
00:37:49
Speaker
I am in it.
00:37:50
Speaker
And I Barry Barry's there too.
00:37:53
Speaker
And Steve Bowden's.
00:37:54
Speaker
So all these people that I have, I know about in the pinball history over the last 20 or 30 years, they're there.
00:38:04
Speaker
And if they didn't have faith in it, they would leave because there are other pinball manufacturers out there.
00:38:11
Speaker
Yep.
00:38:12
Speaker
Right.
00:38:14
Speaker
And Dennis, well, Dennis is as Martin from head to head, put it, he's kind of the, uh, the mercenary of pinball.
00:38:22
Speaker
He's been almost at every pinball company in the last five years.
00:38:26
Speaker
You follow, you follow your opportunities, right?
00:38:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:30
Speaker
And he has followed an opportunity down there.
00:38:32
Speaker
And at least no one, as far as I know, no one has jumped ship.
00:38:39
Speaker
So if anybody jumped ship, that usually is a sign that things are, things are not kosher in the company.
00:38:46
Speaker
Nobody's jumped ship.
00:38:47
Speaker
And so they are still all in.
00:38:50
Speaker
So I am all in and I'm excited, which is why I am going to the Texas pinball festival because I want to see the stuff in person.
00:38:58
Speaker
I agree.
00:38:59
Speaker
Well, like I said, Houston Arcade Expos next week.
00:39:02
Speaker
We really appreciate Robert answering our questions.
00:39:05
Speaker
I know there's going to be a ton more after Friday of next week, but I just want some preliminary thoughts, something a little wet our whistle before we walked in.
00:39:14
Speaker
The last interview he did was in September with TWIP.
00:39:18
Speaker
And so I think –
00:39:21
Speaker
A little bit of a hype.
00:39:22
Speaker
So I'm excited, cautiously optimistic.
00:39:26
Speaker
Right.
00:39:26
Speaker
And I'm glad that he was able.
00:39:28
Speaker
These feel very candid, real responses.
00:39:31
Speaker
They don't feel like he's trying to.
00:39:33
Speaker
This feels like I am talking to someone and they are telling me, yes, there are challenges.
00:39:39
Speaker
Yes, we're trying to do things.
00:39:40
Speaker
And dare I say, yes, he's realized that pinball is not easy.
00:39:43
Speaker
Okay.
00:39:45
Speaker
Um,
00:39:46
Speaker
But it seems that he is still confident in the product and it doesn't feel like a hype man.
00:39:52
Speaker
You know, it's a, hey, look at what we have.
00:39:54
Speaker
We have something great.
00:39:56
Speaker
So...
00:39:58
Speaker
Great.
00:39:58
Speaker
Let's see it.
00:39:59
Speaker
Awesome.
00:40:01
Speaker
Alrighty.
00:40:02
Speaker
Well, we got a little bit of other news.
00:40:03
Speaker
Oh, before, before we move on though, sorry.
00:40:05
Speaker
We are working in collaboration with this week in pinball.
00:40:09
Speaker
So by the time this releases, there should be a little bit of a write-up to kind of what we discussed with Robert.
00:40:16
Speaker
on this week in pinball so keep an eye out for that or if you're coming from there hey thanks for coming and listening yeah and if you're hearing us and you don't know about this week in pinball how did you find us because because jeff at this week in pinball does way more work than we do that man 40 hour week on top of his 40 hour week he works and then it's pinball it's crazy so so good good for jeff hey jeff
00:40:44
Speaker
Um, in other news, um, I'm going to, I'm going to hold off for, we're going to talk about toppers, but we're gonna move that to the end.
00:40:50
Speaker
Cause that's part of our little, little thing we want to do later.
Sanctum Tournament Victory
00:40:54
Speaker
Um, just want to say congrats to Jerry Bernard for winning the 24 hour sanctum.
00:40:59
Speaker
Awesome job.
00:41:01
Speaker
That's gotta be quite the crazy rush.
00:41:03
Speaker
um, sucks for everyone else, but Hey, good job.
00:41:07
Speaker
So it doesn't suck for everybody else.
00:41:09
Speaker
Hey, you got to play pinball for 24 hours.
