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Ep 131: The Princess Bride and is Pinball Failing?
65 Plays2 years ago
We're talking about all the recent news and the newest release from Multipmorphic, The Princess Bride. Quick disclaimer, my mic picked up my children running around upstairs for a couple of minutes at the beginning of the episode.
Click here for all our social and merch links:
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Transcript
Upcoming Game Releases
00:00:07
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in to the Loser Kid Football Podcast.
00:00:09
Speaker
We are on episode 131.
00:00:11
Speaker
I am Josh Roop.
00:00:12
Speaker
With me, my co-captain, as always, Scott Larson.
00:00:15
Speaker
And Scott, it's been, news is like up and down right now, but there's plenty of games.
00:00:21
Speaker
If you want to buy some spooky release, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Looney Tunes, Stern just did Jaws.
00:00:27
Speaker
There's other games that are being rumored to come out.
00:00:29
Speaker
So if you want to get on those lists or you're looking for those new games, who are
Flippin' Out Pinball Customer Service
00:00:33
Speaker
you hitting up?
00:00:33
Speaker
I'm going to call Zach and Nicole Minnie at Flippin' Out Pinball.
00:00:36
Speaker
They have always been good to work with.
00:00:39
Speaker
The easiest thing really is to message them.
00:00:41
Speaker
There's a phone number too.
00:00:43
Speaker
They're always quite receptive.
00:00:44
Speaker
If you're looking for that new game, great.
00:00:46
Speaker
If you're looking for a way of upgrading your game, if you want a shaker motor, if you want a art blades, you know, all those types of things.
00:00:52
Speaker
And I've gotten all my toppers and you know how I always buy the toppers.
00:00:56
Speaker
I've got them all through them too.
00:00:58
Speaker
If you have an older game that you're looking for, so they can, they can fit any budget.
00:01:02
Speaker
So just reach out to them.
00:01:03
Speaker
They've always been friendly to work with.
00:01:06
Speaker
I agree.
00:01:06
Speaker
And you know, when I buy into a company, I don't mind paying a little extra.
00:01:12
Speaker
if I'm getting great customer service.
00:01:13
Speaker
And I feel like Zach and Nicole still give you a great price and great customer service.
00:01:17
Speaker
I think it's a great price and great service, which is, so you're not, you're actually not sacrificing service by going with their really competitive prices.
00:01:28
Speaker
Yes.
Caribbean Cruise Experiences
00:01:29
Speaker
So R2D, she's joining us tonight, huh?
00:01:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:35
Speaker
My father-in-law, father-in-law texting.
00:01:37
Speaker
Well, you and I were kind of out of like internet reception for the past week plus.
00:01:43
Speaker
Yeah, we were both in the Caribbean, but we were in parallel zones.
00:01:46
Speaker
You went Eastern Caribbean, I went Western Caribbean.
00:01:49
Speaker
So why don't you fill us in on your quick cruise update?
00:01:53
Speaker
Oh, it was great.
00:01:55
Speaker
If you're looking for a cheap cruise, Carnival's where it's at.
00:01:58
Speaker
And, you know, I don't drink and gambling's not really my thing.
00:02:02
Speaker
So it's kind of weird to be on a boat.
00:02:04
Speaker
It's like...
00:02:06
Speaker
Okay, but did you try the escargot?
00:02:08
Speaker
Yes, actually, they had frog legs.
00:02:11
Speaker
They did not have escargot, but they had frog legs.
00:02:13
Speaker
They were delicious.
00:02:14
Speaker
They were garlic butter.
00:02:17
Speaker
It was like a chicken wing.
00:02:18
Speaker
I think butter and garlic are definitely part of it.
00:02:22
Speaker
Yeah, that's what made it.
00:02:24
Speaker
So you went Eastern, I went Western.
00:02:26
Speaker
I actually, so I took the opposite and I ended up on a Disney cruise, but we were taking our in-laws and we needed something that was very, very family friendly, very low key.
Family-Friendly Disney Cruise
00:02:38
Speaker
And it was a great experience.
00:02:39
Speaker
And I got my son to try escargot.
00:02:43
Speaker
So that's one thing that's fun about cruises is you can try all the foods with no, like no penalty really.
00:02:51
Speaker
And escargot is actually pretty good.
00:02:53
Speaker
It's butter and garlic, just like you said.
00:02:57
Speaker
I don't know about your cruise, but on our cruise, there's a lot of older people.
00:03:00
Speaker
And so they don't season the food.
00:03:02
Speaker
Like I like a really good seat, you know, pepper and salt and spices.
00:03:06
Speaker
And it's like, you can definitely tell they're catering to someone that's going to complain if there's, Oh, the cholesterol rose or their sodium intake.
00:03:14
Speaker
You have the low sodium diet.
00:03:16
Speaker
Now ours was, we had a lot of, obviously it's a lot of families.
00:03:20
Speaker
So a lot of people with kids, my age and, and they just went to the kids club.
00:03:24
Speaker
So that, that was a lot of fun.
00:03:26
Speaker
And yeah, so we were out of circulation.
00:03:29
Speaker
We actually recorded right before we left and then we just got back and I've been running like a madman because when I take a vacation, I end up getting stacked with call shift.
00:03:39
Speaker
So I have a call shift tomorrow, so I'm going to be working late.
00:03:42
Speaker
Yeah, I keep looking at my phone like, I know he's back in the States, but he's not responding.
00:03:46
Speaker
Yeah, it must be work.
00:03:47
Speaker
Yeah, I've been pretty busy.
00:03:50
Speaker
Oh my goodness.
Twippy Episode Insights
00:03:52
Speaker
I speaking of which, so we did record the Twippy episode and I want to put some emphasis on this.
00:03:56
Speaker
This was a loser kid episode.
00:03:59
Speaker
where we were just sharing the Twippy results.
00:04:02
Speaker
And when Will reached out to us, he reached out to us like a week before voting shut down in January.
00:04:08
Speaker
And he just said, I just want you to read the results on the episode.
00:04:12
Speaker
And I was like, okay.
00:04:13
Speaker
And as I sat there and thought about it, I'm like, I don't know.
00:04:16
Speaker
It's really weird looking at past episodes of the Twippys, whether it was during COVID and they had recorded it.
00:04:24
Speaker
or the live shows.
00:04:26
Speaker
And so I was like, I feel really awkward just like pulling up the sheet of paper and be like, okay, this is who went topper.
00:04:31
Speaker
So that's when I was like, okay, I'm going to reach out to people I know.
00:04:35
Speaker
I'm going to reach out to the winners and just say, hey, we're just going to throw something together and we're going to release it as an episode.
00:04:43
Speaker
And it's kind of funny because like a lot of it was kind of play by ear.
00:04:47
Speaker
I never really...
00:04:48
Speaker
planned most of this out.
00:04:49
Speaker
Because I know like Dennis, like shout out to Dennis and Zach on the pinball show and thanks for the kind words.
00:04:55
Speaker
But Dennis was like, well, if we knew in advance, we would have promoted it.
00:04:58
Speaker
And I was like, yeah, but...
00:05:01
Speaker
The problem is I made the executive decision to release two weeks ago because really the prime slot honestly felt like it would have been last week to release.
Challenges in the Pinball Industry
00:05:10
Speaker
But I didn't want to overshower the DGNIs and everything Joe Ciaravano had done.
00:05:14
Speaker
And then one of my biggest complaints about the Twippies is you do all the voting and everything in December and then the results are done by January.
00:05:22
Speaker
You don't get to see anything until March.
00:05:25
Speaker
And I kind of wanted to get it pushed out and be like, Hey, this is the results.
00:05:29
Speaker
So I wanted it done sooner rather than later.
00:05:31
Speaker
And if I waited till we got back, it was end of February before this thing would even be showing.
00:05:36
Speaker
Right.
00:05:37
Speaker
You want to still strike while the iron's hot.
