Ep 44: deeproot Discussion with Dennis and Zach

Transcript

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

Speaker: We are on episode 44.

Speaker: My awesome co-captain, as always.

Speaker: Scott Larson.

Speaker: And today on your Twippy-nominated podcast, we're going to hurry and give you our friends of the podcast, which are, Scott?

Speaker: First is This Week in Pinball.

Speaker: Check out This Week in Pinball and find out all the happenings in pinball.

Speaker: We have a slight thing to talk about today.

Speaker: Also, Lit Frames.

Speaker: Hit up Lit Frames if you want that podcast.

Speaker: A nice way of illuminating your trans light that you picked up.

Speaker: Also, Flyland Design.

Speaker: If you want to pick up some alternative art for your Bally Williams, it has one for Monster Bash, has one for Medieval Madness that I have in my machine, and also one for Monster Bash.

Speaker: Also, check out my good friend, Timothy Purcell, at thepinballloft.com.

Speaker: It's a blog, and it's just great stuff to check out.

Speaker: Also, check out...

Speaker: Also, just FYI, we have the Infinity Gauntlet.

Speaker: If you want to buy it on Kindle, you can actually buy it for $3.99 on Amazon right now.

Speaker: So if you want to catch up on the entire Infinity Gauntlet, that's just a tip of the week.

Speaker: Also, last and certainly not least, we have Flippin' Out Pinball.

Speaker: If you're looking for a place to pick up a pinball machine or any sort of swag for your pinball needs, please contact Zach and Nicole at Flippin' Out Pinball.

Speaker: And ironically, who do we have with us today, Josh?

Speaker: They have become the dynamic duo now.

Speaker: We've got, in my opinion, Batman, which is Dennis Creasel, and his young boy Ward, Robin, a.k.a.

Speaker: Zach Many.

Speaker: How you doing, guys?

Speaker: What's going on, Scott, Josh?

Speaker: Roop, there it is.

Speaker: Thanks for having us on.

Speaker: I was looking forward to doing an episode without Zach, but apparently that does not get to happen.

Speaker: Apparently you're a package deal.

Speaker: That's what we were, that's what you're telling us.

Speaker: So even Dennis would say he's the Robin to my Batman, right?

Speaker: I don't usually like to do the Batman Robin comparison, but yeah, classifying Zack as a sidekick is a little odd when you're talking about the pinball show.

Speaker: It is true, but if you look at Batman, he's kind of the more stern, the brooding, and then you see the young war that's always in flamboyant colors, always...

Speaker: you know, Bravado and all that jazz.

Speaker: And so I think it fits very well.

Speaker: I mean, I see where you're coming from, like in terms of personality.

Speaker: Absolutely.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Well, it's certainly better than the alternative, which I thought he was going to go with, uh, Ace and Gary from Saturday Night Live.

Speaker: I just want to hear Dennis Creasel saying a gruffly voice, I'm Batman.

Speaker: So guys, anything interesting happened today in pinball?

Speaker: Like maybe a major announcement or like something that's been building up for about four years and finally we get to see what they have?

Speaker: Oh, you sound excited.

Speaker: Wow.

Speaker: This must be a big day for you.

Speaker: It was huge.

Speaker: I was so built up for this day.

Speaker: And I mean, this is I am Charlie Brown with Lucy.

Speaker: There is I fell for the football one more time.

Speaker: And yet again, Lucy pulled the pinball or excuse me, the pinball, the the football away from my foot.

Speaker: Like, seriously, Deep Root has tried to launch this mega thing.

Speaker: And at this point, it is just sad.

Speaker: It's sad that it's just it's pathetic.

Speaker: It's hard to even make fun of them because it is it's beyond ridiculous at this point.

Speaker: Yeah, I mean, what can I say?

Speaker: That was the buildup that we were expecting, especially given that Jersey Jack has indicated that the reveal is now in October.

Speaker: So post Avengers from Stern, this is the Deep Root pinball launch was what everyone was anticipating.

Speaker: I covered what I was thinking was going to happen with the reveal and what surely wouldn't happen with the reveal.

Speaker: Yesterday on Eclectic Gamers podcast, and then Zach and I on today's podcast had talked about, again, recorded before the reveal time was set to be hit, what we thought would be, what you would see, what you wouldn't see, what needed to be seen.

Speaker: And I was really, really, really wrong.

Speaker: I was insistent.

Speaker: There was absolutely no way, given they brought in a half dozen members of the pinball media, however you wish to define it, that they had to show something.

Speaker: They had to reveal something.

Speaker: The people are there.

Speaker: You already have the people.

Speaker: They revealed a statement.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: What is the can someone read the statement?

Speaker: Yeah, I've got it right here.

Speaker: Let me whip this out for you.

Speaker: Excellent.

Speaker: Just as you would say on Blazing Saddles, right?

Speaker: Yeah, excuse me while I whip this out.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: All right, September 21st, 2020.

Speaker: I don't know how Robert Mueller sounds, so I'm not going to try to do his voice.

Speaker: So this is all me.

Speaker: Deep Root Pinball has spent years redesigning the pinball machine from the ground up with countless novel approaches.

Speaker: On this past Saturday, we had hoped to host a launch event with six well-known pinball personalities.

Speaker: Due to technical issues and lots of feedback from our guests, it ended up being more of a beta event.

Speaker: We are grateful and thankful to Lauren, Carrie, Colin, Jeff, Chris, and Crystal for their invaluable feedback and involvement in refining our platform to the best it can be.

Speaker: The results is the realization that we are not as ready for launch as we had hoped.

Speaker: We are already working hard to fix the technical issues and implement our guests' feedback.

Speaker: So the only right decision today is to postpone the public release of our platform and our very first game, Raza.

Speaker: We hope that you agree that this releasing a well-engineered and fun-to-play Raza is in everyone's best interest.

Speaker: We hope to update you during the process.

Speaker: We remain deeply committed to delivering the highest quality of gameplay and innovation to our players.

Speaker: We thank you for your continued trust and patience.

Speaker: The team at DeepRoot.

Speaker: Now, one of those six was the Pinball Network's correspondent for Deep Root.

Speaker: Zach, I don't know if you've heard from him yet, and I'm not sure you can because I bet there were some NDAs involved.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Chandler reached out.

Speaker: Chris Chandler, uh, TPN correspondent reached out.

Speaker: He covers deep root for us and he simply said that he's not allowed to say anything because of the ongoing NDA.

Speaker: I don't know what the specifications were details regarding that NDA were or are.

Speaker: Uh, so I don't know the time constraints that it imposes, but yeah, he can't say anything.

Speaker: I also reached out to friend of the show and, uh, TPN, uh,

Speaker: podcaster crystal crystal yeah she said that um she can't say anything either uh but they are confident uh in what they are producing and once it is ready she said that people will be really happy about it so that's basically nothing we got nothing

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Well, allow me, I suppose, to retort from that perspective as much as one can, since there wasn't a lot of detail, obviously, in it, and say, this looks like an unmitigated disaster.

Speaker: This is a disaster.

Speaker: This is exactly the worst case scenario that, in my mind, I outlined less than 24 hours ago, which was to not reveal anything.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Guys, they picked this date.

Speaker: They picked it.

Speaker: Yeah, no one forced them to do it.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: This is the third time.

Speaker: They were supposed to reveal... Remember, Five Days of Deep was supposed to culminate originally at TPF, which was in 2019.

Speaker: That's March 2019.

Speaker: And then they were supposed to reveal the finalized Raza as of TPF this year, March 2020.

Speaker: That's pushed off because of COVID.

Speaker: So in theory, the game should have been ready, right?

Speaker: But here we are now, September 21st, 2020.

Speaker: And we still aren't allowed to officially see anything about... And...

Speaker: Based off of everything I've heard, including in this statement, it was still only going to be Raza.

Speaker: They talk about their first game, Raza, and the platform as a whole, not any other game reveals, which was not worst case to only do Raza, but I definitely think that you weren't going to get a lot of hype with just Raza anyway, but to have to pull the plug, not even pull the plug before you brought in the media folk, but to pull the plug after you brought them in.

Speaker: That's the point, though.

Speaker: Do you think, Dennis, Scott, Josh, do you guys think...

Speaker: that they knew about this prior to the media.

Speaker: It sounded in that state as if the media, the well-known media, six members were the ones that told them you guys are not ready.

Speaker: Is this a passing the buck thing?

Speaker: What?

Speaker: That's what confused me.

Speaker: That's the thing though.

Speaker: Looking at the statement, just like you said, Oh, we, we thank our guests for coming and for pointing these things out.

Speaker: I just, I'm so confused on if we were ready in March, um,

Speaker: Six months later, it should be games are on production line.

Speaker: That's just me personally.

Speaker: If you were ready in March, you're beyond ready now.

Speaker: regardless of what COVID did to you.

Speaker: And then the fact to say that six personalities came out and looked at your machines and made suggestions on improvements on how to make everything better.

Speaker: Maybe, I just don't know.

Speaker: You've got industry veterans there.

Speaker: You've got, well, Dennis Norman's no longer with them, but you've got Barry Ausler.

Speaker: You've got John Papaduke.

Speaker: You've got people who've made pinball machines for 20, 30 years.

Speaker: And we've seen the pictures.

Speaker: The pictures are all over the interwebs now.

Speaker: Which if that was NDA'd, that got out pretty quickly.

Speaker: And so I just, I don't fully understand how your guests picked up on something so detrimental to your pinball machine that you had to postpone for an indefinite amount of time.

Speaker: Well, can we not agree that's logically, that's just not the case.

Speaker: There's no chance.

Speaker: There's zero chance.

Speaker: He knew it wasn't ready.

Speaker: This is him actually just being a client.

Speaker: Like I'm going to go full Nick Lane on this.

Speaker: This guy is a clown.

Speaker: There's zero chance that he can do this.

Speaker: He is never going to make a pinball machine.

Speaker: My words.

Speaker: He is never making a pinball machine.

Speaker: Like this guy is it's Zidware 2.0.

Speaker: This is crazy.

Speaker: This guy is such a narcissistic, delusional member of society that all he has is empty promises to back up.

Speaker: He has a box of lights and a game that doesn't shoot very well, even though it was a soft release to say, oh, we're not here to talk about the machine.

Speaker: But all he's done is he's had so many amazing promises.

Speaker: And every single time, there's some reason why he can't fulfill on any of those things.

Speaker: This is ridiculous.

Speaker: Even Cosmic Carnival was able to make a game.

Speaker: Ouch.

Speaker: I feel like Mark went in on Magic Girl here.

Speaker: No, seriously.

Speaker: Like if I, if I went on magic girl, I would be praying that I took the buyout as opposed to a Zidwar game because now I'm going to get screwed over twice.

Speaker: There's zero chance.

Speaker: I'm seeing anything from this guy.

Speaker: They're still waiting for their game.

Speaker: I think the end of September, is that what the, they're supposed to get their Razabai?

Speaker: Yeah, there's a new deadline.

Speaker: I'm not sure what it exactly is, but yeah.

Speaker: I guess in response to your question, though, Zach, yeah, I agree with you and Josh.

Speaker: I won't go as far as Scott, though.

Speaker: I like the passion.

Speaker: I mean, based off of the statement that came out, I feel that, yes, the citation of the feedback very clearly indicates that they're suggesting that this half dozen team of pinball media pointed out things.

Speaker: But

Speaker: My concern is, let's assume that that is indeed true.

Speaker: What sort of situation do you have going on at your company that six, just six outsiders who do know pinball but are outsiders come in after you've been working on this for years and all of a sudden get you at the 11th hour to pull back from the reveal?

Speaker: Like, what's wrong with your machine if that's the case?

Speaker: And why did your own team either not have the capability to identify it or it's too intimidated to speak the truth?

Speaker: Because those are the only two scenarios that would make sense to me if that statement is true.

Speaker: Either you're saying that veterans from the pinball industry like Dennis Nordman while he was there, Barry Osler, John Norris, John Papaduke, they all worked for manufacturers.

Speaker: You're telling me none of them caught what this issue was or a regular high-level competitive player like Steve Bowden didn't catch what this issue was?