00:41:12
Speaker
Even if you're lowest on the totem pole, you had a good time.
00:41:16
Speaker
And if you didn't have a good time, you did something wrong.
00:41:19
Speaker
Yep.
00:41:19
Speaker
I agree.
00:41:20
Speaker
I agree.
00:41:21
Speaker
I don't know if I, I just think if, if I made it to the end of a 24 hour pinball tournament, I would either be so delirious that I don't remember anything happened or I'd be, I'd be like hysterically upset because I'm like, I did that for that long.
00:41:35
Speaker
You know what I'm saying?
00:41:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:37
Speaker
I've never done it.
00:41:37
Speaker
So, you know what?
00:41:40
Speaker
Um, yes.
00:41:42
Speaker
Yes.
00:41:43
Speaker
I would guarantee that there are probably legitimately five people who entered that tournament who had the best shot at winning.
00:41:51
Speaker
Anybody could have won, but the high-ranked people continue to do well.
00:41:59
Speaker
Shout out to the two people that I knew in there.
00:42:04
Speaker
We had Bowen, who finished second.
00:42:05
Speaker
We had Joe Lemire, who finished sixth.
00:42:09
Speaker
I know he posted it.
00:42:11
Speaker
But shout out to Joe Lemire from the Head to Head Pinball Podcast.
00:42:15
Speaker
They competed and they did a great job.
00:42:17
Speaker
So it's an accomplishment.
00:42:20
Speaker
And you got to compete.
00:42:22
Speaker
And guess what?
00:42:23
Speaker
If you didn't win, you had some experience.
00:42:25
Speaker
So great.
00:42:28
Speaker
Yep.
00:42:28
Speaker
Speaking of congratulations and epic awesomeness, Eclectic Gamers podcast had their hundredth episode, which is awesome to say.
00:42:38
Speaker
That's great for Anthony and Dennis over there.
00:42:42
Speaker
They keep saying it's just a number, but seriously, I mean, it takes a little bit to get to 100.
00:42:48
Speaker
When you get to 100, that's usually when podcasts either die or continue.
00:42:56
Speaker
It really is.
00:42:57
Speaker
you've been at it for a few years and you've put a lot of effort into it.
00:43:01
Speaker
And if you're able to continue to move on and they seem to be moving, they seem to be still with a full head of steam.
00:43:09
Speaker
So good for them.
00:43:09
Speaker
I mean, it, it,
00:43:11
Speaker
It takes, okay, we do the podcast because we're having fun.
00:43:14
Speaker
Okay.
00:43:14
Speaker
We're not making any money.
00:43:16
Speaker
In fact, we're spending money to do this.
00:43:18
Speaker
But, and we are so grateful for anybody who wants to join the conversation with us and, and be part of this.
00:43:23
Speaker
And we've met a lot of really awesome people and we've, we, we, we have a lot of vicarious hats walking around out there.
00:43:32
Speaker
But I mean, it's amazing that they were able to do that for 100 episodes.
00:43:36
Speaker
I mean, just think about that.
00:43:37
Speaker
Any hobby that you do that lasts more than a few years, that's actually a pretty big accomplishment.
00:43:42
Speaker
And having the support of a significant other, a family, or even if you're alone and that's just what you're committed to, amazing the commitment to that.
00:43:53
Speaker
And with their format, they do every two weeks kind of what we try to adhere to, but we're not very married to the suggestion, I guess.
00:44:01
Speaker
It's more of a guideline.
00:44:02
Speaker
But every two weeks, that means that's like a little over four years worth of episodes.
00:44:08
Speaker
So that's awesome, guys.
00:44:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:11
Speaker
All right.
00:44:12
Speaker
The last two highlights, which will bleed into the topic we want to cover tonight.
00:44:18
Speaker
There's toppers.
00:44:19
Speaker
There's toppers out there.
00:44:20
Speaker
Toppers.
00:44:21
Speaker
I had you watch the Alice Cooper Nightmare Castle topper.
00:44:24
Speaker
What did you think?
00:44:26
Speaker
I think it's ghetto fabulous.
00:44:29
Speaker
It really does look like a project that –
00:44:35
Speaker
That a group of people is like, okay, you know, it looked like something from like one of those cooking shows where you have a few hours to come together with something.