00:05:38
Speaker
And I, I will give full credit.
00:05:41
Speaker
Josh actually put most, put it together.
00:05:43
Speaker
He's the one who reached out.
00:05:44
Speaker
He's the one who gathered.
00:05:46
Speaker
And we all are aware that this was a challenging year for multiple reasons.
00:05:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:52
Speaker
It's, it's a format change.
00:05:53
Speaker
We were able to, uh, I I'm still very proud of what we did because we were able to get the winners on and hopefully you guys enjoyed the show.
00:06:03
Speaker
I appreciate that we were able to at least, uh, at least work under challenging circumstances and we'll see how, how the show evolves in the future.
00:06:12
Speaker
And I appreciate everybody who contributed, everybody who submitted and especially Josh for doing all the heavy lifting to coordinate and to edit everything.
00:06:21
Speaker
Well, thank you.
00:06:21
Speaker
And it was really fun to do.
00:06:25
Speaker
The other interesting part, I haven't done a lot of this.
00:06:27
Speaker
Like, we just started doing video podcasting this last year, right?
00:06:30
Speaker
Like, this is our first year.
00:06:32
Speaker
I've never really... The most I'd ever done was, like...
00:06:36
Speaker
video editing programs back in high school and high school was sadly 18 years ago.
00:06:40
Speaker
So it's been a minute and like, I'm not very used to YouTube.
00:06:45
Speaker
And so like the premier thing kind of made me nervous, but I wanted to do, that was the nice part about like the Twippies, even when it was a video, like you could have a chat going and discussing stuff in chat.
00:06:55
Speaker
And the nice part is I'd ask some people to help kind of regulate chat as well.
00:07:00
Speaker
And I want to thank those people that helped
00:07:03
Speaker
With that end, because the problem was, is you and I were traveling at that time.
00:07:06
Speaker
We were, and so we couldn't do it.
00:07:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:08
Speaker
And so, like I said, it was more of an executive decision that I was just like, you know what?
00:07:13
Speaker
I want this kind of just out there and, and we can go from there.
00:07:17
Speaker
And honestly, it was very well received in my opinion.
00:07:21
Speaker
It was better received than I thought it would just because of everything that happened with the Twippies this year.
00:07:25
Speaker
So yeah.
00:07:26
Speaker
Overall, I was happy with the result.
00:07:28
Speaker
Yeah, it was great.
00:07:29
Speaker
Congrats to the winners.
00:07:31
Speaker
Solid year of pinball and looking forward to what this next year comes with.
Twippy Awards Successes and Surprises
00:07:35
Speaker
Yep.
00:07:35
Speaker
What, 66% of the awards went to Stern and then congratulations to... It's amazing that Labyrinth took a couple of awards home being a brand new company.
00:07:47
Speaker
It shows that if you have the right concept and if you have the right execution, people will buy into that, right?
00:07:53
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:07:53
Speaker
Absolutely.
Is Pinball Declining or Evolving?
00:07:55
Speaker
Which makes me wonder, so Scott, we've, I kind of pitched this idea to you before we started the episode, but is pinball falling apart or are people just kind of nitpicking and wanting parts of it to fail?
00:08:07
Speaker
What do you think?
00:08:09
Speaker
I think pinball is changing.
00:08:12
Speaker
And when we were during the pandemic, we were looking for any sort of outlet.
00:08:19
Speaker
So
00:08:20
Speaker
having something that we can have in our home, really at home purchases of pinball machines really skyrocketed.
00:08:27
Speaker
Yes.
00:08:28
Speaker
So being able to have something that we typically have been entertained in a group situation that people were able to bring home.
00:08:37
Speaker
It was a lifeline to many people.
00:08:41
Speaker
It certainly was a challenging time for everybody, regardless of what you felt and regardless of
00:08:47
Speaker
which state you lived in, or everybody was affected somehow.
00:08:52
Speaker
In many ways, we were able to look at all the positives of what pinball was able to bring us in isolation.
00:09:01
Speaker
So in fairness, I would argue that we were probably overestimating the successes and the positives of pinball and maybe looking past some of the challenging aspects of it.
00:09:18
Speaker
Now, as we all kind of revert back to our normal thing, we're pretty much should be pretty much back to a similar mode of life.
00:09:30
Speaker
No one's wearing masks.
00:09:31
Speaker
No one's staying home.
00:09:32
Speaker
Every
Pinball Sales Boom During Pandemic
00:09:33
Speaker
kid's going to school.
00:09:35
Speaker
So we're able to look at it with maybe a more critical eye.
00:09:39
Speaker
Now, is it possible that people are accentuating now and looking more for the flaws?
00:09:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:47
Speaker
Yeah, probably.
00:09:47
Speaker
It's we're not as starved for pinball attention as we may have been when we were in isolation.
00:09:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:57
Speaker
So it's
00:09:59
Speaker
Unfortunately, a lot of times this is what happens in any hobby, in any sport, that eventually we start looking for things that we don't feel are where we want to be with a more critical eye.
00:10:16
Speaker
And I'd like to say that we've been fairly, I want to say we're balanced with a lean towards
American Pinball's Financial Challenges
00:10:22
Speaker
an optimistic view of what the hobby is.
00:10:25
Speaker
I feel like we're, we will point out like the cons and the pros, right?
00:10:29
Speaker
Like, and so, but I feel like there's a lot of negativity in the hobby right now.
00:10:34
Speaker
Like, let's take example.
00:10:36
Speaker
Um, you know, there's a lot of, a lot of slack around the, uh,
00:10:42
Speaker
american pinball you know the way that was released that was via kill on the eclectic gamers not collecting sorry electric bat arcade podcast and it was actually was done sorry via pinball party kill owns also electric bat and he has an art he has a podcast for that if you haven't checked any of those out check them all out but just the way it was presented and whatnot and it kind of like was fanned by the fire and then like american never like they kind of shut it down but
00:11:08
Speaker
Yeah, anywho, but it seems like people were freaking out about American.
00:11:12
Speaker
And then all that stuff that happened with Multimorphic just a couple months ago about the 3D printing and whatnot.
00:11:19
Speaker
And then, you know, it just... And Haggis has been kind of under fire lately.
00:11:25
Speaker
And then they released a letter, which congrats them for being transparent and whatnot.
00:11:29
Speaker
But them saying that they're slowing down production to refocus and recapitalize.
00:11:34
Speaker
And it just seems like there's a lot of like people are pushing this narrative, like just pinball is really terrible right now.
00:11:43
Speaker
Shark No Eat Ball, right?
00:11:44
Speaker
With Stern Pinball.
00:11:45
Speaker
Like no one's immune to what's going on.
00:11:49
Speaker
And maybe it's just people being critical of something
Revenue Streams in Pinball Industry
00:11:53
Speaker
or being justified in being critical.
00:11:55
Speaker
I don't know, but I'm just like, there's a lot of pessimism right now in the hobby.
00:12:02
Speaker
Let's talk about some of these topics I brought up.
00:12:04
Speaker
What do you think of the American Pinball stuff?
00:12:08
Speaker
The challenge with any business,
00:12:11
Speaker
is you need to look at revenue.
00:12:14
Speaker
So to make a business profitable, you have to bring in revenue, whether that's through services or whether that's through sales.
00:12:25
Speaker
So it is reasonable to look at a company and think you have a company here.
00:12:32
Speaker
And if your revenue stream is selling pinball machines,
00:12:38
Speaker
It's not too difficult to say there will be challenging days ahead if you are not selling a certain number of machines.
00:12:49
Speaker
You can also look at, and this is just the finger in the wind test to find out where the wind's blowing.
00:12:57
Speaker
You need to ask, we're involved with a lot of enthusiasts in pinball who buy machines.
00:13:05
Speaker
how many of our friends and are the immediate buzz is around purchasing a new American pinball game.
00:13:13
Speaker
And it's not as much as it would be for competitors.