Speaker: It's really, it's really hard to believe what would be less hard to believe would be if there was an internal culture that someone's making these decisions and doesn't listen to feedback.

Speaker: But why have the media go down there?

Speaker: If you know, it's like,

Speaker: Would it not have been better fellows to have to delay the media even coming down there?

Speaker: Yes, it would have.

Speaker: I mean, and just in my view, I, as I was thinking about this today, it's like, to me, everything that could have gone wrong has gone wrong.

Speaker: And I had, I had a half dozen things that I think went just like one for every media member.

Speaker: Half dozen things.

Speaker: So, I mean, and I'll run through them real quick because I listed them out.

Speaker: So the first is now after they did the announcement, the Raza images leaked.

Speaker: So they're losing narrative control over some of the innovations because now we're looking and analyzing these photos.

Speaker: And that wasn't the case before this.

Speaker: Second, they brought in the pinball media.

Speaker: And then only after that did they announce there is no reveal.

Speaker: So that seems like a waste of time on those members.

Speaker: And a waste of money for Deep Root.

Speaker: My third one would be that they present the reveal now as a beta event, like a beta test from video games.

Speaker: But they phrase things in such a way that the six people in pinball have exposed the flaws that the entire company couldn't detect.

Speaker: The fourth thing is they haven't even provided a vague timeline on a new reveal date.

Speaker: So it feels listless to me at this point.

Speaker: The fifth is they didn't share any information at all.

Speaker: All they did is announce the delay.

Speaker: So there's no hype maintained by what they put out there.

Speaker: Only disappointment.

Speaker: And six, as the last part of their statement says, they hope to provide updates in the future.

Speaker: Hope like that to me sounds like they're not even sure they're going to be in business in six months.

Speaker: That actually kind of makes sense.

Speaker: Well, didn't you watch Rogue One?

Speaker: Like, rebellions are built on hope.

Speaker: Wow, that's good.

Speaker: Da-da-da-da-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba.

Speaker: It says the man that just tore Robert Mueller.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: There's zero chance.

Speaker: I'm sorry.

Speaker: There's no chance.

Speaker: I am hopeless on this guy.

Speaker: The two face destroyer.

Speaker: This guy is so hopeless.

Speaker: It's unbelievable.

Speaker: Like the bottom line is he's so inept that he doesn't even recognize how much trouble he is actually in.

Speaker: Like, that's the problem.

Speaker: He has this high standards and it's not even a remote ability to look at it and say, wow, we got a problem here and here.

Speaker: If he brought people down, he was truly feeling like, all right, this is my time, boys.

Speaker: Like, doesn't this feel like Homer Simpson when he is spinning on that bubble car where the guy said, do everything, like whatever you want, Homer.

Speaker: And so he's saying, well, I want this, I want this.

Speaker: And then at the very end, it completely tanks the company.

Speaker: This is that moment.

Speaker: This is the moment where Homer's in the bubble car and spinning around and the company is over.

Speaker: The whole, if you look at the logo of the company, it is a comet blasting into the earth and destroying everything.

Speaker: which is a slight tick up from the vague S&M version it had before, but now it's completely destroyed.

Speaker: I don't even understand why.

Speaker: This guy should hang up.

Speaker: He should sell to Pinball Brothers right now.

Speaker: He should just run out and never play pinball again.

Speaker: It's crazy.

Speaker: Now, Scott, I know they didn't leak a topper yet, but it'll be all right.

Speaker: Man.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Now, if you bring up a topper, I may be in on this.

Speaker: So, Scott, it sounds like you were really, really looking forward to this.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Well, I was hoping, I was hoping for something.

Speaker: He wants his Raza.

Speaker: This is the worst.

Speaker: Like, seriously, I bet Teolis is rolling over in his Canadian grave right now.

Speaker: Oh,

Speaker: Oh, poor John Candy.

Speaker: If you show up to Wally world with your family.

Speaker: Whoa.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker: That's it.

Speaker: You know what?

Speaker: You're going to go buy a BB gun and you're going to shoot John Candy and make him take you on the ride.

Speaker: Now, now Scott, I want to, I want to explore this a little bit more.

Speaker: And you mentioned, you mentioned narcissism specifically, but, but so, but here's the thing says, I think in pinball, we have seen people that exhibit true narcissistic personality disorder and that

Speaker: The inability for them to ever admit they are wrong is one of the most paramount things.

Speaker: They always have to shift blame.

Speaker: So, but here in this case with Deep Root, they have pulled back from the reveal.

Speaker: So, like, did something sink in?

Speaker: I mean...

Speaker: if that was the motivating factor, somehow it looks at least to me that someone, this, this half dozen of pinball personalities, pinball media came in and gave feedback and it sunk in in some capacity, right?

Speaker: Or else wouldn't it be, I don't care.

Speaker: The spinny bubble car of Homer Simpson is going to be produced period.

Speaker: No, he just wanted media people to see what he's been working on when these designers and these content or

Speaker: When these designers, these creators are making pinball, believe me, I know firsthand that these people want others to share their excitement, their enjoyment, their work.

Speaker: So that's why we get all the leaks that we do in this industry in the first place.

Speaker: So I think, yeah, the team probably might not have just been Robert, but they wanted everybody down there to give some feedback and share in the excitement and what they're creating.

Speaker: It's just unfortunate now because I think the media providers are put in a really bad spot.

Speaker: Each and every one of us are podcasters.

Speaker: Put yourselves empathetically in their spot.

Speaker: Today was probably hell for them.

Speaker: They're getting flooded with messages.

Speaker: They can't share anything, but they are content providers.

Speaker: I think they were put in a pretty poor situation.

Speaker: If I'm picturing it for myself.

Speaker: Yeah, this would be horrible if you actually went down and saw this disaster and unable to talk about it.

Speaker: It kind of reminds me again, this is a lot of Simpsons references.

Speaker: Do you remember when when Mr. Burns went bankrupt and was able to actually rebuild his empire and he goes to show Lisa how he's done it and what he's done?

Speaker: He's hooked up all of these.

Speaker: You remember the the six pack sodas where they have those those rings all together.

Speaker: He connected them all together and created a drift net that was cleaning everything out of the sea, including whales and dolphins.

Speaker: And Lisa's just horrified because she gave him the idea of what was going on.

Speaker: Like, I have a feeling that the like the media personalities that went down and looked at it, they were probably apoplectic at absolutely how horrible like the actual process is behind the scenes.

Speaker: I mean, it could be.

Speaker: I don't disagree that that's conceivable.

Speaker: But when you're invited and you know you're going to sign an NDA, I mean, it's not that I'm not sympathetic.

Speaker: It's just, I mean, that's kind of when you decide to agree that you're going to do a corporate official event style thing.

Speaker: that's almost part and parcel.

Speaker: I say almost because I don't think anyone who went down there actually thought that the reveal would not be public at this point, that the NDA was only going to be for a few days while they, you know, so that there would be a coordinated release of articles and audio and video, you know, sort of like kind of what JJP did with Wonka, you know, it was all really structured.

Speaker: But, you know, it was only about a week's worth of time between when people were exposed who did the NDAs and when they got to go public.

Speaker: So I'm going to I'm going to put this out there.

Speaker: If you look at Facebook, you look at Pinside, you look at the deep root threads there, you do have the Scots on one side of the spectrum.

Speaker: I feel like I'm on the side of the spectrum of.

Speaker: Honestly, I feel like deep roots kind of made up at this point.

Speaker: And so everything that's just being said is just being said.

Speaker: I was actually kind of shocked them not revealing anything today.

Speaker: But then part of me is like, well, what does it really matter?

Speaker: Because I don't feel like they're a legitimate company yet.

Speaker: Like, if this was something else, if this was... I wasn't in the hobby during the JJP Hobbit fiasco of people waiting two, two and a half years to get their games...

Speaker: But I know people that were, and I can understand that being a really frustrating time.

Speaker: But we're looking at a company that hasn't taken any money from anyone, that hasn't really revealed a game that holds weight with anyone besides the fact that it's a J-pop game.

Speaker: I don't see where the passion is coming from.

Speaker: And maybe it's because I don't understand the deep root...

Speaker: I, it's just, it's just because of all the talk, like let's, let's be honest.

Speaker: Like the first thing I remember from deep root was Martin and Ryan on head to head, making fun of the deep root logo.

Speaker: That's really the only connection I have is, is we've been making fun of these people for three plus years, hoping they'll, they'll prove us wrong and they just haven't yet.

Speaker: So I don't understand where the passion's coming from.

Speaker: Well, it's, you know, I would say it's probably, depending on the person, there are a few different variants of flavors for it.

Speaker: I mean, like I personally, while I had wanted to see news about Deep Root, this in and of itself is I got my, you know, from a podcaster perspective, I got my news.

Speaker: I have news no matter what in terms of a reveal or a non-reveal.

Speaker: I'm not mad at Deep Root because as you pointed out, I don't have any money in.

Speaker: Their success or failure has really no direct impact on me.

Speaker: But in terms of where people and their passion come from, I think most of it falls into one of primarily two realms.

Speaker: There is the you hired J-pop and we lost a ton of money on Zidware, or I know friends who lost money on Zidware and we're mad at you for giving someone that we don't feel deserved another chance in this hobby another chance.

Speaker: And so there's a bias against Deep Root for bringing John Papaduke on board.

Speaker: That's one, I think, major category of anger.

Speaker: And then the other is that there were a lot of – well, I shouldn't say a lot, but there were a number of public both audio and written interviews –

Speaker: about involving Deep Root, where there were a lot of statements that could probably be fairly succinctly described as either arrogant or at least boisterous, and including talking about outproducing Stern, saying that multimorphic isn't innovative.

Speaker: I mean, just kind of talking a little bit, throwing some shade, talking a little trash about

Speaker: on a number of manufacturers.

Speaker: And yet, as you've pointed out, Josh, they haven't produced anything.

Speaker: So there is almost a schoidenfraud about that, that here's this company that's come out, guns a-blazing, talking smack, hiring people that are seen as toxic, and hey, look, they continue to fail before our very eyes.

Speaker: It seems like this is like when they're talking to LeVar Ball,

Speaker: You know, the guy, he talks so much trash and he played, he was a backup guy during the Jordan era.

Speaker: But if you talk to him, he truly believes that he won 10 championships.

Speaker: Like he is that self-assured that he is so much better than his product is.

Speaker: Do you remember, oh, Bill Parcells.

Speaker: You remember when they asked him about it?

Speaker: He's like, you are what your record says you are.

Speaker: And they are what their record says they are.

Speaker: I don't care what Robert's saying anymore.

Speaker: I'm not really angry at the – because I haven't lost a dime on this.

Speaker: But at some point, this guy's a clown.

Speaker: There's nothing that he's actually doing to make other than standing up and making these big statements that he has never made good on.

Speaker: Right, right.

Speaker: And it's a good point, Scott.

Speaker: And I think that it depends on the person.

Speaker: So doing the boisterous sort of arrogant statements to generate hype, I get that as a strategy.

Speaker: We've seen where people who behave in obnoxious ways in pinball get a lot of attention.

Speaker: So it's definitely a strategy that can work at least for a certain segment of the population.

Speaker: that they like that.

Speaker: They want to see the, you know, they want it to be wrestling.

Speaker: They want to see this WWE.

Speaker: They want to see someone come up behind Stern and smack the company with a metal folding chair behind their back.

Speaker: Again, yeah, it's all just sort of part and parcel of the hobby.

Speaker: Uh,

Speaker: The thing that here about, you know, talking about, okay, well, nothing's really happened yet, so why does any of this sort of matter?

Speaker: The problem is when you keep setting dates and you keep missing the dates and you don't put anything out there, I think that it really jeopardizes the credibility.

Speaker: Because when I look at the announcement that DeepRoot made today,

Speaker: And I see that they officially, because bear in mind, as we've noted, these photos, they're leaked.

Speaker: We don't, these did not come out direct from Deep Root on their page.

Speaker: So Deep Root scheduled this event for months after their last scheduled event where they were supposed to do a reveal.

Speaker: And then they give us not a single thing.