00:44:46
Speaker
Here's your, here's all your, here's all your different things to put together
Pinball Machine Modifications
00:44:52
Speaker
and go.
00:44:52
Speaker
And it looks fantastic.
00:44:55
Speaker
I mean, it, it is, it is perfect for a spooky, a spooky pinball machine.
00:45:01
Speaker
And I love the googly eyes.
00:45:03
Speaker
The googly eyes are great.
00:45:06
Speaker
See, that's, I don't know.
00:45:07
Speaker
That's kind of where I differ.
00:45:08
Speaker
I'm like, I love the concept of it.
00:45:10
Speaker
I like the idea of a topper being integrated with the machine.
00:45:15
Speaker
Like this one tracks modes, the brain tracks the ball movement.
00:45:19
Speaker
So it's really cool that it's doing that.
00:45:21
Speaker
I just, I can do without the googly eyes.
00:45:23
Speaker
But other than that, it's cool.
00:45:25
Speaker
I like it.
00:45:26
Speaker
No, I'm sorry.
00:45:26
Speaker
You are so wrong.
00:45:27
Speaker
I'm going to file, I'm going to file your googly eyes with your Aquavats.
00:45:32
Speaker
Let's do one big Unai.
00:45:34
Speaker
How about that?
00:45:36
Speaker
Like a Cyclops.
00:45:37
Speaker
Yeah, that'd be awesome.
00:45:38
Speaker
That would be a great nod to Roger Sharp, to have the Cyclops on there.
00:45:44
Speaker
Yep.
00:45:45
Speaker
And then the other topper that came out at Pinball Expo was the Manifel Madness topper.
00:45:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:51
Speaker
And...
00:45:53
Speaker
Nothing but positive responses.
00:45:54
Speaker
It's just, it's a good looking topper.
00:45:56
Speaker
Well, I, you have that.
00:45:59
Speaker
Hey, we are not the first to say it.
00:46:01
Speaker
And in fact, we're pretty late to the party because we didn't record, but it was the expo of toppers.
00:46:06
Speaker
You have Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle.
00:46:09
Speaker
You have the Black Knight topper, which could be the coolest topper I've seen.
00:46:14
Speaker
And you have Medieval Madness, which is very similar to what the Monster Bash LE topper is.
00:46:21
Speaker
It's a static topper.
00:46:22
Speaker
It's not moving, but the way they have illuminated it looks fantastic, and the sculpt looks so great.
00:46:29
Speaker
So it's a way of enhancing your pinball machine.
00:46:33
Speaker
It's a way of enhancing your experience.
00:46:35
Speaker
Yeah, I agree.
00:46:37
Speaker
Well, speaking of enhancing experiences, let's move it into our topic we're going to talk about.
00:46:41
Speaker
Okay, let's go.
00:46:42
Speaker
Let's talk about mods.
00:46:45
Speaker
I mean, there's a whole array of mods out there.
00:46:49
Speaker
Where do you even start?
00:46:51
Speaker
What's your thoughts on mods?
00:46:53
Speaker
Okay.
00:46:54
Speaker
There's a, there's a broad spectrum of modding a pinball machine, just like modding a car.
00:47:00
Speaker
And remember when we were talking to, when we were talking to Chris, you know, from high-end pinballs,
00:47:09
Speaker
High-end pins, excuse me.
00:47:11
Speaker
He's the one who we asked and said, well, okay, so how do you choose which mods go in?
00:47:16
Speaker
And he said, look, you have to make sure it's a quality mod, like a high-quality option.
00:47:22
Speaker
And so that way...
00:47:25
Speaker
It's it fits with the machine.
00:47:28
Speaker
And so, okay, that's my take on it.
00:47:31
Speaker
I also have people who have, you know, it is your machine.
00:47:34
Speaker
So if you want to put pink rainbow sparkles on it, you go put some pink rainbow sparkles on it because it is your machine.
00:47:40
Speaker
And if it, if it works with your machine,
00:47:43
Speaker
enjoyment of the machine.
00:47:45
Speaker
Great.
00:47:45
Speaker
Go ahead.
00:47:46
Speaker
Make it fun.
00:47:48
Speaker
There are some things that I think work better than others, especially for resale ability.