00:13:17
Speaker
So from a business standpoint, if you're thinking, is it a, is it an at-risk company?
00:13:25
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:13:25
Speaker
Just by the word of mouth, because if it were a
00:13:29
Speaker
Solid company right now, you would see a lot of machines going out, a lot of machines on location and a lot of distributors pushing their machines.
00:13:38
Speaker
Since I don't see that, my, just my business eye says that they may be going through hard times.
00:13:46
Speaker
I'm not sure if that means that now people have started extrapolating on that.
00:13:51
Speaker
People have started saying, well, I'm telegraphing, I'm saying, I'm connecting this dot with that dot.
00:13:57
Speaker
And therefore it means the company's up for sale.
00:14:01
Speaker
The company's going bankrupt, the company, just whatever.
00:14:03
Speaker
But those are all speculations to be frank.
00:14:08
Speaker
But the fact that we have all seen with our eyes is they're not selling as many machines as they probably should to have a healthy, viable current operation.
00:14:20
Speaker
Well, it doesn't even help either that like fix came on our show and then the numbers because we asked how many games are you producing?
00:14:26
Speaker
And I only think I was so confused by time.
00:14:30
Speaker
I'm not sure.
00:14:32
Speaker
And I couldn't even understand which number he was really dialing in on.
00:14:36
Speaker
He was talking about having numbers per day that you could do.
00:14:40
Speaker
But if you're like, okay, so did you sell 2000?
00:14:44
Speaker
Cause an average year has roughly 200 working days in it.
00:14:52
Speaker
Maybe 300 if you want to add like, you know, some, some other stuff.
00:14:56
Speaker
So that would be like, okay, so if you're making a few machines, even a few machines a day, does that mean you're selling 2000, 3000 games?
00:15:04
Speaker
And we, we just know that they're not selling that many.
00:15:10
Speaker
as what they could do.
00:15:13
Speaker
I wish them well.
00:15:14
Speaker
I hope they do provide an alternative option for many people who are not interested in the standard releases that Stern is putting out or even JJP or even the American Pinball remakes.
00:15:28
Speaker
It's a viable alternative.
00:15:30
Speaker
I don't feel they are manufacturing to what they need to.
00:15:34
Speaker
You mean Chicago gaming remakes?
00:15:35
Speaker
You said American pinball remakes.
00:15:37
Speaker
I'm sorry, yes.
00:15:37
Speaker
Chicago pinball remakes.
00:15:40
Speaker
But it does bring up a good point.
00:15:42
Speaker
And here's the thing about American.
00:15:43
Speaker
I think, yeah, like, it stinks that they're not making licensed games, per se.
00:15:49
Speaker
And the next one, which is rumored to be at Texas Pinball Festival, which is Barry Ossler's final game, which was given the nickname Food Truck.
00:15:59
Speaker
I don't know if that's the official name that we're going to see.
00:16:02
Speaker
But, like,
00:16:03
Speaker
That has been one of the major complaints.
00:16:05
Speaker
But the nice part, like the positives of American, I feel like they're producing games at a good rate.
00:16:11
Speaker
I feel like the quality...
00:16:13
Speaker
of the build is good.
00:16:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:15
Speaker
Like you can cite like Galactic Tank Force, those targets right below the tank when they first
American Pinball's Market Entry
00:16:20
Speaker
were being produced were not great.
00:16:22
Speaker
Like they, they were getting damaged really easily, especially where you're hitting them repeatedly, but they, they, they, they crack down, they fix that problem and they send it out.
00:16:30
Speaker
And I haven't heard any more issues about that.
00:16:32
Speaker
So I just, I feel like Americans really good at producing games and fixing when there's something wrong.
00:16:41
Speaker
And so I feel like American should get a little bit of a benefit of the doubt.
00:16:44
Speaker
It is a little bit nervous when you hear that investors coming in or they're shopping out American.
00:16:49
Speaker
Their parent company, Amtron, could be shopping them out, which could be.
00:16:53
Speaker
That's a rumor, right?
00:16:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:55
Speaker
If you haven't listened to Jeff Teolis' pinball profile where he had David Fix on, it sounded like they did talk to an investor, but it was not on the same level like being shopped out.
00:17:04
Speaker
I don't know.
00:17:06
Speaker
Go listen to your – Go listen to Jeff.
00:17:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:08
Speaker
Go listen to Jeff's interview.
00:17:10
Speaker
And I want to actually put a quick plug in for, for Jeff Teal's that man is gotta be the most unruh, un, not unrelated, underestimated, uh,
00:17:22
Speaker
What's what's what I'm looking for, Scott?
00:17:24
Speaker
Jeff is underappreciated for everything.
00:17:27
Speaker
Everything he does in pinball, he actually does work.
00:17:30
Speaker
He's very connected behind the scenes.
00:17:32
Speaker
He knows a lot about what's going on and having David on and interviewing him and giving him a forum.
00:17:39
Speaker
So David could actually say in his own words, what's going on behind the scenes is a huge benefit.
00:17:45
Speaker
So I do appreciate everything Jeff does because it is understated compared to other other media options.
00:17:52
Speaker
I know that very nice things have been said about us lately, and I appreciate that, but I'm like, there's other people behind the scenes that I feel like deserve some recognition.
00:18:01
Speaker
I know Jeff isn't the kind of guy who like, recognize me.
00:18:04
Speaker
He's probably the last person to ever say that.
00:18:06
Speaker
But I feel like Jeff does deserve some recognition for what he does for the hobby.
00:18:12
Speaker
Between pinball profile, between commentating and tournaments, even just the goofiness of final round.
00:18:17
Speaker
I mean, the reach arounds has to be one of my favorite award shows that have ever been done for pinball.
00:18:22
Speaker
So it is what it is.
00:18:22
Speaker
But anyhow, the point being, go check out pinball profile if you've never checked them out.
00:18:27
Speaker
I know there's a lot of new people in the hobby.
00:18:28
Speaker
We appreciate you tuning in.
00:18:30
Speaker
and uh go listen to pinball profile on david fix also another plug for the new people in the hosie because i got this comment a couple times which is kind of weird people don't know we have a youtube scott and apparently don't bring it up enough we're on the youtubes yeah and if you haven't done this yet run to our youtube and subscribe check us out we are doing this as a video podcast as well just in case you haven't checked us out we're gorgeous
00:18:53
Speaker
We're gorgeous.
00:18:54
Speaker
We are attractive men.
00:18:55
Speaker
Yes.
00:18:56
Speaker
If you think our voices are sexy, you should just see Scott in that loser kid hat.
00:19:02
Speaker
So, okay.
00:19:04
Speaker
Let's go on to, from a purely fans standpoint, what is your wish for American pinball for the next year?
Hopes for American Pinball's Future
00:19:14
Speaker
For the next year,
00:19:16
Speaker
Release Food Truck.
00:19:17
Speaker
People love it.
00:19:19
Speaker
It's a game that people enjoy and want to have in their house.
00:19:23
Speaker
And they're able to move forward raising numbers of production and look to the future of finally getting those licensed themes in.
00:19:32
Speaker
I mean...
00:19:35
Speaker
it would be insane to have some of the, uh, I'm trying to think there were some, some licenses.
00:19:40
Speaker
Maybe we can't discuss them.
00:19:41
Speaker
Nevermind.
00:19:42
Speaker
I'm not going to say anything.
00:19:43
Speaker
Okay.
00:19:44
Speaker
Okay.
00:19:44
Speaker
Well, okay.
00:19:45
Speaker
I will actually say my wish for American pinball.
00:19:49
Speaker
My, my wish for American pinball.
00:19:52
Speaker
Stop releasing unlicensed things.
00:19:54
Speaker
Yes.
00:19:55
Speaker
This is, we're 30 years past that.
00:19:58
Speaker
What really kept Stern afloat during the dark years, right after Pinball 2000 imploded, and they were the last, the last pinball manufacturer standing, was when they were leaning heavily into licenses.