Speaker: And it's like, almost like they think they can bottle the hype up and then just keep, but you can't do that and keep moving the dates.

Speaker: And while I think many, actually, I'd probably say all pinball companies in my experience have at some stage on some of their games failed in some capacity to properly do their reveals and their launches.

Speaker: In this particular case, I think that

Speaker: Deep Root should have given a little bit of something, talked about some innovation because of this concern that it's vaporware, that it's not, they're never going to build.

Speaker: They're never really going to finish something.

Speaker: So at least there's got to be something about this game that is ready for primetime.

Speaker: The display or something, the legs, I don't, I mean, something should be ready.

Speaker: They, and we've seen this with other companies where when they know things were like Hobbit was an example brought up earlier, when things were falling behind, there was still a drip feed to let you remember that this game is actually being built.

Speaker: Oh, here's what the new play field art looks like.

Speaker: And okay, here's, you know, here's a, here's what we're doing with the third flipper.

Speaker: And it's just, they're not giving us anything.

Speaker: And yeah,

Speaker: I would be okay with that if they kept it all under wraps and then just did the reveal, but not if you keep moving when your reveal is.

Speaker: Because you're toying with people.

Speaker: You've missed your date now by a year and a half.

Speaker: Because the date, as far as I'm concerned, was March 2019.

Speaker: So my question to you guys is now that DeepRoot has effectively not met their own deadlines three times in a row now, do you think it goes against when they finally do decide, hey, the machine's ready, you're able to purchase, do you think they've taken away trust from the community to actually back their product?

Speaker: Because...

Speaker: If they're having this much difficulty getting out of the gate, how much difficulty are they going to have backing their product once it is out of the gate?

Speaker: I have zero confidence.

Speaker: Like none.

Speaker: I'm serious.

Speaker: This is ridiculous.

Speaker: I was pulling up to this weekend pinball when it actually had the prototype of Raza out there.

Speaker: Any idea what date that was?

Speaker: Oh, when we talked to Jeff Teolas back in November, November 14th, 2019.

Speaker: And so that, that is the date of the first look of the deep root pinballs retro zombie, zombie adventure land.

Speaker: And you look at that and.

Speaker: You compare that with the leaked photos and OK, well, the back box looks a little different.

Speaker: And yeah, there looks like there's some sort of screen down there on the bottom.

Speaker: But I don't know of anybody who went to that and said, wow, this is a great shooter.

Speaker: I love this.

Speaker: Like it wasn't even ready for primetime then.

Speaker: Stern has put out how many games since then?

Speaker: And I know they're a machine and they know how to do it.

Speaker: But you would think that at a year you're taking you can't even get this prototype all the way to a manufacturing thing.

Speaker: And who knows if your eyes were too big, maybe you need to scale your goals because you need to actually have something.

Speaker: Nobody cares anymore.

Speaker: No one's ever going to buy this game.

Speaker: In terms of Josh's question, I do think that confidence has fallen.

Speaker: And for a startup, confidence in being able to support the product is already low.

Speaker: So I knew an operator in the area who, well, he was actually, he enjoyed Houdini when he played it for American Pinball.

Speaker: more than he enjoyed dialed in from Jersey Jack, but he would not buy an American pinball game.

Speaker: It was their first game.

Speaker: And he was like, if they, I'm not sure they're going to be around to support it.

Speaker: It was, I heard similar regarding spooky when they first started.

Speaker: I don't know if they're going to be able to last.

Speaker: I don't know if I can trust that they can support this game.

Speaker: And so DeepRate was going to have that no matter what, because they're a startup.

Speaker: But I think the fact that they keep missing deadlines does diminish confidence in the product.

Speaker: Regarding Scott's discussion of the prototype, and I don't know if you've got the two leaked images up, but if you look at the side one where you can see the legs, you might recall one of the big complaints about the prototype was the makeability of the right ramp shot, which was seen as very, very steep.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: When I look at this photo and what I see is I see front legs with their leg levelers extended out and the one back leg I see does not appear to be extended out, which makes me think this game is pitched six degrees or even shallower.

Speaker: Makes me suspect that it wasn't solved.

Speaker: I agree.

Speaker: I never noticed that.

Speaker: I do see that in the picture now that you say that.

Speaker: And that – so it's stuff like that that concerns me because that ramp was – they had two different prototypes at the show.

Speaker: I heard one did play slightly better than the other in terms of makeability, but that – the ramp was notoriously frustrating to get all the way around.

Speaker: We know Steve Bowden had rules to address when you only partially got up the ramp, but –

Speaker: The inability to at least somewhat consistently make the ramp was a concern.

Speaker: And I remember an interview with Robert Mueller saying that they had made some adjustments to make the ramp easier to shoot.

Speaker: I hope that the recommendation wasn't, well, the game needs to be five and a half degrees.

Speaker: So my other question, or I want to point this out too, because this is the first thing I noticed when I saw these pictures was the actual lockdown bar and not the fact that there's a screen in it, but look at those corners.

Speaker: Do you dare play this game?

Speaker: I have heard some people call it the stellar wars lockdown bar.

Speaker: Get ready for bruising.

Speaker: Good.

Speaker: Cry me like me.

Speaker: That's why the guests were like, how do you guys play this thing?

Speaker: Because it's stabbing me in the hand.

Speaker: And I've wondered if that – not that there's a screen.

Speaker: I'm assuming it's a touchscreen, but not that there's some sort of screen at the lockdown bar.

Speaker: But I've wondered if some of the feedback was where the bottom of the playfield starts.

Speaker: If there's – like did they maybe say it's difficult to see the flippers or this feels really awkward to look at?

Speaker: I wouldn't be surprised if – like the back box to me, while it looks fairly different in a quasi-Aftor sort of way if you've ever seen Aftor.

Speaker: I don't think that's problematic, at least in my mind, it wasn't really problematic.

Speaker: But the lockdown bar area is where I'm going to guess there were some concerns.

Speaker: And then the other question I had too, because this is also the other first thing that popped out to my eyes.

Speaker: Why are there speakers at your crotch?

Speaker: I mean, that's where they're placed.

Speaker: Right, right.

Speaker: I'm guessing because I'm assuming the little display in the back with the little dashes are also more speakers.

Speaker: So they might be trying to do a more distanced actual surround sound style thing.

Speaker: Which could be cool.

Speaker: Someone had mentioned maybe it's the subwoofer.

Speaker: I just, that's the first thing that caught my eye or my eyes was I'm like, well, I do, I saw the speakers there.

Speaker: So then I looked up at the display notes.

Speaker: There's probably speakers.

Speaker: I mean, they are angled strangely, but one could say that angling your subwoofer directly into the floor isn't the best placement either.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: But those are like four inch subwoofers.

Speaker: Boom, boom, boom.

Speaker: It's to hear the Aquabats in all their glory.

Speaker: You know it.

Speaker: You know, if they retrofitted this for the Aquabats, I would be a first, I would be an LE purchaser and I would give it to Root.

Speaker: Really?

Speaker: You would be the only one.

Speaker: Deep Root, please.

Speaker: Please make an Aquabats pinball machine.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Actually, don't do that because it's never going to happen.

Speaker: You're going to tie up the licensing and then I'm never going to see a game.

Speaker: The license will just be locked up for years.

Speaker: You'll never get that five bucks back.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Oh, gee, you know, it's it's just sad.

Speaker: Like, I don't I don't know how else to describe it.

Speaker: Like, there's obviously this is a cratering like the the logo is a is a career event for them.

Speaker: It just explains exactly what they did to the company that never existed.

Speaker: Like they're going to be jumping like all you're going to start seeing everybody beef up their LinkedIn profiles and saying, hey, I hear there's more jobs in Chicago.

Speaker: Maybe I should move there.

Speaker: Yeah, my biggest, actually, as I noted, I wasn't, you know, emotionally, I don't really care whether, you know, what happens with any of the pinball companies.

Speaker: Pinball will endure no matter what, even if we're only talking used games.

Speaker: I know that is a shock to many of you, especially some of the distributors amongst us, but...

Speaker: But the thing that actually, I guess, of anything about this that disappointed me that I got from the statement when they announced there would be no reveal was that I thought it was really unfortunate that it looked like if they had gone ahead with a reveal, it still was just going to be Raza after all this time.

Speaker: And in a way, I get it.

Speaker: And normally I would say, yeah, you reveal one pinball machine at a time.

Speaker: But given all the statements that have happened and the fact that we did because they put the prototype out, we did already have an understanding of the Raza layout.

Speaker: I really at least was hoping that they would announce the themes of another couple of games or something.

Speaker: Ultimately, nothing happened.

Speaker: So, I mean, it's moot.

Speaker: But still, that did disappoint me some.

Speaker: Because I just thought, I'm trying to find things like, what can Deep Root do that will let them stand out from the pack?

Speaker: And it's like, trying to fulfill on some of those past statements would be what I would think you need to do.

Speaker: But, I mean, at this point, I guess it's just, you need to show something.

Speaker: And it shouldn't just be leaked images of strange front leg leveler lengths and

Speaker: And, you know, have some official something out so that we know, because what people are going to ask right now is, okay, well, it's been six months since when you were supposed to reveal at TPF, what have you accomplished?

Speaker: And it's fair enough to say, well, you know, that's private.

Speaker: But on the flip side, if you're trying to make people still have interest, they need to feel like that it's not vaporware, that you're not the 3D realms of pinball.

Speaker: Well, do you think also that part of the issues that they've been having with this, because we did see the prototype back in November talking about Jeff Teals and them.

Speaker: We got to talk to them.

Speaker: And back then it was just pretty much... Oh, what's the word I'm looking for?

Speaker: So it was pretty much just a normal cabinet from a play field from Marco and all that jazz.

Speaker: And now we have...

Speaker: whatever cabinet you want to call this, do you feel like maybe they've had some issues with, with trying to transition to their cabinet?

Speaker: And that might be some of where the problem is coming from.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: But you can make one cabinet, like you can make your prototype as weird as you want.

Speaker: I mean, it's, it's one thing.

Speaker: I mean, give me a week and I don't know anything about making a cabinet and I could at least put together four boards and a piece of glass and

Speaker: And come on, this is this is so epic of a fail.

Speaker: I don't even know what to say.

Speaker: Like you had you had one job.

Speaker: You had one job to make one game, let alone ten games.

Speaker: And it's the same boring game that you had before.

Speaker: Like, like, what have you been doing for an entire year?

Speaker: It seems like you've come to the final in a turn and you turn in the term paper that you had said you wanted to write all semester.

Speaker: And your professor's looking at it's like, this is all the crap that you gave me like in week one.

Speaker: What have you been doing all semester?

Speaker: Well...

Speaker: I've had a lot of health issues or, well, I've had a lot.

Speaker: It's like the excuses never end as opposed to, well, I did this.

Speaker: Like they've accomplished zero right now.

Speaker: Well, I mean, to be fair, they also haven't given any excuses.

Speaker: They just say they missed their deadlines and then that they need more time.

Speaker: Yeah, we don't ever know why.

Speaker: I think they're just not ready for it.

Speaker: That's the bottom line.

Speaker: So do you think that they knew that they were going to have to delay when they brought the media out?

Speaker: At this point, okay, I would bet that Robert didn't know, but I guarantee all the people who have pinball manufacturing experience already knew.

Speaker: Hmm.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: I mean, I could see that.

Speaker: I could see that.

Speaker: So I think Robert was going like guns a blazing forward and everybody was thinking this isn't going to work.

Speaker: And so they brought people outside people who are not on their payroll who said this isn't going to work.

Speaker: Like, how could that be a surprise to anybody?

Speaker: Yeah, I mean, I was wondering if maybe there's one of the innovations perhaps that has been finicky or hasn't been working right.

Speaker: And they kept thinking that they're so close to solving it.

Speaker: But it becomes hard to imagine that you can't, you don't know until it's in a way too late that you can't solve it.

Speaker: But the nearest example I can think of is with Jersey Jack, actually, when Pirates of the Caribbean was in prototype mode.

Speaker: And, you know, the game didn't come out as quickly as everyone had been expecting.