00:47:55
Speaker
The things that I think work really well are
00:47:59
Speaker
I like toppers.
00:47:59
Speaker
I think toppers are great because visually they grab your eye.
00:48:04
Speaker
It's fun to see.
00:48:06
Speaker
I would say about half of my machines down here have toppers.
00:48:09
Speaker
And it's just fun to see, especially the lighting interaction.
00:48:14
Speaker
It's just one more aspect that draws me into a pinball machine.
00:48:19
Speaker
I also like powder-coated armor.
00:48:22
Speaker
There's a great thread on pin side.
00:48:26
Speaker
that talks about show us your powder coating.
00:48:28
Speaker
And there are different machines in it.
00:48:30
Speaker
It's amazing how powder coating will change a machine's look.
00:48:37
Speaker
I will use an example.
00:48:38
Speaker
One of them was Dirty Harry, and I never thought that it would work, but a guy used like a pink-purple color for the chrome, or for the, not the chrome, the armor.
00:48:55
Speaker
And I initially thought, well, that will look weird.
00:48:59
Speaker
And I thought it looked great.
00:49:00
Speaker
There were some people who didn't like it, but I thought it looked amazing.
00:49:04
Speaker
So toppers and powder coating.
00:49:07
Speaker
There's a reason why when you buy a high-end pinball machine, like an LE or something, they usually include a powder coating option and a topper option.
00:49:19
Speaker
Because those things really do contribute.
00:49:22
Speaker
What are your thoughts?
00:49:24
Speaker
What do you say the great options and what do you say is like give or take?
00:49:30
Speaker
Sorry, I just talked.
00:49:31
Speaker
You're totally fine, man.
00:49:32
Speaker
You're totally fine.
00:49:34
Speaker
So I'm more of the frugal type.
00:49:37
Speaker
There are some that I think that are great.
00:49:39
Speaker
Like I love the mods that were supposed to be in the pinball machine.
00:49:43
Speaker
Like if you guys haven't checked it out, there was originally supposed to be a diverter in Stern's Spider-Man on the right side.
00:49:51
Speaker
And when you lit Spider-Sense, the diverter would open, the ball would go back into the shooter lane, and you'd get some kind of bonus or whatnot.
00:49:59
Speaker
And for whatever reason, maybe it was a build of materials or whatever.
00:50:03
Speaker
Kate, I actually, I did not tell you this.
00:50:07
Speaker
I actually have the answer to that.
00:50:09
Speaker
Okay.
00:50:10
Speaker
Did I tell you that?
00:50:11
Speaker
No, you don't.
00:50:12
Speaker
I actually, yeah, I actually messaged Steve Ritchie and I said, Hey, I was looking in my, cause if you look in the, um, you know, in the programming, it actually has, um, it actually has that option.
00:50:27
Speaker
And I just, I just sent it to him and I said, Hey, I saw in the settings, was there going to be a gate that goes back into the shooter lane?
00:50:35
Speaker
And Steve actually said,
00:50:37
Speaker
It was considered, but abandoned.
00:50:39
Speaker
So I didn't really say why, because I know they actually have that in Star Trek.
00:50:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:45
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:50:47
Speaker
And so maybe it didn't affect the, it didn't increase the value of the flow of the game.
00:50:52
Speaker
I can't imagine that being that expensive.
00:50:54
Speaker
No.
00:50:55
Speaker
But it certainly is a, it's a fun way of changing the way it is.
00:50:59
Speaker
And so it gives you options.
00:51:00
Speaker
Well, and I used to be like, I want color DMDs for everything.
00:51:03
Speaker
But I got talking to Dan Newman, our resident tournament director and whatnot.
00:51:09
Speaker
And he's like, why?
00:51:10
Speaker
That's $400.
00:51:11
Speaker
And then that's $400 you could have towards another pinball machine.
00:51:14
Speaker
And I'm like, dang it.
00:51:15
Speaker
He's right.
00:51:17
Speaker
Okay.
00:51:18
Speaker
Okay.
00:51:18
Speaker
Okay.
00:51:19
Speaker
I'm going to counter Dan on this though.
00:51:21
Speaker
Okay.