00:20:15
Speaker
So they released Lord of the Rings.
00:20:18
Speaker
They released the Simpsons.
00:20:20
Speaker
Even, wow, these are like D-list things, but even releasing Monopoly and Wheel of Fortune, okay?
00:20:28
Speaker
These are not great themes, but they are identifiable themes.
00:20:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:34
Speaker
And the bottom line is if you need to budget $300 to $500 to buy some sort of market space with an identifiable brand, you need to do that.
00:20:47
Speaker
So that's my first wish.
00:20:50
Speaker
Second wish, you need to make more games.
00:20:55
Speaker
And the bottom line is you need to find something that is going to be a, that will connect with people.
00:21:03
Speaker
And this is now they released Hot Wheels.
00:21:06
Speaker
Yes.
00:21:07
Speaker
Hot Wheels was not a great pinball theme for me because you're yes.
00:21:12
Speaker
Although it's a well-recognized brand, I don't think that the Venn diagram of pinball enthusiasts and Hot Wheels enthusiasts overlap that much.
00:21:25
Speaker
So you need to find something that's relevant to pinball.
00:21:29
Speaker
I'm not saying you need to do a dad rock game.
00:21:31
Speaker
because we all know Stern and JJP are releasing the dad rock things, but there's a reason why they're releasing the dad rock things.
00:21:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:40
Speaker
Because they are selling.
00:21:43
Speaker
So find something that, find a theme that's relevant to pinball and lean heavily into that.
00:21:49
Speaker
We know that JJP sold a ton of Guns N' Roses.
00:21:55
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:21:55
Speaker
Games.
00:21:56
Speaker
Jack Greenery said on our episode, it was the best selling game they've had so far.
00:22:00
Speaker
Right.
00:22:01
Speaker
Do you think it would have sold as much if it were glam rock?
00:22:07
Speaker
No, of course not.
00:22:07
Speaker
I mean, you have that thing.
00:22:09
Speaker
Now I'm not saying you need to have a guns and roses thing, but find something that's going to connect.
00:22:15
Speaker
I don't know.
00:22:16
Speaker
Try an eighties classic cartoon GI Joe.
00:22:20
Speaker
He, I don't know something like that.
00:22:22
Speaker
Cause it's in that era of the demographic of people who are willing to spend money on games.
00:22:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:27
Speaker
You know, yeah.
00:22:29
Speaker
And my understanding is they are looking in that direction.
00:22:32
Speaker
I think the problem is the timeline, it feels like it's forever, right?
00:22:36
Speaker
I know Galactic Tank Force just released last Texas Pinball Festival.
00:22:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:41
Speaker
But it's almost...
00:22:43
Speaker
I don't know what the designers they have on board and whatnot.
00:22:46
Speaker
They can start cranking these out more.
00:22:48
Speaker
I hope the timeline escalates or, you know, right.
00:22:53
Speaker
They need to do shorter runs.
00:22:54
Speaker
They need to do shorter runs, like focus on kind of what's how spooky got off the ground.
00:23:01
Speaker
Focus on
00:23:02
Speaker
a limited run of something.
00:23:05
Speaker
That way you can really keep your focus as a manufacturer to say, hey, we're going to make 500 of these things.
00:23:11
Speaker
Boom, out the door.
00:23:13
Speaker
We're going to make five.
00:23:14
Speaker
And if you start out, you know, outpacing what your demand is, then that's when you start looking for, okay, we're going to do a premium version.
00:23:23
Speaker
We're going to do an unlimited.
00:23:24
Speaker
There's a reason why Stern has their model the way they have it.
00:23:28
Speaker
And Jersey Jack basically has copied that model.
00:23:31
Speaker
Well, and the other thing, too, is I think American does understand they need licenses.
00:23:35
Speaker
They've heard this for a while now.
00:23:36
Speaker
And I think Barry's next game is a tribute to him.
00:23:40
Speaker
They want to do it for him.
00:23:42
Speaker
And then we've heard the next one.
00:23:43
Speaker
Technically, it is a license.
00:23:45
Speaker
If it is Whitewater, they're going to have to hit a planetary pinball.
00:23:48
Speaker
They're going to have to get the license.
00:23:50
Speaker
Sure.
00:23:50
Speaker
Just like Stern had to for Black Knight.
00:23:52
Speaker
Like Black Knight wasn't just something they got to make up.
00:23:55
Speaker
Sure.
00:23:55
Speaker
They had to go.
00:23:56
Speaker
But that's also that's a very niche like the Venn diagram for people who are fans of Whitewater and fans of pinball.
00:24:05
Speaker
It's a circle within a circle because first you have pinball enthusiasts and
00:24:10
Speaker
And then inside Pinball Enthusiasts, you have a fan base for Black Knight.
00:24:16
Speaker
So that's one of the reasons why it was challenging for Black Knight to sell.
00:24:21
Speaker
Because even though it was a well-respected theme, it didn't branch out.
00:24:26
Speaker
It didn't connect other people.
00:24:29
Speaker
We know that Led Zeppelin is a, I'm just going to say a decent game.
00:24:36
Speaker
It's not a terrible game.
00:24:37
Speaker
It's not a great game.
00:24:37
Speaker
It's a decent game.
00:24:39
Speaker
but you're going to get people who are led Zeppelin fans who are buying this game.
00:24:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:44
Speaker
And that's what makes me laugh too.
00:24:45
Speaker
It's like, so let's talk about that just for a split second.
00:24:48
Speaker
So led Zeppelin, I'm not a fan of it, right?
00:24:52
Speaker
Like you've, you owned it.
00:24:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:55
Speaker
Still do it in my garage, but still, still doing it.
00:24:58
Speaker
But what has shocked me is I have talked to people behind the scenes that say led Zeppelin, led Zeppelin still selling like hotcakes.
00:25:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:05
Speaker
It sells because it's a great theme.
00:25:07
Speaker
Yep.
00:25:08
Speaker
And that's what boggles my mind is because, in my opinion, Led Zeppelin doesn't even crack the top 10 of Steve Ritchie.
00:25:15
Speaker
It probably doesn't even crack his top 15.
00:25:17
Speaker
It just... But the other funny part, too, is the theme is very integral, right?
00:25:25
Speaker
We were told recently, too, that Black Knight is not the worst-selling Spike 2 game for Stern.
00:25:30
Speaker
And so it is what it is.
00:25:32
Speaker
So I think it just depends.
00:25:35
Speaker
I think Whitewater's a good...
00:25:37
Speaker
It's a good theme.
00:25:38
Speaker
If you're going to be doing original theming, I think American pinball picked right.
00:25:43
Speaker
If it is Whitewater.
00:25:46
Speaker
Whitewater is still good for them, though.
00:25:49
Speaker
So Black Knight may not have been great for Stern because they were looking for higher sales numbers.
00:25:55
Speaker
Correct.
00:25:55
Speaker
But Whitewater would be a great theme for American pinball because you can be successful on a lower run.
00:26:02
Speaker
Correct.
00:26:03
Speaker
I think it still sells more than Houdini, which is their best selling game.
00:26:06
Speaker
No, probably.
P3's Princess Bride Pinball Machine
00:26:08
Speaker
All right, moving on.
00:26:08
Speaker
Speaking of Jeff Teolis and getting David Fix on, he this week got on Jerry Stenberg, Josh Coogler, and Colin McAlpine to talk about their newest release, The Princess Bride.
00:26:23
Speaker
What do you think of P3 obtaining this license and making this into...
00:26:30
Speaker
I, in my personal opinion, this game looks amazing.
00:26:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:34
Speaker
Have you seen this yet, Scott?
00:26:35
Speaker
What are your thoughts on it?
00:26:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:37
Speaker
It's, it's great having that theme.
00:26:41
Speaker
It, the princess bride, there are fair few movies that I would rank as perfect movies from start to finish.