Speaker: And again, I guess we're not too surprised because at that point, Jersey Jack was always late on its final releases versus its prototypes.

Speaker: But

Speaker: And on retrospect, it seemed, at least to me, fairly obvious that they had spent that big prototype period desperately trying to get the triple spinning disc and chess to work consistently.

Speaker: And ultimately, they had to pull the plug on it, which in their case was, I think, pretty devastating because the fallout from the drama to do that decision resulted in very low sales of that game.

Speaker: I think that is one of the most directly responsible things for why that game did not sell.

Speaker: And by the time people got to try the finalized version and know, hey, this is still a this is a really good game.

Speaker: It's already off the line and they've got to move forward with Wonka.

Speaker: Yeah, I guess with well, with Pirates of the Caribbean, I will say that he tried multiple innovations.

Speaker: It wasn't like the one thing that he did.

Speaker: He had like five things that really haven't been done.

Speaker: I mean, even even his approach to the bottom.

Speaker: of making a wide body feel a little more like a standard body.

Speaker: And his approach was revolutionary and including the, you know, the ship and the rocking ship and the disc.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: I actually think that they probably could have made the triple thing work.

Speaker: with a little more time.

Speaker: But that was what they led with.

Speaker: And you are exactly right.

Speaker: They led and said, this is the innovation.

Speaker: And then Eric had to go and say, yeah, okay.

Speaker: So we swapped it out.

Speaker: The walk back.

Speaker: And I could see where maybe Deep Root's like, okay, what if, what if there's some innovation?

Speaker: I mean, because what innovations have they come public with?

Speaker: The hammer test.

Speaker: It's about the only one.

Speaker: And maybe that's to hedge to be sure that, okay, well, this, if it's a touchscreen on the lock bar and the touchscreen can't be done, we can pull that and we're not going to look real bad because I could see how one could say, look at what happened to JJP.

Speaker: You're right.

Speaker: The triple spinning disc was not the most impressive feature mechanically.

Speaker: It was featured.

Speaker: It was in the matrix.

Speaker: It was heavily promoted.

Speaker: And I thought this was very unfortunate.

Speaker: Actually, I won't say unfortunate.

Speaker: I thought this was a mistake.

Speaker: is after they announced that the triple spinning disc would not be done, those triple spinning prototypes were still the ones taken to shows.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: Do you think, I know this is probably far-fetched and too far out in left field, this is actually part of the marketing, and tomorrow or the next day we actually get, surprise, we were joking, and here's all this information from everyone.

Speaker: Okay, Josh, that's like not showing up for your wedding day when you have everything set up and then say, surprise, we're all open to Vegas.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Like there's zero chance your bride's going to be there.

Speaker: I'm sorry.

Speaker: It's not going to happen.

Speaker: Scott's right.

Speaker: It would be an incredible prank, but I don't think it's a very good way to launch a product.

Speaker: So because what do you gain?

Speaker: Like there's no advantage.

Speaker: At best, you end up with, I mean, there'll be some people that'll be relieved, but you're going to have people that'll be like, you just trolled me.

Speaker: Thanks a lot.

Speaker: On your reveal day too.

Speaker: I am deep down desperately hoping for that because it will just show how absolutely clueless this guy is.

Speaker: I can't fathom.

Speaker: I cannot fathom.

Speaker: I feel like, and it's probably an illusion, but I feel like when I read that statement that the company put out that I can read the pain in that statement.

Speaker: It's crestfallen like the entire you could probably just feel the air going out of the company right now because the dream's over.

Speaker: It's not going to happen.

Speaker: I mean, any rational I don't and I don't know what odds I would put on, actually, but but I.

Speaker: As we did before going on air today, I've had numerous messenger requests or DMs coming in from people wanting to talk about this.

Speaker: And one of the most common things that I'm now seeing people bring up is, so what are the odds they ever produce?

Speaker: And I think that's what you see in that statement is they know September 21st, 2020 was their last window to actually be seen as credible.

Speaker: And now at this point, there's always going to be, unless and until they produce, a high level of doubt about anything they claim.

Speaker: The credibility is not there.

Speaker: And that's terrible because now that, I mean, it's going to take a lot of marketing effort to overcome anything like that.

Speaker: It really is.

Speaker: The best case scenario is this is Big Bang Bar with Gene Cunningham.

Speaker: That's the best scenario where it was it was never going to happen.

Speaker: And finally, he just like, no, I'm going to prove everybody wrong.

Speaker: And he did it.

Speaker: And it submarined him like that is the best case scenario for Deep Root is that he they finally make these Raza games that go out and the company folds after that.

Speaker: I don't know if that's the best case.

Speaker: No, because here's the thing.

Speaker: Yeah, I agree with – I do agree with Josh on that.

Speaker: And the reason is we don't actually know how much investment money is behind Deep Root and how much they might still have available to continue as they have been.

Speaker: That's the one thing.

Speaker: No, the tank's empty.

Speaker: There's nothing – the fuel gauge is zero.

Speaker: There's nothing left.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: So, Zach, I posed a question to these two earlier.

Speaker: I'm now going to pose it to you.

Speaker: And with you being a distributor, it's fine if you say, hey, I want to skip on this question.

Speaker: But with Deep Root showing time and time again that they can't hit a deadline,

Speaker: Does it make you question selling their product that they will actually be able to fulfill it once they actually do start getting out the door?

Speaker: So say Raza finally gets out the door.

Speaker: You sell a few units.

Speaker: Are you actually confident that they're going to be able to back their product because of everything that's been going on?

Speaker: That's a really good question.

Speaker: It's tough to answer because I don't know.

Speaker: I took the plunge with the Cosmic Carnival people, Suncoast.

Speaker: And the idea when I took the plunge there was I'll get in early, I'll buy a game for myself.

Speaker: Um, and I did, and it did not hold up to the expectations that I have, nor to the ones that I would want to put on my customer.

Speaker: So I refuse to buy any more.

Speaker: Um,

Speaker: Now that was a business decision, but it was also a hobbyist decision.

Speaker: I tried to run my business as a hobbyist first and it has paid off very well for me so far.

Speaker: So I probably do the same thing for Deep Root.

Speaker: I would not feel comfortable going in for a number of pins before I've actually seen what my customers are going to get.

Speaker: And I say my wife and I, our customers are going to get it.

Speaker: Uh, and then if it was a game that I thought people would like, even if I didn't like it, if it was built well and it looked like it was going to hold up, um, then I would be fine pulling the trigger.

Speaker: But that being said, I don't, uh, I don't know if they're going the distribution model.

Speaker: Um, I've talked to Mr. Mueller, um, on and off for the last six months or so, maybe even a little longer.

Speaker: And it kind of goes back and forth still.

Speaker: And I'm not sure that they're even 100% sure what they are going to do day to day.

Speaker: So yeah, good question.

Speaker: I wouldn't have any problem selling deep root games if I thought they were built well enough for my customers and customers were wanting them.

Speaker: Hopefully that answered your question.

Speaker: Yeah, I think that answers my question very well.

Speaker: Because like I said, my biggest concern is they've just, the only thing that Deeproot has proven time and time again is their word doesn't mean very much.

Speaker: And the problem is, is in a hobby where a lot of people take you for your word and your integrity, they have kind of destroyed that.

Speaker: And so my concern is even if they do finally get out the door, they just won't be able to repair the damage that they've done themselves.

Speaker: I, it's a good point, but never underestimate the ability of pinball people to forgive, especially when they want stuff.

Speaker: If you've got a good game that's going to sell, people will forget anything negative.

Speaker: I mean, a case in point is the number of people that have continued to be interested, despite what happened with Zidware and American Pinball with John Papaduke.

Speaker: And that does, that did alienate a portion of the audience, but so did in terms of an opposite of getting people very sympathetic to Deep Root, you know, despite all the boisterous statements that there were these, you know, sort of settlement terms where Deep Root was offering to pay out or give a game to individuals that had lost out on Zidware.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And they didn't have to do that.

Speaker: Obviously, they wouldn't have had that discussion at all had they not hired him.

Speaker: But that was seen as a grace-building move.

Speaker: They could do something like that in the future as well that could help build goodwill.

Speaker: And I think it's really important to not forget...

Speaker: that they have not taken pre-order dollars.

Speaker: So they're not in the same position that we saw with Highway.

Speaker: There were people with Cosmic Carnival, or at least one person, who ended up not getting their game, even though they paid.

Speaker: I do know of a distributor that didn't get one or more games that they paid for.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And so, and that was part of the controversy back with JJP with Woz and Hobbit and even arguably to this day with Spooky, they're still doing pre-orders.

Speaker: And JJP did pre-orders for a while.

Speaker: Look at Dutch pinball.

Speaker: People love the Big Lebowski.

Speaker: Non-refundable deposits in the way of Spooky.

Speaker: Let me clarify.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It doesn't matter what Dutch pinball does.

Speaker: People will still be buyers for the Big Lebowski.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And to someone like me, I'm like, I cannot believe people are dropping like, what, 12, 5, 50?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: 12, 5 or so.

Speaker: 12, 5.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: For a company that some people have been sitting like five years waiting for their pre-order.

Speaker: I thought that company would be out of business two years ago, but I've been wrong.

Speaker: And this is a little off the topic, but it's still relevant.

Speaker: Whenever people ask me, how can you own a business in this industry?

Speaker: All it's going to take is for the market to crash and nobody's going to be buying games.

Speaker: I don't know if that's true.

Speaker: There is an addictive feature to this hobby that people will find a way to feed that need.

Speaker: They will buy pinball machines.

Speaker: And until I'm proven otherwise, I...

Speaker: I don't know if it, I don't know if it ever totally tanks.

Speaker: I think Roger Sharp was talking about that at some point.

Speaker: Well, it used to be with the operators because historically, even in recessions, the one thing people still had were quarters and they could go and they could play a pin.

Speaker: And so there was a,

Speaker: Yeah, but ironically, during this COVID time, then the people, they're not able to go out.

Speaker: So they're actually buying more games.

Speaker: Like the market is hotter than it ever has been just because of that fact that people are like, I still want the entertainment value.

Speaker: And so, yeah, I don't think that – I think there will always be a market for pinball.

Speaker: I just –

Speaker: just my confidence in Deep Road is zero.

Speaker: And so I, as a consumer, would not feel confident in actually buying one of their games until maybe like eight years down the line when they've established themselves.

Speaker: However, caveat, I am not an early adopter.

Speaker: Like I am...

Speaker: I do not.

Speaker: I'm not the first person who runs out and buys something.

Speaker: I don't care if some if a new company comes out and it's a limited edition.

Speaker: And so there's only 20 of them.

Speaker: So there's this exclusivity clause, which they try to run on a lot of these games.

Speaker: I'm not that guy.

Speaker: I'm totally fine to wait until it becomes mainstream and get a product that I consider 10 times better at about a tenth the price.

Speaker: But, but here's the thing you, I think that's the case for a lot of people when it comes to the theming of retro atomic zombie adventure land.

Speaker: If they took this pin guys and they redid it to one of my dream themes, back to the future, uh, Goonies, guess what?

Speaker: My hypocrite.

Speaker: Oh, I almost cursed, but, uh, would be buying it.

Speaker: I, I,

Speaker: I know myself well enough and it's nostalgia and it brings me back.

Speaker: It's important to my life and to my memories.

Speaker: And I would buy that game.

Speaker: The problem that Robert Mueller has now is that he has a theme that nobody cares about.

Speaker: There is no one that gives two squirts about, see what I did there.

Speaker: That doesn't care about this theme.

Speaker: We saw it played at the Houston expo.

Speaker: Nobody was just,

Speaker: singing praises of the way it's shot so what do we have now we're waiting for innovation to sell this machine we've seen now leaked pictures and from what we can visually see nobody's going to be screaming from the hilltops for that either so now it's the one thing that nobody really knows and that's code code can sell games but it doesn't do as good a job selling games as themes and other things do yeah

Speaker: Zach, Zach's right on the, on the theme thing.

Speaker: Currently, the only thing that I view that zombie that Raza has going for it is there is a segment of the pinball population, but obviously very small compared to having a good theme that is desperate for anything new from John Papaduke.