00:51:21
Speaker
You can buy a color DMD and you can put it in.
00:51:26
Speaker
You can put it in your machine.
00:51:28
Speaker
And you can take it out.
00:51:30
Speaker
Yep.
00:51:31
Speaker
That's actually one of the mods that's reusable.
00:51:34
Speaker
I think when it comes to mods, if it somehow is aesthetically pleasing or enhances the game, I'm all for it.
00:51:43
Speaker
I've seen some questionable mods.
00:51:46
Speaker
Like I saw No Good Gophers where the whole apron was astroturfed because –
00:51:53
Speaker
Because it's a golfing game, so you've got to have fake grass in there, I guess.
00:51:56
Speaker
It's kind of ghetto fabulous, actually.
00:52:00
Speaker
It's something to me to buy a golf cart topper for a cake and glue it into a pinball machine.
00:52:07
Speaker
It doesn't rub me the right way.
00:52:10
Speaker
But mods like... I don't know.
00:52:12
Speaker
I have the data at East Jurassic Park.
00:52:14
Speaker
The T-Rex inside that game...
00:52:16
Speaker
It does not match Jurassic Park.
00:52:18
Speaker
It's tan and brown, and it looks nothing like T-Rex from the movies.
00:52:23
Speaker
There's a gentleman on Pinside that's been making a new T-Rex that looks just like the T-Rex from the movies.
00:52:31
Speaker
It's a wonderful mod.
00:52:32
Speaker
If I had the cash, I would probably do it.
00:52:35
Speaker
It looks like it bounces anywhere from $400 to $500, just depending on just a dozen batches.
00:52:41
Speaker
Yeah, that's really cool, but that is really committed to a game that's not that correct.
00:52:46
Speaker
Well, it's a good game.
00:52:47
Speaker
It's just clunky.
00:52:50
Speaker
Okay, which Jurassic Park would you rather have?
00:52:53
Speaker
That's not fair, though.
00:52:54
Speaker
That's like...
00:52:55
Speaker
Why is that not fair?
00:52:57
Speaker
Because they've had years to decide what they wanted to do different on that.
00:53:02
Speaker
Okay.
00:53:03
Speaker
Is your money much different?
00:53:04
Speaker
Okay.
00:53:06
Speaker
So you have – what is a Jurassic Park going for now?
00:53:09
Speaker
$3,000?
00:53:09
Speaker
Yeah, $3,000.
00:53:10
Speaker
A Data East one?
00:53:12
Speaker
Okay.
00:53:12
Speaker
So would you – like I would argue, would you rather take a $3,000 game and put another $500 into it or –
00:53:22
Speaker
Would you rather spend $2,000 to $2,500 and get a much better game, a newer game?
00:53:29
Speaker
So, yes, the argument is actually valid.
00:53:33
Speaker
I appreciate people who do amazing mods.
00:53:37
Speaker
There are some mods where I'm thinking, okay, that's cool.
00:53:40
Speaker
I'm not sure if it's that money-wise cool, but it's cool.
00:53:44
Speaker
Well, and I think that's what comes down to mods for me is I just, maybe I go through pinball machines too quickly.
00:53:51
Speaker
I just, I don't want to mod a machine and then turn around and try to sell it.
00:53:55
Speaker
And I don't feel like a mod adds any value unless if you're a color DMD, because someone can easily say, hey, take it or leave it.
00:54:03
Speaker
I'll pull it out and put it in another machine.
00:54:06
Speaker
Right.
00:54:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:08
Speaker
Well, with mods, it is really a labor of love.
00:54:12
Speaker
It really is.
00:54:12
Speaker
Like I've told you before, I bought my Tron and I sent it off to Gio, who used to be the main guy at Pinball Refinery with Steve.
00:54:25
Speaker
But Gio did an amazing job.
00:54:28
Speaker
Like my Tron looks absolutely amazing.
00:54:32
Speaker
no one's going to ever pay that money that I put into it to modify it.
00:54:37
Speaker
Nobody.
00:54:38
Speaker
You keep saying that, but I think there's someone that would, but that's besides the point.
00:54:42
Speaker
I don't think like, okay, I will say now I legitimately, I don't think you could find a nicer Tron out there.