00:26:48
Speaker
Yes.
00:26:49
Speaker
And princess bride, it's a perfect movie.
00:26:51
Speaker
Yes, it is.
00:26:53
Speaker
So having that theme, um,
00:26:55
Speaker
It connects across multiple generations.
00:26:58
Speaker
It's an accessible layout.
00:27:02
Speaker
And it integrates well within their system.
00:27:05
Speaker
It will sell the most P3 games compared to any other release they have, including Weird Al.
00:27:15
Speaker
Because getting back to the Venn diagram, the Venn diagram for Princess Bride is huge.
00:27:22
Speaker
It really is.
00:27:23
Speaker
I'm surprised no one's done this before.
00:27:25
Speaker
It dwarfs the pinball circle.
00:27:28
Speaker
The circle for Princess Bride is huge.
00:27:31
Speaker
So it will sell games.
00:27:36
Speaker
Now, if I'm going to nitpick...
00:27:39
Speaker
with systems.
00:27:41
Speaker
This is the challenge with having the P3 though, is because there are questions about with other pinball companies, they have like a, okay, this is a system 11 game.
00:27:55
Speaker
Or this is a Spike game or this is, you know, a White Star game.
00:28:01
Speaker
You know, you have these definite operating systems which roughly correlate to a gaming system.
00:28:10
Speaker
So, like, you had the Xbox and then you had the Xbox 360 and then you have the whatever those things are.
00:28:18
Speaker
Xbox One, yeah, yep.
00:28:19
Speaker
Yeah, so they release and you're saying, okay, in that era, the challenge with P3 has always been, are you going to, at some point, are you going to have to buy a different...
00:28:32
Speaker
a different pinball machine so you can plug these modules in because we all know technology becomes obsolete eventually.
00:28:40
Speaker
Yeah, they can't.
00:28:41
Speaker
Well, and whether it becomes obsolete because the software can't run it or because you can't get parts anymore.
00:28:46
Speaker
Right.
00:28:47
Speaker
I mean, how much more of these chips and stuff are they going to be able to get a hold of for these P3 rocks?
00:28:52
Speaker
When are we going to, I mean, Hex Stern is on, they're releasing Spike 3 here within the next year.
00:28:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:58
Speaker
So that's the wish list of, so if I'm, if I'm giving a wish list of for P3 is to be able to find ways of updating your system without having to buy a completely new pinball console.
00:29:17
Speaker
for lack of a better analogy.
00:29:19
Speaker
However, having the Princess Bride as a home run, having it being a family-friendly game, that is not super difficult.
00:29:29
Speaker
Just by me looking at it, I haven't played it.
00:29:32
Speaker
But it looks like a family-friendly game.
00:29:33
Speaker
It's awesome.
00:29:34
Speaker
You have Colin McAlpine, who is well-respected.
00:29:38
Speaker
in the pinball community.
00:29:40
Speaker
He is a top player, a top professional or a top competitive pinball player is what I mean to say.
00:29:48
Speaker
He's sponsored and he's- He is sponsored.
00:29:50
Speaker
I mean, yeah, exactly.
00:29:52
Speaker
So- He's just a great dude.
00:29:54
Speaker
Like he- And Colin is, by the way, one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet.
00:29:57
Speaker
So having them involved in this,
00:30:00
Speaker
is definitely a huge plus and it's a huge step forward.
00:30:06
Speaker
This is the type of thing that would really also work well with something like American Pinball if they were to say, hey, we're going to do a classic movie that people love.
00:30:17
Speaker
So it was a home run for them to nail this down.
00:30:20
Speaker
I'm glad they have it and it will definitely help move units.
00:30:27
Speaker
Definitely.
00:30:29
Speaker
And
00:30:30
Speaker
the one thing that they really pointed out on the podcast, if you haven't listened to it, go listen to it, pinball profile again.
00:30:34
Speaker
Uh, but they, they pointed out, they got all the assets.
00:30:39
Speaker
They were given everything for the movie.
00:30:42
Speaker
And so it's, if you're a fan of princess bride, I think you're going to be very well pleased with what you see.
00:30:49
Speaker
The one thing that stood out to me, um,
00:30:52
Speaker
The animations, I felt like, were above and beyond what they have been in the past.
00:30:58
Speaker
I feel like it's almost like a JJP quality, which I know that, like... That's high praise.
00:31:04
Speaker
That's high praise.
00:31:05
Speaker
I felt like they were going for that style, right?
00:31:07
Speaker
Like, if you've ever played The Hobbit, and it's just the way that The Hobbit's presented on the back glass and stuff like that, I feel like it was kind of that same concept coming into Princess Bride.
00:31:17
Speaker
Also, speaking of American Pinball, Josh Kugler is now doing software on this game.
00:31:21
Speaker
He was with American Pinball for Houdini, Oktoberfest, and Hot Wheels.
00:31:27
Speaker
I don't know if they ever said why he was left.
00:31:32
Speaker
People change jobs all the time.
00:31:34
Speaker
I'm not going to overanalyze that.
00:31:38
Speaker
But we actually had him on episode 36 before.
00:31:42
Speaker
I still feel bad for American at that point because they release Hot Wheels and then COVID happened.
00:31:47
Speaker
Like, yeah, it was.
00:31:48
Speaker
Boom, boom.
00:31:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:50
Speaker
So but no, I'm really excited for for Jerry and company there at Multimorphic.
00:31:56
Speaker
And this game, like you said, it is is an evergreen title.
00:31:59
Speaker
And one thing too is I think it's smart that they have lowered the entry point if you're buying a cabinet.
00:32:07
Speaker
So typically it was like $13,000 with the module and everything with module now for a standard editions 11.4.
00:32:15
Speaker
So it's smart to get people in and then, you know, if they want to purchase because –
00:32:21
Speaker
If it were me, I'd buy Princess Bride and Weird Al.
00:32:26
Speaker
And just ship them both together.
00:32:28
Speaker
Heck, even Final Resistance.
00:32:32
Speaker
I think it's one of those things.
00:32:33
Speaker
Once you get into P3, you'd be very happy and stay there.
00:32:37
Speaker
I've never personally owned one.
00:32:39
Speaker
So I guess I can't say yay or nay.
00:32:43
Speaker
It's still in the...
00:32:45
Speaker
it's a good option for people with limited space.
00:32:49
Speaker
There are still reasonable doubters out there just because, and this is one challenge with having a module, or sorry, a pinball console.
00:33:03
Speaker
I'm just going to start calling it that because that's basically what it is.
00:33:06
Speaker
You plug in a new game.
00:33:08
Speaker
Blow in the cartridge and plug it in.
00:33:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:11
Speaker
By the way, that didn't work.
00:33:12
Speaker
Just, just in case you're wondering, there's actually, it says that actually did more damage to the games.
00:33:18
Speaker
Um, but if one of the, if it goes down, then you're limited because you, if you can have 10 different modules and if your system goes down, then you can't just say, oh, well, okay.
00:33:32
Speaker
Um,
00:33:33
Speaker
My Stern game is down.
00:33:34
Speaker
I'm going to go play my JJP or I'm going to go play a different.
00:33:36
Speaker
So there are challenges to that.
00:33:39
Speaker
However, it, it's a, still a great, it feels like a pinball machine.
00:33:44
Speaker
It really does.
00:33:45
Speaker
It's, it's a different version of a pinball machine, but it is pinball.
00:33:50
Speaker
So it's, if it's something you're interested in, this is a, a stunning title to bring you into their, into their fold.
00:33:58
Speaker
And I'm jealous for those that are going to be at Texas Pinball Festival because this will be there.
00:34:03
Speaker
Jerry said they're going to have rows of them there.
00:34:05
Speaker
Maybe not rows, but they said they're going to have quite a few there.
00:34:08
Speaker
And so I think it's going to be the one that everyone wants to play at a festival this year.