Speaker: I'm kind of one of them.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: I like Papa Duke too.

Speaker: And like my friend has a, he has a beautiful Circus Voltaire and I love playing it.

Speaker: However, I, I don't know.

Speaker: I, I just, I don't think there's anything.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: On dialed in, how many people bought dialed in because you can play from your smartphones?

Speaker: Oh, probably zero.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Zero.

Speaker: Exactly.

Speaker: And so if you're trying to sell on innovation, this is where Williams lost and DataE slash Stern actually won.

Speaker: Like DataE slash Stern, they realized that theme is everything.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Like theme will elevate a, a bad game.

Speaker: And these are the lessons they learned.

Speaker: Williams was trying to get into that, but even they picked these dog themes with Johnny pneumonic.

Speaker: They picked the shadow.

Speaker: They picked all these movies that are terrible.

Speaker: And the only one that they actually.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: But they went into R and D on those before they knew whether or not they were going to be hits.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: They had to go in early on those.

Speaker: So yeah,

Speaker: But times are different.

Speaker: The 90 apples and oranges, the 90s and operating pinball machines is no longer what it is now.

Speaker: The need for a theme now is so prevalent, not because of a barcade, because those pins and arcades are going to be played regardless of what's there.

Speaker: Now it's important because people, the boomers, the up and comers, the Xers.

Speaker: we are buying games in our homes and we only have a certain amount of money and certain amount of space.

Speaker: So darn well better be a theme that we really, really relate to.

Speaker: Not everybody has liked that, but that is, that is very much so the decision-making on, I would say the majority of home buyers.

Speaker: That's why it's important now.

Speaker: Whereas in the nineties, I don't think it was as important because it wasn't introduced yet as an important thing.

Speaker: So I guess, honestly, the biggest tragedy for me from all this today is that we won't be hearing from Steve Bowden daily on Fun With Bonus.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And I don't know what the reasoning is behind this.

Speaker: And I know Steve and stuff's still going to come out.

Speaker: There's a correlation there.

Speaker: And maybe it's not a causation, but I don't think it's a coincidence that he chose to announce this on the day that they chose to delay Raza and the reveal of DeepRut products.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah, it seems I, yeah, I think it's related.

Speaker: When I read his, and initially I was very concerned because the way it phrased, I thought that there was an employment change.

Speaker: Yeah, that's what I thought.

Speaker: I thought he was because what would make someone not want to do anything in pinball at all?

Speaker: Well, I'll tell you what would for me.

Speaker: And that would be if I worked in pinball and then I didn't all of a sudden.

Speaker: Well, not only that, but you gave up your life and everything you knew and moved how many miles away for that hobby?

Speaker: But in the details of his blog post, he mentioned wanting to focus a lot more on talking about rules, not having to feel compelled to post every single day and talking about the rule development going on at DeepRoot.

Speaker: Now, that could ultimately, from a company standpoint, be smart if they're willing to let him actually get somewhat specific on some concepts of rules.

Speaker: Because right now, we don't really, other than what we saw in the prototype for Raza, we don't have any sense about...

Speaker: like what the rules and modes are going to be.

Speaker: And is it really that much of a spoiler to talk about like theories on multipliers and how maybe it would be cool to have partial ramp drops that feed that?

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: Without seeing the games at the same time, it's difficult for me to envision if you'd gain a whole lot from it.

Speaker: But my biggest problem up until this point with Deep Root is how little they communicate, period.

Speaker: I mean, they only set up their Facebook page like six weeks ago.

Speaker: Mm-hmm.

Speaker: Where's their marketing?

Speaker: Where's their marketing person?

Speaker: I don't mean like a marketing campaign.

Speaker: I mean, just like, where's their marketing person?

Speaker: Where's the face of the company?

Speaker: Well, I think what is shown is that DeepRoot lacks three things.

Speaker: DeepRoot doesn't have any marketing.

Speaker: They don't have a sales team and they don't have a marketing team.

Speaker: And so if you're going to be a pinball company, how can you function without all three of those things?

Speaker: It sounds to me like their biggest issue surpasses all three of those points in its manufacturing.

Speaker: I would say, well, is it that or is it, do you have someone that, I'm not saying Robert Mueller's bad for the company, but maybe they need to have someone else as a chief officer over the pinball division and Robert's the one.

Speaker: Like a George Gomez.

Speaker: Yes, exactly.

Speaker: Just like a George Gomez.

Speaker: And then Robert Mueller's there to maybe have the final say or whatever it may be, but have someone that can run the day-to-day operations.

Speaker: Because my understanding, Robert's still doing, he owns, what is it, a law firm business or something?

Speaker: That'd be a big guy.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So you can't be making these decisions for deep root at the same time you're trying to take care of Joe Schmo and his car accident.

Speaker: Poor Joe Schmo.

Speaker: There's really a Joe Schmo out there.

Speaker: It's like, son of a thing.

Speaker: Yeah, man.

Speaker: My parents suck.

Speaker: They need me, Joe.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Did you guys talk about the looks of this thing?

Speaker: Did I miss out on that?

Speaker: Oh, we, we talked a little bit about it.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Yeah, I brought up the leg levelers because, and someone else had initially pointed that out to me and thought about the troubles with hitting the right ramp.

Speaker: And my concern is that's part of their solution is that this game is actually not pitched at six and a half.

Speaker: They've pitched it shallow.

Speaker: It looked like the right ramp was significantly modified.

Speaker: And I've heard that too, but why are the front legs so steep?

Speaker: I don't know what that was about.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: I just saw the ramp.

Speaker: Why is the ramp frosted?

Speaker: What is this?

Speaker: My hair tips in the 80s?

Speaker: Your 3D plan?

Speaker: Oh, wow.

Speaker: I want a picture of that.

Speaker: Bye, bye, bye.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: No, I think it's more of a wham.

Speaker: Wake me up before you go, go.

Speaker: Yeah, I can see that.

Speaker: Yeah, the ramp I saw, it was modified.

Speaker: I mean, it sweeps much more to the left.

Speaker: Even the elevation, the height of it is significantly reduced.

Speaker: And if you see the top diverter, that is substantially changed as well.

Speaker: I didn't see visually anything else on the play field that was different per se.

Speaker: But then again, the photo was not very detailed.

Speaker: Tater cam.

Speaker: Yeah, can't really tell what was going on.

Speaker: I want to know who took that picture.

Speaker: No, they could be killed.

Speaker: Yeah, exactly.

Speaker: Can I just come over a fiber towel and wipe off that screen, please?

Speaker: Thank you.

Speaker: Maybe the frosted ramp is like when you get a new phone and it's got the frosted thing over the front of it.

Speaker: You have to peel it off.

Speaker: You do not peel that back.

Speaker: You keep it on forever.

Speaker: Oh, are you one of those people?

Speaker: I hate those people.

Speaker: No, I'm not that guy.

Speaker: I ripped that sucker right off.

Speaker: Oh, my God.

Speaker: I had a friend like that.

Speaker: He would always have stuff.

Speaker: I'm like, dude, pull the thing off.

Speaker: And he's like, no, because it makes it look nice.

Speaker: I'm like, for who?

Speaker: The next owner?

Speaker: Like, what?

Speaker: it's like grandma with the, uh, with the saran wrap all the way around the couch.

Speaker: So you actually can never sit on the couch because you're preserving it for your legacy.

Speaker: I will be buried in this couch.

Speaker: No, I don't know what to think about the, the visual of this thing with the wraparound, uh, uh,

Speaker: I don't know if it's Translight.

Speaker: I don't know if it's back glass and acrylic.

Speaker: I assume Translight.

Speaker: Why is it?

Speaker: Is it crooked or something?

Speaker: Why is it black in the upper left corner?

Speaker: That's what is killing me.

Speaker: So it's supposed to be askew to represent, I think, like a movie poster.

Speaker: But it bugs me.

Speaker: Every time I've seen that picture today, I thought.

Speaker: I had someone message and say they thought that it was Photoshopped because they couldn't understand why that was crooked.

Speaker: That doesn't look good.

Speaker: Well, if they Photoshopped it, they did a good job because it involves pictures.

Speaker: It's perfect.

Speaker: It cannot be Photoshopped because if it was Photoshopped and the person that knows how to do Photoshop that well would have actually filtered that picture to look better.

Speaker: No.

Speaker: No.

Speaker: I like the whole thing being illuminated.

Speaker: That's a good one.

Speaker: I've actually heard or read online the most positive comments regarding that, regarding the Translite-y thing.

Speaker: The biggest concern being the pegs.

Speaker: Some people are worried that those pegs will break if you shake the game a lot.

Speaker: I don't know if they're steel or what, though.

Speaker: Aftor from the 80s did something like that, and I assume the wiring's running through those pegs.

Speaker: Yeah, I don't want to be visually.

Speaker: I don't want to be too negative because for me, it's going to be one of two things when I see this in person because it is so dynamically different than everything else we've seen in pinball minus pin 2K thing.

Speaker: But either it's going to look just really, really cool and revolutionary,

Speaker: Or it's going to look like value city furniture, pinball edition with like an old 2000, a waterbed with the bars going up in the black.

Speaker: Like it looks like a fish tank.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: I had a, I had a waterbed in high school and this is now I can only see the waterbed.

Speaker: You can see it like a waterbed.

Speaker: I'm like that, that this pinball machine looks as if,

Speaker: Back in the 80s, they were guessing what a pinball machine would look like in 2021.

Speaker: It's a steampunk pinball machine?

Speaker: Yeah, I'm waiting for Jaws to come out of the marquee that looks like crap.

Speaker: And now that it is in 2020, we're like, oh man, they really got that wrong.

Speaker: That's what it looks like.

Speaker: It does.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I mean, I can kind of see.

Speaker: I heard someone else say they thought it looked overly Art Deco.

Speaker: I remember reading someone else say that their big issue was actually the space between the display and the trans light and being able to see through the back to the wall.

Speaker: Overall, I'm not.

Speaker: I actually am OK with the back box design, but I have quite a number of arguably odd looking back boxes because of my collection is so eclectic.

Speaker: Was that a shudder of pleasure or was that a shudder of cringe?

Speaker: I don't want to know.

Speaker: I don't want to know.

Speaker: Ace-dimetry.

Speaker: So the question is, Dennis, what kind of topper would you put on this game?

Speaker: Oh, yeah.

Speaker: Oh, yeah, probably a flying saucer.

Speaker: I know it would come across completely as derivative of CGC's Attack from Mars remake, but it's the right answer.

Speaker: On a spring?

Speaker: Yeah, and probably let it glow.

Speaker: And ideally, the spring would be wrapped in a pink LED rope, so it looks like the beam blasting thing.

Speaker: Because, hey, if they can put if they can put Toidle's logo over Toidle's logo to have Toidle logo inception, then we can do a ship blasting into a ship blasting on Maraza.

Speaker: So if we if we perp out this game, you think it'll make it better?

Speaker: I generally think purple is never the solution to anything, but you know what?

Speaker: The theme and art calls for purple.

Speaker: Not going to lie.

Speaker: I'm just saying that, you know, nice primary colors.

Speaker: We want things like yellows.

Speaker: Those are what you want.

Speaker: Yellow.

Speaker: If this thing were rethemed to purple rain and the right ramp where Prince's motorcycle, would you buy it?

Speaker: I would not, but people would.

Speaker: Yeah, you're getting closer.

Speaker: There are some things visually that that work on this game.

Speaker: I like that they, the, the, uh, you guys are looking at the picture, the stainless steel side rails.

Speaker: I mean, it's a small feature, but I like how they're not just your uniform, uh, same size across the whole front to back of the pen, how they have a little bit of detail there.

Speaker: That is a nice look.

Speaker: I don't know why the stainless steels don't match, um, on the, uh, the lockdown bar to the side rails.

Speaker: That's odd.

Speaker: And it makes visually makes your eyes go right to the,

Speaker: that, that, uh, the thumbprint LCD screen down there.

Speaker: I just don't know how that's going to feel.

Speaker: It looks like it's location wise, physically in a place where your hands are going to be touching it.

Speaker: Palms should never touch anything irregular whenever you're playing a pinball machine.