00:54:49
Speaker
Like mine has, it has the, the led OCD.
00:54:54
Speaker
It has the, the GI modification.
00:54:57
Speaker
It has the led back interactive, uh,
00:55:01
Speaker
back light on the 3D trans light.
00:55:04
Speaker
We put chrome with laser cut backlit armor on it.
00:55:11
Speaker
It has under lights.
00:55:14
Speaker
It has the rope lights on the ramps.
00:55:16
Speaker
It has the Tron, that dumb Tron arcade game, the one that looks like the real one, not the crappy one they put in there.
00:55:26
Speaker
And that costs as much as one of those arcade one-up machines, that stupid mod right there.
00:55:31
Speaker
And it looks amazing.
00:55:33
Speaker
But again, you're not going to get your money.
00:55:37
Speaker
I'll just put it this way.
00:55:38
Speaker
If you're buying mods, you may be lucky to get half of it back when you sell it.
00:55:43
Speaker
And that's if you sell it to the right person.
00:55:45
Speaker
So I don't know.
00:55:46
Speaker
That's my
Cost and Value Debate on Mods
00:55:47
Speaker
thing.
00:55:47
Speaker
I think mods are pretty.
00:55:48
Speaker
I like them.
00:55:49
Speaker
I think there's some wonderful people out there like the modfather or...
00:55:56
Speaker
Oh, yes.
00:55:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:59
Speaker
Back alley creations.
00:56:00
Speaker
I mean, there's some wonderful mod companies out there.
00:56:04
Speaker
I just, no, no, like I said, I chew through pinball so quick or I buy, like I've got an attack for Mars remake and I've got a monster bash remake.
00:56:14
Speaker
There's nothing I'd add to it.
00:56:15
Speaker
Cause I feel like it's, it's right where I want it.
00:56:18
Speaker
Yeah, those machines are basically... It's like the customized machine for the people who don't want to customize themselves.
00:56:28
Speaker
And that's fine.
00:56:30
Speaker
Hey, I am happy if I can buy it and it's done well.
00:56:34
Speaker
I am so excited about this Medieval Madness topper because I looked for a topper for Medieval Madness and I didn't find any that I liked.
00:56:43
Speaker
So I'm excited for this one.
00:56:45
Speaker
I'm right there with you, dude.
00:56:46
Speaker
This thing looks sick.
00:56:47
Speaker
So...
00:56:49
Speaker
So yeah, that's my thoughts.
00:56:50
Speaker
I just, I have a hard time bringing myself to buy mods.
00:56:54
Speaker
So unless if it's led inserts and pop those bulbs in all day, dude, there you go.
00:57:00
Speaker
So,
00:57:01
Speaker
Well, cool.
00:57:01
Speaker
All right.
00:57:01
Speaker
So what are we looking forward to coming up?
00:57:03
Speaker
So Houston Arcade Expo next week.
00:57:05
Speaker
So 15th and 16th.
00:57:08
Speaker
We'll be looking out for prototypes there from Deep Root.
00:57:13
Speaker
It's getting later.
00:57:14
Speaker
Can you tell?
00:57:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:57:17
Speaker
I'm trying to think.
00:57:19
Speaker
The other question that popped in my mind today was, how's Stern going to play it?
00:57:25
Speaker
They're probably not going to announce in the next week.
00:57:28
Speaker
Or maybe they will.
00:57:29
Speaker
They could steal a lot of Thunder.
00:57:32
Speaker
I don't know.
00:57:36
Speaker
You're looking at it from a manufacturing standpoint.
00:57:38
Speaker
So you're still building the Elvira's.
00:57:40
Speaker
You're sending them out.
00:57:41
Speaker
And Elvira is a little bit of a niche game.
00:57:44
Speaker
Again, we've talked about this where it's...
00:57:49
Speaker
it's it, I was okay.
00:57:52
Speaker
I'll just put it this way.
00:57:54
Speaker
In 2019, Elvira is a challenging, uh, it's a challenging theme.
00:57:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:57:58
Speaker
And I'm glad I'm really glad for Cassandra that it's received so well.
00:58:04
Speaker
I'm a little surprised by that.
00:58:06
Speaker
Um, but they still have to build those and they still have to send those out.