00:34:16
Speaker
And so...
00:34:18
Speaker
Speaking of festival, which is we're four weeks away.
00:34:23
Speaker
Holy crap.
00:34:25
Speaker
Who else do you think reveals?
00:34:27
Speaker
We've already had spooky with Texas pinball or Texas, Texas pinball festival, pinball coming at you.
00:34:33
Speaker
Texas pinball massacre.
00:34:36
Speaker
That'd be kind of funny actually.
00:34:38
Speaker
Stern just did jaws.
00:34:41
Speaker
Here's the reveal from, from multimorphic.
00:34:43
Speaker
Do we see something from JJP?
00:34:46
Speaker
I say no, no, it's, they're still, they're still making Elton and Elton.
00:34:53
Speaker
It's, it is a great game.
00:34:55
Speaker
I it's, uh, it, that would be a fun game to have, but there's no way they're going to do that right on the heels of Elton John.
00:35:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:06
Speaker
Um, haggis.
00:35:09
Speaker
I, well, we can already talk about that.
00:35:11
Speaker
We can talk about haggis.
00:35:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:12
Speaker
they released a letter recently stating they're going to have to slow down production and recapitalize and kind of refocus what they're doing.
00:35:20
Speaker
So I assume they're not going to have anything at Texas pinball festival, especially since they haven't started producing centaurs yet.
00:35:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:28
Speaker
It's the letter.
00:35:30
Speaker
I appreciate that.
00:35:31
Speaker
They are being upfront with challenges that certainly helps out.
00:35:38
Speaker
They have the same problem in a different way that American pinball has.
00:35:44
Speaker
They're not making enough.
00:35:47
Speaker
They're not making enough.
00:35:49
Speaker
And the challenge that we have with them is they're also have the additional challenge of being a foreign company.
00:35:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:59
Speaker
And they're, they are marketing outside of the Mecca of pinball, which is Chicago.
00:36:05
Speaker
They're dealing with all sorts of manufacturing issues down there.
00:36:13
Speaker
Their letter, while I appreciate them being upfront with it, it tells me that the money is tight.
00:36:22
Speaker
And they cannot leverage buying power to minimize costs.
00:36:27
Speaker
I mean, that's what Stern does.
00:36:28
Speaker
We've talked about this before.
00:36:30
Speaker
If Stern wants to make a thousand games, they order parts for a thousand games.
00:36:35
Speaker
If you're making 10 games, you're not going to get the volume discount that you get for a thousand games.
00:36:40
Speaker
So.
00:36:41
Speaker
you're going to be having to ask more money for your games.
00:36:46
Speaker
You're competing on the same level, just like the game right behind you.
00:36:50
Speaker
The question in everybody's mind is, does this cost, is it worth a Godzilla premium?
00:37:00
Speaker
And that's kind of my standard analysis on pinball.
00:37:04
Speaker
And there's a lot of games that you're not going to get the same value
00:37:09
Speaker
package that you're going to get from a Godzilla premium, but that Godzilla is, it's riding on a well-oiled machine that Stern is in being able to manufacture a super high quality game for a lower price.
00:37:25
Speaker
And it's really hard for these smaller companies to compete.
00:37:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:30
Speaker
And this tells me that they are struggling to compete on the same level with that letter.
00:37:36
Speaker
Now, it's still good that they're admitting that, hey, there are some challenges here.
00:37:42
Speaker
I wouldn't say it's a red flag, but I will say that it tells me the company is going through some evolution right now.
00:37:51
Speaker
And we wish them the best.
00:37:52
Speaker
I know that there has been some issues with the Fathom runs and whatnot, and
00:37:59
Speaker
I mean, I guess everyone it's hard, right?
00:38:01
Speaker
Because like when someone has a problem, it seems like they go to social media and the amplified.
00:38:06
Speaker
And I know like within heating and air conditioning.
00:38:09
Speaker
So I've been doing this for almost 20 years now.
00:38:13
Speaker
Truly only about 0.07% of the product has an issue without out of the box.
00:38:19
Speaker
But the problem is that 0.07 of people might voice their distaste on Google.
Haggis Manufacturing Dilemmas
00:38:27
Speaker
And so the problem is it makes the issue look bigger.
00:38:30
Speaker
But so long as they're taking care of those issues, and I sure hope they are, I think you give them the benefit of the doubt.
00:38:41
Speaker
I just listened to Eclectic Gamers podcast with Tony and Dennis, and they did a really great job on talking about this haggis.
00:38:48
Speaker
If you haven't listened to it, we do recommend you go there and give them a listen.
00:38:52
Speaker
But they give really in-depth about the letter.
00:38:54
Speaker
And I agree with Dennis.
00:38:55
Speaker
The best thing that haggis could do is move production to America.
00:39:00
Speaker
And look at David Van Ness.
00:39:02
Speaker
He's from New Zealand, right?
00:39:04
Speaker
But barrels of fun is in Houston.
00:39:07
Speaker
So he understands that, you know, you've got to have it in a place where you can get product because this is where it's built.
00:39:13
Speaker
This is where all the, all the parts and everything.
00:39:15
Speaker
Right.
00:39:16
Speaker
And so I really think that's the biggest challenge is, is being in Australia.
00:39:20
Speaker
It's hard to, especially where you're, if you are buying product as the money comes in, it's hard because it's like, well, the money came on in, so now I can buy it.
00:39:30
Speaker
stuff to build it that could take two to three months and yada yada so you're gonna have a lag you're gonna have a significant lag and with pinball machine you have a steel ball flying around a machine with switches plastic glass screws metal something is going to break that that's physics right
00:39:54
Speaker
So you need to find a way, not necessarily, there's a reason why you can make video game consoles across the world and ship them here because for the most part, they're not mechanical.
00:40:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:06
Speaker
But you need to have a way of repairing a mechanical game.
00:40:11
Speaker
And the best way to repair a mechanical game is to have your manufacturing facilities in the area that most of the players of that game are.
00:40:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:24
Speaker
All right.
00:40:25
Speaker
Speaking back to Texas Pinball Festival.
00:40:27
Speaker
So obviously Haggis probably won't have anything there.
00:40:31
Speaker
Is there any other company that we've missed?
00:40:33
Speaker
I know like Pinball Ventures did talk about Sorcerer.
00:40:36
Speaker
I highly doubt that'll be down there.
00:40:37
Speaker
Ninja Eclipse is probably as far as it's going to get.
00:40:39
Speaker
I highly doubt that Turner Pinball is going to reveal anything.
00:40:44
Speaker
I feel bad.
00:40:44
Speaker
Am I missing anyone?
00:40:47
Speaker
There's been the rumor Twilight Zone, which we don't know if it's CGC or if this is a brand new company.
00:40:52
Speaker
My understanding is it's not CGC making Twilight Zone.
00:40:56
Speaker
Yeah, so I don't know who that would be.
00:40:59
Speaker
It could be a company.
00:41:00
Speaker
CGC better not be revealing anything at Texas Pinball.
00:41:02
Speaker
Yeah, because CGC is, they're definitely still, they're still working on the Pulp Fiction.
00:41:09
Speaker
CGC has going for it that they have a quality reputation.
00:41:15
Speaker
Yes.
00:41:16
Speaker
And in fairness, I would say they probably have the best quality reputation in the business right now.
00:41:23
Speaker
I agree.
00:41:25
Speaker
Now, there is challenging with, okay, so let's go through my stern.
00:41:30
Speaker
Yeah, stern just released JAWS.
00:41:32
Speaker
It's not going to do anything.
00:41:34
Speaker
JJP just did Elton John.
00:41:37
Speaker
American pinball, yes.
00:41:39
Speaker
Food truck, probably.
00:41:41
Speaker
CGC, no, they're still stuck in the loop of making Pulp Fiction.
00:41:48
Speaker
So those are the four major ones.
00:41:51
Speaker
So let's go to the smaller companies.