Speaker: Cause it will, and it does throw you off.

Speaker: I'm trying to think what machine did that.

Speaker: Was it multimorphic?

Speaker: There was a machine that every time I felt, I'm like, ah, like there's a sharp stainless.

Speaker: It's not like it hurts, but it's just annoying.

Speaker: So I don't know how that passed R&D, not just pulling that LCD screen in a bit, but maybe it feels fine.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: Now that you're pointing it out, the weird part is, too, is the LCD down at the flippers almost looks bigger than the LCD in the back box.

Speaker: I bet it's the same size.

Speaker: From a manufacturer, I would bet they just the same thing.

Speaker: It's not even on.

Speaker: Is it LCD?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: The back box thing?

Speaker: I know it's color, so I'm assuming it was.

Speaker: And if the front lockdown screen is like a touchscreen, then they may have had to go with a more standardized dimension, something more available on the market.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And maybe they need that or chose that size because they want to show like the switch tests and all that on on the apron display or have some interaction between the back screen and that.

Speaker: I mean, because it is fairly sizable.

Speaker: Obviously, I don't see a start button on this game, so that's going to be involved in some way to get the game going, I'm assuming.

Speaker: I think it's going to be somewhere.

Speaker: It's going to be a dashboard.

Speaker: I think it's going to be a dashboard for players to hook up to wifi to save their game.

Speaker: I think there's going to be a lot of user interaction right there.

Speaker: So yeah, starting a game makes sense right there, but there's something like the art,

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: The art's not.

Speaker: I mean, I like the art.

Speaker: I think the art is actually the, one of the best things about the game.

Speaker: I think it's kind of fun.

Speaker: Here's one envision a video mode where it's like a phone touchscreen game where you're going to play on that.

Speaker: Oh, I got it.

Speaker: Fruit Ninja.

Speaker: We got to do fruit Ninja, the pinball machine.

Speaker: That would have been a great, great license eight years ago.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Well, yeah, that's like angry birds doing a pinball.

Speaker: It's like, yeah, that's what I was just thinking.

Speaker: It is the angry birds movie that came out like 10 years after it was relevant.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: The number one thing I saw on this game from back to from Houston to now is I'll give them a lot of credit on the animation.

Speaker: The animation looks nice.

Speaker: Yeah, I remember seeing the video.

Speaker: Yeah, I remember.

Speaker: Yeah, the teaser was very well done.

Speaker: I don't have any, without having played it, and I know that's a huge caveat, I don't have any major issues with what I'm looking at.

Speaker: My concerns are entirely around the lack of revealing it.

Speaker: It's a bit funky because how are you going to take this type of cabinet aesthetics and seemingly just put it into everything that you're going to put in a pinball machine?

Speaker: It's a bit too, it works better for this theme than something else.

Speaker: But just think of all the different things, especially with the rumors of them coming up with so many different original themes.

Speaker: I just don't know how it fits.

Speaker: And they can't manufacturing wise, you have to keep the cabinet the same.

Speaker: It's not like you can keep switching it up.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Well, and my other thought process too is, is I don't know about you guys.

Speaker: I know, I know Zach, you move a lot of pinball machines, but how do you drop a head on this thing?

Speaker: You just pull it up out of the body.

Speaker: And that was kind of my first concern based on some of the rumors and some of the leaked stuff that we've seen.

Speaker: That's one of their revolutionary, uh, proprietary things.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So I don't know.

Speaker: Do you think that the backboard is too small, especially with games?

Speaker: Everyone has a Stern in their collection or maybe a Valley Williams.

Speaker: I mean, heck, does this back box, will it hide behind that stuff because it's so small?

Speaker: If I was Deep Root and I was developing a new look for a pinball cabinet, I would sure as heck...

Speaker: have a Jersey Jack and a Stern machine left to right flanked on it.

Speaker: And I would design it around the same height and the same depth of that back box head.

Speaker: I'd also look at the cabinet to make sure that it's not any longer or shorter than other pins in a collection.

Speaker: And I would probably make sure that it height wise is about the same elevation.

Speaker: If you look at them from the side.

Speaker: It's just something so simple to do.

Speaker: You can still make a dynamic cabinet, but make sure that it doesn't just stick out so much.

Speaker: You can start over on the whole cabinet thing, but if you're going to do that, you better make sure they buy game number one.

Speaker: You don't come out with Riles as game number one if you want to do that.

Speaker: So they better play nice with others until then.

Speaker: Do you think that, because we never heard about this in November at Pinball Expo or Houston Expo, that screen is quite big and looking at a pinball machine that I've got in front of me,

Speaker: we keep talking about size.

Speaker: It almost looks like you'd have to extend the cabinet just to fit the screen.

Speaker: So does it stick out longer or do our play fields become shorter?

Speaker: I was just going to say, I'm not exactly sure how big the screen is vis-a-vis the traditional apron, which it seems to be replacing.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It hangs over more.

Speaker: So when I'm looking at the new one versus the Deep Root prototype, I actually like the prototype.

Speaker: And maybe it's just because I like that it looks like a grown-up pinball machine.

Speaker: This cabinet, it looks like this...

Speaker: it's like a home pin.

Speaker: It's like a home version.

Speaker: It doesn't look substantial.

Speaker: It doesn't look like it could go in an arcade.

Speaker: And with, I'm sorry, with that, with that back box that has that 3D-ish or that wraparound, I would...

Speaker: Yeah, I would be kind of worried that one, what happens is that going to be to stand up to anything is a fragile.

Speaker: At least I know the standard back box, at least the glass is pretty much protected in case someone bumps it.

Speaker: That seems way too exposed.

Speaker: And it I like the I would go back with the prototype more than I would with this one.

Speaker: This this seems like a design miss.

Speaker: So I, I don't know.

Speaker: I, I don't, I don't get it.

Speaker: It's not mine.

Speaker: Not, not, not my bag, baby.

Speaker: Said, I want to know how you open the back of the head.

Speaker: To do what?

Speaker: To work on anything?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I mean, the main... What do you think's in there?

Speaker: A bulb?

Speaker: In 2021, nothing needs to be back and there doesn't need to be ahead of anything.

Speaker: I'm sympathetic to Scott's point, but also, I mean, we are sort of stuck with legacy cabinet shape that by and large doesn't serve any purpose anymore other than it's just how it's always been.

Speaker: I mean, one of the big complaints about Sterns that I hear from people is, well, they feel so cheap.

Speaker: And it's like, well, there's no weight in them anymore.

Speaker: The boards are teeny tiny baby boards.

Speaker: I mean, we don't need a back box that's like eight inches thick anymore.

Speaker: We just don't.

Speaker: As far as long as the play field is the standard length and width of a play field, I'm relatively accepting that.

Speaker: though I do want some sort of display translate style thing to catch the eye.

Speaker: So they want to thin it up and, and change that around and not have the, you know, I'm boards not being in the back of the head.

Speaker: It's like, it's gone wrong so many times, but even at this point, most of the node boards that Stern's using are actually connected to the play field.

Speaker: So as long as they finally figured out how to stop screws from dropping on there and shorten things out Atari style.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: That's the part.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: But I mean, so yeah, it looks, I think maybe they went a little like with how the trans light connects to the display that connects to the main cabinet.

Speaker: Maybe went like they tried a little too hard to make it look different.

Speaker: Like maybe it would have been better if that was all one unified piece, but if they want it to be like half the normal width or thickness, I'm like, yeah, at this point, everyone else is just doing it the old way because it's to keep the lineup standardized or something.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Dennis, I want you to try something.

Speaker: Take a look at the, you know, whatever leaked picture you want.

Speaker: Cover the bottom part and then imagine that

Speaker: So you're only seeing the back box.

Speaker: Imagine that as the top of a Walmart display.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: Always a low price.

Speaker: Doesn't it look like I'm about to buy a cheap knockoff $5 DVD for my kid at Walmart?

Speaker: Or a guppy tank, either or.

Speaker: Yeah, but that's what it looks like to me.

Speaker: It doesn't look like, wow, I'm going to have a great time playing this machine.

Speaker: It looks like I'm buying something at a big box store.

Speaker: Yeah, I can.

Speaker: I mean, I can see it, but I don't look at the translate to decide if I'm going to have a good time playing a game or not.

Speaker: Oh, totally fair.

Speaker: But aesthetics, if they are changing it, they are trying to make a statement with their aesthetics.

Speaker: And if the statement is, I look like a Walmart display, I don't think that's what they're going for.

Speaker: I just, this thing still might look...

Speaker: pretty darn cool in real life.

Speaker: I'm still not convinced it doesn't look good.

Speaker: It may in fact look great in real life.

Speaker: I think what is damaging to them is canceling this reveal and then letting these pictures get out.

Speaker: That is super damaging because you have no narrative that you get to play with

Speaker: when people see your product for the first time, nothing.

Speaker: Hell, if I was Robert right now, I would be throwing out a promo that has some voiceover.

Speaker: That's got some animation.

Speaker: That's got some gameplay just to pull people back in.

Speaker: When you get, let me ask you a question though.

Speaker: This, so this machine appears to be on, right?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Cause we're, we're seeing the lights.

Speaker: Why is there nothing on either display?

Speaker: Cause they've unplugged them.

Speaker: Yeah, I don't.

Speaker: That's a good question.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: I'm wondering why there's... Okay, this is supposed to be a reveal party, right?

Speaker: Well, I don't know the context of when the photos were taken.

Speaker: Okay, well, they should... Well, okay, but if you fire up a machine, everything should fire up, right?

Speaker: It doesn't have two switches.

Speaker: Sure, but does this have a sleep mode where it turns off the monitors and just lets the GI go?

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: It doesn't have an attract mode?

Speaker: It might have an attract mode, but I mean, like, for example, when I get all my games, one of the things I do is I disable all sound in attract mode.

Speaker: They might have thought, well, maybe some people don't like the flashing screens and stuff.

Speaker: Let's disable the screens and the touch screen goes to sleep.

Speaker: And then when you touch the touch screen, it goes back.

Speaker: It all fires up, yeah.

Speaker: Or maybe it has an option like GI lighting mode.

Speaker: But if it's your start button, you wouldn't want that screen asleep at all.

Speaker: Well, an operator might have the ability to turn off sleep mode.

Speaker: Just like when I get a laptop, I turn off sleep mode when it's plugged in because I don't see the point.

Speaker: Dang it, Robert.

Speaker: Why would you, if you're going to put this much stainless and make a point to have a speaker panel that's stainless and goofy little speaker stainless on the front of your cab, can you not just make the darn coin door stainless?

Speaker: That is a typical stern coin door.

Speaker: Come on, Bobby Pinball.

Speaker: The shooter housing's stainless.

Speaker: Just make everything stainless.

Speaker: Now, the announcement of the non-reveal did indicate there were technical issues.

Speaker: Maybe the game's screens broke.

Speaker: And once they turned it on and all that worked was the GI.

Speaker: Could be that too.

Speaker: Well, and last point on the whole light thing, if you look at the inserts that are lit on both angles, it's the same lights, I believe.

Speaker: Thus, almost in a state of, that's where it's locked in at.

Speaker: It's locked up.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: The I and the E are lit.

Speaker: Gotta reset it.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Someone reached behind the right side corner of the trans... Oh, wait, maybe they put the power switch in the proper space.

Speaker: Okay, this feels like the first Houdini.

Speaker: You remember that?

Speaker: Where it looked pretty from a distance, but it was behind a velvet rope.

Speaker: It actually didn't flip.

Speaker: Is this a Houdini part two?

Speaker: Oh, the diorama Houdini.

Speaker: Wow, that's a throwback.

Speaker: No, I mean, maybe, but we know that they have a flippable version because the prototype was, as someone today described it to me, it wasn't fun, but it was playable.

Speaker: Okay, that should be on a bumper sticker.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Wasn't fun, but playable.

Speaker: That sounds like a bad date.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: I hope that last, last poke I'll have, and then I'm going to be fully supportive.

Speaker: I hope that this pin comes with a couple of those Swiffer, Swiffer dust dust.