00:58:10
Speaker
And I'm not sure how many, like how many Elvira's do you think they'll sell?
00:58:15
Speaker
1500, 2000, maybe still a lot compared to other companies.
00:58:19
Speaker
You know, you got, no, I get it.
00:58:21
Speaker
I get it.
00:58:21
Speaker
But what I'm saying is that they still have to make those, right?
00:58:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:58:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:58:25
Speaker
And so they, so they still have to make those and send them out.
00:58:29
Speaker
And then they also have to get everything set up for the next game.
00:58:36
Speaker
And so, yes, it's not a cornerstone.
00:58:40
Speaker
It's not a Kapow title, but it's kind of a cornerstone and kind of a Kapow title.
00:58:46
Speaker
So it will be released at some point, but I would be surprised if it's... I would target either 1st of January or 1st of... Sorry, 1st of December or 1st of January.
00:59:00
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:59:00
Speaker
Well, and speaking of Stern Machines, not this week in pinball, Head to Head talked about with Mr. and Mrs. Pin this week.
00:59:09
Speaker
John Borg is the one that is designing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
00:59:13
Speaker
And if that's the case, we did the timeline last week.
00:59:18
Speaker
That means Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles could be out here in March or sooner.
00:59:23
Speaker
Probably.
00:59:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:59:26
Speaker
Likely the Brian Eddy game is coming out.
00:59:29
Speaker
And then likely Borg is next up.
00:59:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:59:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:59:34
Speaker
So.
00:59:35
Speaker
And then maybe somewhere in there is a, if Gomez wants to design a game too that he's working on, then there's the Gomez game.
00:59:45
Speaker
And then you're looking at a Richie game.
00:59:46
Speaker
And then you're looking at a,
00:59:48
Speaker
And Elwin, I think that is a crazy amount of talent they have in designers there.
00:59:55
Speaker
And that is certainly not meant as an insult to any other company because I just went over the crazy amount of good designers that Deep Root has.
01:00:04
Speaker
And JJP,
01:00:07
Speaker
They have Eric, they have Pat Lawler, and those two right there are doing amazing things together too.
01:00:17
Speaker
It's just one amazing time at pinball.
01:00:19
Speaker
Oh, it really is.
Pinball Podcast Community
01:00:22
Speaker
It's the only time in pinball history that can support 35 pinball podcasts all at once.
01:00:29
Speaker
Yeah, 35 you mean?
01:00:30
Speaker
Yeah, somewhere on there.
01:00:32
Speaker
It's probably plus from there.
01:00:33
Speaker
Yeah.
01:00:33
Speaker
But yeah, man.
01:00:34
Speaker
Probably, yeah.
01:00:35
Speaker
Well, cool.
01:00:35
Speaker
I think that covers pretty much everything we want to talk about.
01:00:37
Speaker
Okay.
01:00:39
Speaker
All right.
01:00:40
Speaker
Well, hopefully we'll be able to record next week and we will do a recap.
01:00:45
Speaker
on the Houston and just our thoughts on deep route.
01:00:48
Speaker
So we'll finally get to see something.
01:00:49
Speaker
So it's not the, the five days of deep route.
01:00:52
Speaker
It's like a mini preview of deep.
01:00:54
Speaker
Yep.
01:00:54
Speaker
A little taste testing.
01:00:56
Speaker
Uh, if you want to contact us, you can reach us at loser kid, pinball podcast at gmail.com, or you can hit us up on Facebook.
01:01:04
Speaker
Also, we are on Instagram, so you can check us out there.
01:01:08
Speaker
We did just get a fresh batch of hats put back in.
01:01:10
Speaker
So if you want to hit us up there, you can hit us up through the Gmail account.
01:01:14
Speaker
They are $25 plus shipping.
01:01:18
Speaker
I think it's roughly about seven bucks if you're in the United States.
01:01:22
Speaker
So if you're outside of there, we'll talk about it.
01:01:26
Speaker
So other than that, man, I think that wraps it up for us.
01:01:32
Speaker
All right.
01:01:32
Speaker
Well, you guys have a good week, and hopefully we'll be able to record next week.
01:01:35
Speaker
I agree.
01:01:35
Speaker
Same to you, man.