00:41:54
Speaker
You have Spooky with Looney Tunes and Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
00:42:00
Speaker
Uh, you have, uh, we talked about, you know, the smaller boutiques, the Turner, uh, haggis three, it's going to be there.
00:42:08
Speaker
P three.
00:42:09
Speaker
So, and I'm sorry if I'm missing anybody.
00:42:15
Speaker
Labyrinth was at barrels of fun already did labyrinth.
00:42:17
Speaker
So that's still not going to be showing anything here.
00:42:19
Speaker
Cause that was just revealed.
00:42:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:21
Speaker
So, so this Texas is going to be completely different than last year.
00:42:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:26
Speaker
Last handful of new games there this year, but yeah, it's not going to be the same.
00:42:31
Speaker
It's not going to be the same.
00:42:32
Speaker
Last year was a crazy feeding frenzy of so many games, but this one will be a little more reserved.
00:42:40
Speaker
Yep.
00:42:42
Speaker
And speaking of, cause you know,
00:42:44
Speaker
Jaws has is out
First Impressions of Stern's Jaws Pinball
00:42:46
Speaker
now.
00:42:46
Speaker
Have you got to play Jaws yet?
00:42:47
Speaker
I have not.
00:42:48
Speaker
Cause I, I went on my, I flew out, I flew to Florida.
00:42:52
Speaker
We were gone for a week.
00:42:53
Speaker
I didn't fly back till Sunday and I've been working nonstop until today's, today's our Thursday.
00:42:58
Speaker
So I've been working nonstop and it's about a 40 minute drive for me to go and play Jaws.
00:43:06
Speaker
You did though, you were able to go in early before your flight and you were able to play.
00:43:11
Speaker
So talk about it.
00:43:12
Speaker
I totally lucked out.
00:43:13
Speaker
So like our flight was going out Friday morning.
00:43:17
Speaker
Our, our airport in my town is having like some revamping stuff and whatnot.
00:43:21
Speaker
So we actually had to fly out of Salt Lake, but I was like, I wonder if Keto's is getting a Jaws.
00:43:27
Speaker
Cause they're really good to get.
00:43:28
Speaker
They do.
00:43:29
Speaker
Our local location, a good friend owns it or at least put, yeah, puts the pinball machines there.
00:43:37
Speaker
And Mike Iceman, he, he runs Mike Lund.
00:43:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:40
Speaker
Mike Lund.
00:43:41
Speaker
So I was like, I wonder if Kidos is going to do it.
00:43:43
Speaker
And we have a local chat called SLAP, Salt Lake Pinballers.
00:43:48
Speaker
And I look at it the day before.
00:43:52
Speaker
Lo and behold.
00:43:52
Speaker
It says you're going to show up to Kidos.
00:43:55
Speaker
Yes.
00:43:56
Speaker
So I was like, I'm going.
00:43:58
Speaker
So we went and it was just me.
00:44:02
Speaker
The nice part is it was a Thursday night, so it wasn't packed at all.
00:44:06
Speaker
I had the game all to myself.
00:44:07
Speaker
I dropped in probably $10 worth.
00:44:09
Speaker
So it was like
00:44:10
Speaker
you know, 10 games or whatever.
00:44:11
Speaker
And?
00:44:13
Speaker
Okay.
00:44:14
Speaker
Go on.
00:44:17
Speaker
I want to point out, if you haven't listened to Triple Drain, you should listen to another episode.
00:44:23
Speaker
After listening to it, I feel like Travis hit the ball or the nail on the head.
00:44:27
Speaker
This game is like traditional pinball.
00:44:30
Speaker
Like,
00:44:31
Speaker
nothing feels safe and even the shots that are safe come screaming back at you so fast it's like what just happened and so i i've really enjoyed the game it is hard uh it is it's one of those games i'm like i can't wait to get at home so i can breathe a little bit and like kind of slow down and be like what is going on here because the it it's kind of overwhelming you know how owens are like your first 20 games on it you're just trying to get your bearings like
00:45:00
Speaker
What does this do?
00:45:01
Speaker
What does that do?
00:45:03
Speaker
The shot's really great.
00:45:05
Speaker
The harpoon shot, if I remember if that's correctly.
00:45:07
Speaker
So if you're looking at the play field on the left side, there's a shot that goes up around it.
00:45:13
Speaker
It's kind of like an orbit.
00:45:14
Speaker
And it comes back right back to your flipper real quick.
00:45:17
Speaker
But about midway down, straight above where the stand-up targets are or the drops, depending on what version you're playing, there's just a little gate that you can hit it through.
00:45:26
Speaker
And that shot is so satisfying to hit.
00:45:31
Speaker
But it's maybe not as narrow as the Jurassic Park shot, but because of the weird angle, you're shooting pretty much straight across that play field.
00:45:43
Speaker
And it's so good.
00:45:45
Speaker
I love...
00:45:47
Speaker
The thing I was thinking before I was going to play this is you see the captive ball of the mill, right?
00:45:52
Speaker
You see the Bruce is sitting on top of it or he's sitting underneath the boat, right?
00:45:56
Speaker
And I'm like, this shot's going to be so easy just to repeatable hit.
00:46:01
Speaker
I'm like, it's going to be kind of just another bash toy.
00:46:04
Speaker
What shocked me is playing the game, I felt like it wasn't as easy to dial in.
00:46:09
Speaker
The shot's a little smaller than I assumed.
00:46:11
Speaker
I thought it would be more of like an attack for Mars where I feel like attack for Mars, you're
00:46:16
Speaker
You aim for the center, you're hitting the center where I feel like you kind of had to, because it's a captive ball you're hitting.
00:46:21
Speaker
That's not really in the same spot every time.
00:46:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:24
Speaker
It's, it's almost a kinetically moving captive ball.
00:46:27
Speaker
Yep.
00:46:28
Speaker
So it's, it does add that variability.
00:46:31
Speaker
So overall,
00:46:33
Speaker
Love the game.
00:46:34
Speaker
I'm not going to give it an official grade yet because 10 games I feel like I still don't know.
00:46:39
Speaker
First impressions.
00:46:41
Speaker
First impressions.
00:46:43
Speaker
If you're expecting this to be like Godzilla, I would tamp your expectations.
00:46:47
Speaker
I feel like Godzilla is a little easier to play.
00:46:49
Speaker
Sure.
00:46:50
Speaker
A little more forgiving.
00:46:51
Speaker
I feel like Jaws is not.
00:46:52
Speaker
I feel like Jaws is probably in the same realm as Iron Maiden.
00:46:57
Speaker
Okay.
00:46:58
Speaker
Because I feel like Iron Maiden...
00:47:01
Speaker
all the shots on Iron Maiden are kind of dangerous, right?
00:47:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:05
Speaker
There are some easy shots in Iron Maiden where you're like shooting up to the Pharaoh's tomb, you know?
00:47:11
Speaker
So Eddie, that's, that's the straight up the middle shot.
00:47:15
Speaker
The question I have is on, and we've talked about this before.
00:47:19
Speaker
Elwyn has that mixture, that secret sauce of being able to
00:47:24
Speaker
have some easy shots, some hard shots, and definitely giving priority scoring to the harder shots.
00:47:33
Speaker
Are there also easy shots in this game or do they feel all difficult?
00:47:38
Speaker
So there's easy shots.
00:47:39
Speaker
So one of the easier shots is there's a ramp.
00:47:41
Speaker
There's like a one 80 ramp right up the middle.
00:47:43
Speaker
Okay.
00:47:44
Speaker
But the thing is it's easy to hit, but it's a straight shot back to your flipper.
00:47:48
Speaker
Like it comes back at you pretty quick.
00:47:52
Speaker
Um,
00:47:53
Speaker
And like I said, the orbit on the left, I don't know if that's what you're going to call it.
00:47:58
Speaker
It's a fairly easy shot to hit as well.