Speaker: I hope that this pin comes with some Swiffer dust, because there's going to be a lot of dust that collects under that fish tank head thing.

Speaker: Like you're going to, I actually saw an operator complain about that.

Speaker: Like, yeah, I could see it about having to vacuum that out.

Speaker: Oh man.

Speaker: Okay, what I want is an automatic fish feeder that goes into the head.

Speaker: And so it can feed the goldfish that are obviously going to be swimming behind the illuminated translator.

Speaker: I'm surprised nobody's done a curved screen yet.

Speaker: Well, aren't those Sega, those Sega, whatever ones were.

Speaker: Oh yeah.

Speaker: Like Starship Troopers.

Speaker: No, that's the show showcase head.

Speaker: And I'm talking about instead of like a Jersey Jack, but doing a concave screen.

Speaker: That's innovative.

Speaker: That's new.

Speaker: That's what a lot of people are using nowadays in home theater, right?

Speaker: Those curved displays.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Do something like that.

Speaker: Yeah, but that's a lens that goes on your projector.

Speaker: No, no.

Speaker: You know what I'm talking about?

Speaker: The whole screen is shaped like a banana.

Speaker: Yeah, you're talking about the Sony 4K HTVs or whatever they are.

Speaker: Yeah, why doesn't anybody utilize one of those?

Speaker: That would have been more effective.

Speaker: I've never seen a screen that curves that's this small, though.

Speaker: That can't be cheap.

Speaker: There's no way.

Speaker: With pinball, you're trying to get away with the cheapest possible.

Speaker: Yeah, Zach, why don't you give them a $10,000 bomb and then you can do that.

Speaker: guys, what do you think the price of this thing is going to be?

Speaker: Too much.

Speaker: Actually, it doesn't matter because I'm never going to be able to buy it because it is never going into production.

Speaker: I'm going to say in the neighborhood of 8,000 with what we're seeing in the leak, the touchscreen and all of that.

Speaker: I bet they go a three-tier system, and they do have a Pro, and I bet it's at $55.

Speaker: Wow.

Speaker: And then I say that they have a premium, and it's around...

Speaker: 7,000.

Speaker: I thought Robert had indicated there was only going to be one variant of Razor.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: But he did mention that there was different variants of different games too.

Speaker: Yes, that some would have trim choices.

Speaker: I should have chromed it.

Speaker: I'm looking at it.

Speaker: Oh my God, no one cares about Chrome.

Speaker: At least it would stand out as luxurious.

Speaker: Okay, so all I can say is if I had $9,199, I would buy an Avengers LE like I just did, and I would not wait for this box of lights.

Speaker: You're a good man, Scott.

Speaker: If this game shot well, I'd be a buyer.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Fair enough.

Speaker: Okay, that is totally fair.

Speaker: Yeah, and I do like the way John Papadou games are fun.

Speaker: I just don't see it with this one.

Speaker: I think it checks enough boxes for me that, and I'm, I'm a fan of J pop games in general.

Speaker: I'm a,

Speaker: Personally, I'm a fan of Steve Bowden.

Speaker: I don't know how great of a coder he is yet, but visually, it doesn't offend me.

Speaker: The art doesn't offend me.

Speaker: And by offense, meaning not that I'm truly offended, but just that it doesn't disgust me.

Speaker: I like the display, the ratio of the back box display.

Speaker: I'd hit fire if it was a good game.

Speaker: Very good.

Speaker: I'm sorry, Zach.

Speaker: I'm just imagining the slogan that I can run with.

Speaker: And it'll be the Zach Mini quote.

Speaker: I'd buy it if it shoots well because it doesn't disgust me.

Speaker: It doesn't disgust me.

Speaker: What a standard.

Speaker: Wow.

Speaker: Exactly.

Speaker: The fish tank might look damn cool in person.

Speaker: It's not fun.

Speaker: It's clunky, but it gets the job done.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I'm glad you're honest, Zach.

Speaker: It's just whatever standard you use to make a determination on a pinball purchase, it is so outside the norm for most people in the hobby.

Speaker: You guys always pick on me for saying aesthetics, and I say if it shoots nice now, you guys are like, oh.

Speaker: No, I like that.

Speaker: But you're just like, yeah, because you, who's Mr. Buy All About Art, is all of a sudden like, well, I'll buy a game if it shoots well.

Speaker: I don't know anything about the rules, but the art doesn't disgust me.

Speaker: So it's a win.

Speaker: I like the color choices.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: All right.

Speaker: Looks really purple.

Speaker: Purple.

Speaker: All right, I'm going to give a hot take right now.

Speaker: Oh, okay.

Speaker: And this is based off of what Mueller has said in the past, is that they want to be competitive, as competitive as Stern.

Speaker: They want that pie of the high-volume manufacturing.

Speaker: My hot take is Stern is too far ahead of the game, and Keith Elwin is killing it so well that

Speaker: that I don't think that it is obtainable to become, from starting line, to become as productive as what Stern is doing right now.

Speaker: All right.

Speaker: What if Robert hires Keith Elwin and Eric Minier?

Speaker: Ooh.

Speaker: Possible.

Speaker: What a twist, right?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Well, that's why I'm here.

Speaker: Well, certainly.

Speaker: But now Eric and Keith, they do have some design experience, but really not the manufacturing experience that Stern does.

Speaker: And that's really where Stern is winning right now.

Speaker: Stern is winning on being able to manufacture materials.

Speaker: a competitively priced game.

Speaker: I guarantee that if Keith Elwin were designing with Jersey Jack or anybody else, that Avengers would have been 12,000.

Speaker: Yeah, but they have different pricing models entirely as well.

Speaker: I mean, Keith and Eric both have – like they've gone down and worked with people on the line.

Speaker: They actually know how their lines are set up.

Speaker: So while I wouldn't put them to the degree of coordination that a George Gomez would bring, though I could throw that in if you'd like and say, well, why don't we have Robert hire George too?

Speaker: I guess my point being with all of it though, is, is it, I don't think, I think if your game plan is to catch up to Stern and surpass them,

Speaker: That's like maybe three years ago before Keith started making games, before Eddie was announced on the team, before.

Speaker: I mean, we're just three years ago.

Speaker: It seemed logical.

Speaker: Now it just seems impossible.

Speaker: No, it's not impossible.

Speaker: Manufacturer could come in and outperform, outsell, and outservice Stern Pinball.

Speaker: Okay, Dennis, you are right though.

Speaker: You are right that the key to this would be hiring someone like George Gomez who can actually run the manufacturing side.

Speaker: Yeah, I just wanted to explore the idea of, I mean, there's a difference between saying it's impossible because the market share of Stern is insurmountable to overcome or it's just too difficult for a company like Deep Root to home grow their way to that.

Speaker: But what if they bought their way to that?

Speaker: But I think Zach's right.

Speaker: I mean, it was a generation ago, almost two at this point, and I'm sorry, bringing up the video game side of things, but in the West, the Xbox 360 was outperforming the PS3 and the tides turned and PS4, Sony's flagship console, beat the Xbox One in the current generation.

Speaker: And that's been the big question about this new generation is, will the Xbox Series X be able to pass Sony once more?

Speaker: And could they, in their case, they're sizable enough that maybe they could home grow it.

Speaker: But, you know, in the good news for those of us on the video game side today, Microsoft instead was like, no, we're going to buy our way to victory.

Speaker: And they just bought ZeniMax.

Speaker: So now they own the companies that make Doom and Fallout and Wolfenstein.

Speaker: It's like they're ours now because we have money.

Speaker: And, you know, buy your victory.

Speaker: Yeah, it's true.

Speaker: But the problem with your analogy is, is Xbox already had a well-established project or product in the original Xbox.

Speaker: And then the 360, they improved upon that.

Speaker: And then they've got some history there.

Speaker: The problem with Deep Root is, is nothing's come out the doors yet.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And actually, Josh, I agree with you.

Speaker: I think if you bought, if they hired George, Elwin and Eric, they still wouldn't catch Stern.

Speaker: I agree.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: But I thought it would be a fun what if.

Speaker: And I agree with that.

Speaker: They're the dream cast right now?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Well, I mean, they're Neo Geo.

Speaker: I mean, at this point, and with me knowing basically nothing about Deep Root, I haven't communicated with Robert directly in probably over a year.

Speaker: Here's what I would do if I were them.

Speaker: They need to get production going.

Speaker: Who needs to have their line busy?

Speaker: American pinball.

Speaker: Work something out.

Speaker: Well, guys, we've been doing this for an hour and a half now.

Speaker: Let's do some final thoughts and let's wrap this up.

Speaker: Now, I think Scott is part of our final thoughts.

Speaker: He wanted to explore some.

Speaker: He was having some selling issues.

Speaker: I worry for him.

Speaker: You know what?

Speaker: We can talk about it later, but I do want, I need advice on the best way to actually sell a pinball machine.

Speaker: I am a notorious hoarder with a lot of things.

Speaker: I actually have about 90 old NES games.

Speaker: And they still play because I bought a refurbished console.

Speaker: And so I have all these ways of holding on to those.

Speaker: Now I can hold on to 90 NES games, but I cannot hold on to 90 pinball machines because my wife would divorce me.

Speaker: So I need to figure out there's three machines that I have that I actually need to sell.

Speaker: And I need advice on the best way of moving them.

Speaker: Well, what do you hold up?

Speaker: This is an easy fix.

Speaker: What are you what are you struggling with?

Speaker: Calling or what?

Speaker: OK, so I actually need more of like a OK, if you're going to sell a game, these are the steps you take.

Speaker: You take pictures, you move it, all that kind of stuff.

Speaker: You list it this way.

Speaker: You list it this price range, anticipating you're going to get this.

Speaker: I just hate the whole haggling of it.

Speaker: That is my Achilles heel.

Speaker: Oh, that's my favorite part.

Speaker: I get probably... Can I ship them to you?

Speaker: Can I just ship three machines to you and sell them for me?

Speaker: Do take trade ends at flipping out pinball.

Speaker: No, I have usually about three people a day sending me pictures and wanting me to give them assessment on how much they should list.

Speaker: That doesn't get old.

Speaker: I'm joking, guys.

Speaker: I love it.

Speaker: Keep sending them.

Speaker: Yeah, you love it.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And they're like, I'm going to CoinTaker and buy a new one after I sell this game.

Speaker: But the one thing I tell them is, when do you want this to sell?

Speaker: That's the number one thing you have to ask yourself.

Speaker: When would you like this game to sell?

Speaker: It sounds like a stupid question, but if you need it to sell by this week,

Speaker: I'd give you a price.

Speaker: If you're not really in a rush to sell it, but you need to get rid of it, I'd give you a different price.

Speaker: Pricing is a big part of it.

Speaker: The other thing is exposure of where you're putting it.

Speaker: Putting it both on Pinside and Facebook is going to be a good idea.

Speaker: Other limitations of shipping, are you willing to ship it?

Speaker: That's going to market a lot of limitations and who's going to be looking at this game.

Speaker: And believe it or not, one of the most simple things that people are the worst at is just taking good pictures.

Speaker: You can get $30,000 to $40,000 more out of a typical average home based on the cheap iPhone pictures that you're taking.

Speaker: That's a fact.

Speaker: So take really nice, clear, take the glass off, take nice pictures,

Speaker: and you should be fine.

Speaker: Also list out every single thing that's on that pinball machine, anything additional.

Speaker: And here's the expert thing, for some reason people don't know, the nicer stuff that you've added to this game, put it on top, because you only get a couple seconds of somebody seeing this thing

Speaker: to see if they're interested or not.

Speaker: They're gonna look at the first big picture, they're gonna look at the price tag, and that's gonna determine whether or not they want to look further.

Speaker: So make sure in your main big item description, instead of just putting Metallica Pro,

Speaker: If it's got mods and stuff, you put Metallica Pro with extras.

Speaker: Boom.

Speaker: What are those extras?

Speaker: I want to see.

Speaker: It looks like the right price, but if he's got extras, that's even better.

Speaker: So you got to engage people to get in there to buy that.

Speaker: That and don't, like the longer a pen sits on the market, listener,

Speaker: The more people think there's something wrong with it, that is a guarantee.

Speaker: It's better to price it lower to get it quicker than it is continually reducing the price.

Speaker: As you continue to reduce that price, people are going to think there's something wrong with it.

Speaker: Now, there's probably nothing wrong with it, but it's a subconscious kind of thing.

Speaker: Oh, that's been sitting forever.

Speaker: I think I could, it's overpriced or something's wrong.

Speaker: Don't do that.

Speaker: But look at the comps on Pinside, see what they've sold for before.

Speaker: And if you're wanting to get rid of it,

Speaker: You make plenty of money.

Speaker: You're collecting pinball machines.

Speaker: Take $200 off of it and get rid of the damn thing.

Speaker: Agreed.

Speaker: That's fair.

Speaker: Sorry.

Speaker: That was any help there, but.

Speaker: No, no, it actually is help.

Speaker: I just need to get off my butt and do it.

Speaker: It's that, you know, that, that saying, if you, if you get up in the morning and have a frog, you eat it first thing.

Speaker: Cause that's like, you get that out of the way.

Speaker: And so you just move on.

Speaker: That's my frog that I just need to eat.

Speaker: It's, it's a weird analogy, but it's true.

Speaker: The other thing, I don't want to forget this and undercut it, but engage in people making comments.

Speaker: Because there's now a rhythm on Facebook or whatever.

Speaker: Every time you comment on somebody's comment, boom, it's going to kind of bump it back up to the top.

Speaker: Same thing with Pinside.

Speaker: If that sucker, you don't use the forum discussion on Pinside.

Speaker: You open yourself up by using it.

Speaker: So be careful not to overprice your pen.

Speaker: But if you do that forum option, then every time somebody makes a comment, boom, it jumps up to the forum.

Speaker: If you don't do that, it's going to get lost immediately.

Speaker: by somebody specifically searching for that machine.

Speaker: Use bold text sometimes, maybe even an asterisk or two to really draw attention to it.

Speaker: These are some of the free things that you can do without thrifty nickel, you know, paying extra money.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Put it in blue or something.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: All right.

Speaker: Oh, you know what?

Speaker: I think, I think everybody needs to consider Scott Larson's games and buy, buy, buy.

Speaker: That's what I think.

Speaker: Nice.

Speaker: Nice.

Speaker: And don't panic if it doesn't sell the first day either.

Speaker: I mean, I don't know why I get this mentality.

Speaker: I freak out if it doesn't sell in the first two days.

Speaker: And then all of a sudden there's a horde of people that are on my doorstep that want to buy the same machine all at the same time.

Speaker: So...

Speaker: That's right.

Speaker: And when somebody contacts you to ask about it and they're like, oh, well, can I get it next week or can you ship it?

Speaker: Like use that as an advantage, as a sales advantage too.

Speaker: Like if somebody has contacted you and is thinking about it, say, yes, I'd be happy.

Speaker: I'd be happy to let you come see it.

Speaker: Or if you want to buy it, that's fine.

Speaker: But I do have, I do have somebody, you know, interested in it, looking at it.

Speaker: So a quicker response would be better.

Speaker: Then psychologically they're like, oh crap, if I want this, I got to,

Speaker: you know poo or get off the pot here and it's it's just different sales techniques i guess yeah got it and and one advice to the buyer don't message someone a thousand dollars less than what they're asking and then turn around and tell them that you just bought that machine not even six months ago and sold it for twice what you're asking for now that's weird

Speaker: Yeah, I had a gentleman that said he'll buy my Flintstones for two grand, even though I was asking three.

Speaker: And when I told him no thank you, he then proceeded to tell me he sold one for six grand.

Speaker: That's right.

Speaker: So, uh... Oh, the Flintstones.

Speaker: Kind of weird.

Speaker: Well, where can we find you guys?

Speaker: Where can we find you, Dennis?

Speaker: Well, separate from Zach, I'm over with Eclectic Gamers Podcast, which is at eclecticgamers.com if people want to go and check out any of those episodes.

Speaker: We cover pinball and video games, so hence where my video game references come from.

Speaker: So I do that with my co-host, Tony Kerkowski.

Speaker: And then Zach has the details for the Pinball Network, where we both do the pinball show on Mondays.

Speaker: Yeah, the Pinball Network is a cavalcade of different content providers in pinball.

Speaker: Dennis and I specifically do a podcast called The Pinball Show.

Speaker: You can reach us there via email at thepinballnetworkatgmail.com.

Speaker: Or if you like any of the other podcasts, they might have their own email or Facebook page.

Speaker: But certainly, if you email the

Speaker: pinballnetwork at gmail.com.

Speaker: You can reach them.

Speaker: We will pass that along that way.

Speaker: You can also check us out on Facebook, on Instagram, on the Twitter, on the Twitch, twitch.tv slash pinballnetwork.

Speaker: What else did we, YouTube, I guess.

Speaker: There's all kinds of little things.

Speaker: And if you're, look, I've got to say it.

Speaker: If you're ready to buy a brand new pinball machine, you guys know the routine.

Speaker: I want to know if anybody knows my number by heart.

Speaker: Now let's say it all together.

Speaker: Listener it's eight, one, two, four, five, seven, nine, seven.

Speaker: I think they did say one, one.

Speaker: That's right.

Speaker: I'm not going to lie.

Speaker: I never call your cell phone number.

Speaker: It's always Facebook messenger for me.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: The quickest, quickest response is a message and email a text because every time I'm chatty, Kathy, every time somebody calls me and I have time to pick up, that's like 45 minutes that's gone where I get it.

Speaker: This is true.

Speaker: Don't ever call Zach.

Speaker: I still do not know how you do it.

Speaker: I've told you this before behind the scenes, Zach.

Speaker: I really do not know how you do your day job.

Speaker: You've got flipping out.

Speaker: You've got the pinball network.

Speaker: You've got – I mean – and I know that people are helping you with this and maybe I'm giving you a little too much credit.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: But you do a lot in this hobby.

Speaker: I appreciate it.

Speaker: No, it's my wife.

Speaker: She does a heck of a lot of it.

Speaker: So everybody's got these multiple roles in their lives.

Speaker: It's just some of my multiple roles are shared more so by my soulmate and Nicole.

Speaker: I still, I overdo it a lot.

Speaker: And the people that are the closest to me will tell you, like Dennis, that there are some negative things associated with me because I do as much as I can.

Speaker: So I'm late to things sometimes.

Speaker: I don't get back.

Speaker: I mean, there's things.

Speaker: So nothing special about me.

Speaker: Well, and obviously, Dennis is the sweetheart of the pinball community.

Speaker: Everybody loves him.

Speaker: Everyone does.

Speaker: Well, if you want to find us, we are at... Where are we?

Speaker: Crap.

Speaker: If you want to find us, we're at LoserKidPinball on Facebook and on Instagram and on Twitter.

Speaker: If you want to email us, it's LoserKidPinballPodcast at gmail.com.

Speaker: We are more than happy to hear from you.

Speaker: With Scott leaving a little early, I should not have left at last moment.

Speaker: I know, guys, you keep contacting us about the contest.

Speaker: We have picked a winner.

Speaker: We are going to get those swag bags out.

Speaker: But with Scott being gone, I don't want to say who has won.

Speaker: So we will save that for the next episode.

Speaker: I know everyone's on the edge of their seats.

Speaker: But thank you.

Speaker: Thank you for tuning in.

Speaker: Thank you, Dennis and Zach, for joining us.

Speaker: I feel bad.

Speaker: Like I said, I still feel bad.

Speaker: We could win another hour just disgusting this.

Speaker: And yeah.

Speaker: I don't think the listeners would appreciate that.

Speaker: Nope.

Speaker: Not the last time I'm talking about Rosa.

Speaker: Yeah, until Sunday.

Speaker: But thanks again for coming on, guys.

Speaker: Well, thank you for having us.

Speaker: Happy to do it.

Speaker: All right.

Speaker: Sorry.

Speaker: This has been a really wonky episode.

Speaker: I do apologize.

Speaker: I don't know if it's because it was no show notes or just Scott's voice.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Holy cow.

Speaker: Scott was the Batman of this episode.

Speaker: Yes, he definitely was.

Speaker: Where are the other deep roots going?

Speaker: Show me your pin.

Speaker: Where is she?

Speaker: I'm going to show you the difference between a pinball that works and a pinball that never gets revealed.

Speaker: Calm down there, Scotty 2 Hardy.

Speaker: Dr. Phil, you don't belong in Gotham.

Speaker: You need some anger management hanging with Mr. Cooper.

Speaker: My parents are dead.

Speaker: Oh my God.

Speaker: See, I can't do the cool voices like Dr. Phil and whatnot.

Speaker: So neither can I, that's what makes them fun.

Speaker: Oh my goodness.

Speaker: Oh, uh, Wazowski.

Speaker: Oh, not Wazowski.

Speaker: Sorry.

Speaker: Ross from monsters incorporated.

Speaker: Huh?

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Was he the big furry one?

Speaker: No, you ready for this?

Speaker: I haven't done this on air yet.

Speaker: So, um,

Speaker: Wazowski, you forgot to file your paperwork.

Speaker: Don't let it happen again.

Speaker: That's actually really, really good.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: I remember now.

Speaker: I remember the character now.

Speaker: That is really good.

Speaker: Dennis is a mean Mr. Henke.

Speaker: Hi to her, friends.

Speaker: Hey, Mr. Henke.

Speaker: Hey, Josh, you smell like flowers.

Speaker: Why, thank you, Mr. Henke.

Speaker: Thank you.

Speaker: I'm just here with the spirit of Christmas and not the spirit of Deep Root.

Speaker: Went off the rails when Larson lost his mind.

Speaker: Oh my.

Speaker: Yeah, we weren't coming back from that at all.

Speaker: I'm like, well, there goes everything.

Speaker: Our job here is done, buddy.

Speaker: I think it'll sound extra for behind the curtain with all the digital digitization we hear from him.

Speaker: You know, the pure report recording is probably going to sound 80% more raged.

Speaker: Oh, it probably is.

Speaker: Okay, I've got one more voice impersonation for you.

Speaker: Ready for this?

Speaker: All right.

Speaker: Hi.

Speaker: Ohama.

Speaker: Ohama means family.

Speaker: Family means no one gets left behind.

Speaker: Or forgotten.

Speaker: That's good, too.

Speaker: At first, I thought you were doing a golem.

Speaker: I thought he was doing the weirdo on the Star Wars episodes.

Speaker: Which one was that?

Speaker: Like a weird guy in the first three films.

Speaker: R2-D2?

Speaker: No, it's the guy with the nose.

Speaker: Hulk 2-D2.

Speaker: Hulk 2-D2.

Speaker: I don't do it.

Speaker: No, I got one for you.

Speaker: This is Zach when he's going to be older, right?

Speaker: For this.

Speaker: Want to come to my basement?

Speaker: You want a popsicle?

Speaker: Big strong boy like you like a popsicle.

Speaker: Only if I'm talking to Dennis.

Speaker: You want to get in my above ground pool?

Speaker: What?

Speaker: You should have seen side note, the guys that came over to pick up that brand new black night premium from Stern pinball.

Speaker: I told him I had to go.

Speaker: I was like, I got to go.

Speaker: I'm in the middle of a podcast.

Speaker: And they're like, you don't record.

Speaker: You're supposed to, you record on Sundays with Dennis.

Speaker: I was like, yeah, but we're with the loser kids.

Speaker: They're like, oh man, you're with the loser kids right now.

Speaker: Oh, I bet that's going to be an awesome episode.

Speaker: When's it going to air?

Speaker: I'm like, I got to go guys.

Speaker: because i would have i would have partied with them tonight hadn't it been uh for this episode so we've been you stole and they probably have paid so you basically robbed zach i am so sorry do you have an avengers in there i'm like yeah and they're like not that we want to come in and play because we haven't yet but man that would have been cool i'm like all right come on in come on in you gotta play it

Speaker: That's awesome.

Speaker: Well, I bet I better wrap this up.

Speaker: It's we've I, who knows?

Speaker: Well, it's going to make it into the episode.

Speaker: Scott's entire segment is cut.