00:48:00
Speaker
But it's also one of those things too where if you hit it clean, it's coming back to the flipper really quick.
00:48:07
Speaker
One thing that Travis Murray did point out.
00:48:11
Speaker
you're going to have to get used to holding up a flipper and just ski jumping the ball to get under control.
00:48:16
Speaker
So it's a kinetic pass is what you're doing.
00:48:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:19
Speaker
It's coming through the end lane and jumping over to the other one.
00:48:22
Speaker
So you're catching it on the opposing flipper.
00:48:25
Speaker
You're going to have to learn how to do that because this game is so fast.
00:48:28
Speaker
It's, it's just, there it is.
00:48:29
Speaker
The one thing, the other thing that shocked me too.
00:48:31
Speaker
So you, you know, the fishing reel that's like right to the right of the captive ball.
00:48:34
Speaker
Um,
00:48:36
Speaker
If you do not hit that clean, it kind of dribbles it back out to the center of the drain.
00:48:41
Speaker
And so that's one thing too, like you're going to have to, which is funny because it's in the right third of the game.
00:48:46
Speaker
Like it's not, if you're looking at the play field, the shark is in the center of third, the shark is all is kind of on the right of the center third.
00:48:57
Speaker
And then there's the, you know, then there's the chum bucket and right between that as a shot.
00:49:02
Speaker
So that's,
00:49:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:49:04
Speaker
Well, actually, I'm sorry.
00:49:05
Speaker
That is the shot.
00:49:06
Speaker
So you basically have two shots up the middle.
00:49:08
Speaker
You have the kinetic ball and you have the chum bucket.
00:49:11
Speaker
So I felt like if you hit the left side of the reel and it didn't go in through clean and dribble backed out, it still came towards a flipper.
00:49:17
Speaker
But if you hit the right side of the reel and it comes back at you, it dribbles it right down the center.
00:49:23
Speaker
Actually, sorry, I did misspeak.
00:49:25
Speaker
It's North Beach.
00:49:26
Speaker
That's the shot that's in the center.
00:49:28
Speaker
The chum bucket is in the left one third.
00:49:30
Speaker
Yes.
00:49:31
Speaker
And so it's one of those, it's also could be the way that the game was set up
Jaws Pinball Gameplay Quirks
00:49:35
Speaker
on location.
00:49:35
Speaker
Dan and Mike are usually pretty good to set these games up so they're fair, but yet hard.
00:49:41
Speaker
Right.
00:49:42
Speaker
Because they do a lot of competition there.
00:49:46
Speaker
Seriously, this game is awesome.
00:49:47
Speaker
I like that Quint Shack, when you start those, it's your hunting sharks.
00:49:53
Speaker
These are modes that play as you're playing the game.
00:49:56
Speaker
So like...
00:49:57
Speaker
So many pop bumper hits, so many spinner spins.
00:49:59
Speaker
And so it's nice to get one of those started and then keep playing the game.
00:50:03
Speaker
I like that.
00:50:04
Speaker
I like that concept of there's something running in the background that's still awarding me for stuff I'm already doing.
00:50:09
Speaker
So overall, fantastic.
00:50:12
Speaker
Can't wait for mine to show up.
00:50:13
Speaker
I think the, are you getting the pro or the premium premium? 100%.
00:50:17
Speaker
Uh, other thing too, I have heard this complaint, um, the, where the, the shark fin is.
00:50:24
Speaker
Um, okay.
00:50:25
Speaker
I think you can re level that area.
00:50:27
Speaker
So I didn't notice it, but there have been people have been complaining that these have been put on location.
00:50:32
Speaker
They haven't been re leveled or whatever.
00:50:34
Speaker
And the ball kind of redirects cause it's a divot there.
00:50:37
Speaker
And so if, if it's not set up just right, I think people will get frustrated at the fact that it's like, I just shot that straight.
00:50:44
Speaker
And it should have hit that shot clean, but it kind of ricocheted off the divot of the shark fin area.
00:50:50
Speaker
So that's one thing to look at.
00:50:52
Speaker
Just adjust that, and I think you'll be happy.
00:50:55
Speaker
Okay.
00:50:57
Speaker
Yeah, it'll be interesting because this is going to be one of those that has... This is the first element, as we mentioned before, that actually has an identifiable upper play field.
00:51:08
Speaker
Yep.
00:51:09
Speaker
So it is going to play differently between the pro and the premium.
00:51:13
Speaker
Yep.
00:51:14
Speaker
So I, if you notice on that premium, that play field, it's shots, it's like you're up there for a split second.
00:51:21
Speaker
It's come.
00:51:21
Speaker
It's is, I can't stay up there.
00:51:24
Speaker
You can't stay.
00:51:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:25
Speaker
Can't hang out up there.
00:51:26
Speaker
And I feel like it adds to the gameplay instead of, of, uh, slowing down the gameplay.
00:51:32
Speaker
So in fairness, I think it's, it's appropriate that there is a little bit of danger associated with the theme.
00:51:41
Speaker
Yep.
00:51:43
Speaker
Like there's, you know, in Godzilla, it seems that, yeah, there's danger, but it almost feels like the danger is slowly coming upon you.
00:51:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:53
Speaker
You're playing as Godzilla.
00:51:54
Speaker
I mean, you're destroying cities.
00:51:56
Speaker
Like you are the beast, right?
00:51:58
Speaker
You are the beast, yes.
00:51:59
Speaker
And so that's why it's a little easier because to stomp Tokyo is not as hard for Godzilla as it would be for Bruce, I guess.
00:52:05
Speaker
Right.
00:52:05
Speaker
That's probably true.
00:52:06
Speaker
I would love to see Bruce stomp Tokyo, though.
00:52:09
Speaker
I would as well.
00:52:11
Speaker
A lot of kaiju and whatnot going on there.
00:52:13
Speaker
That should be Jaws 5.
00:52:15
Speaker
That's originally what Jaws 19 was supposed to be in Back to the Future.
00:52:18
Speaker
Exactly.
00:52:18
Speaker
The 3D Jaws.
00:52:19
Speaker
Yeah, man.
00:52:20
Speaker
That's why he came out of the theater the way it was because it was going to be kaiju and he was going to be a giant kaiju that just showed everything.
00:52:27
Speaker
We figured out the plot.
00:52:28
Speaker
Dead end.
00:52:32
Speaker
Anything else we want to discuss, Scott, before we get?
00:52:35
Speaker
No, I'm sad that I'm not going to Texas this year.
00:52:38
Speaker
This is sadly the second year in a row that I will miss it.
00:52:42
Speaker
I went two years ago because I have a prior commitment.
00:52:48
Speaker
I have a friend who invited me to a tennis tournament, so I'm going to go to that.
00:52:52
Speaker
But I'm still planning on going to Expo.
00:52:56
Speaker
And I'm anticipating that's, this is one, if there's a positive way I can view Texas Pinball Festival is that there will be less reveals at this Texas than there were last year.
00:53:09
Speaker
I felt really left out last year.
00:53:10
Speaker
However, I'm anticipating there will be a lot more to see at Expo this year.
00:53:16
Speaker
And so I'm really excited to see that.
00:53:18
Speaker
So my consolation prize is, unfortunately, I can't go to Texas, but I will be going to Expo.
00:53:24
Speaker
If you haven't gotten your hotel room yet for Expo, you might want to because this is the 40th anniversary.
00:53:29
Speaker
It's going to be huge.
00:53:30
Speaker
They've added an extra day.
00:53:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:32
Speaker
Doubled the size.
00:53:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:35
Speaker
I'm excited.
00:53:37
Speaker
Rob Burke has been talking about this.
00:53:39
Speaker
During Expo 39.
00:53:41
Speaker
And so he's told me some of the concepts they're coming up with.
00:53:45
Speaker
If you've been wanting to go to Expo, this is the year.
00:53:49
Speaker
I find it funny, not to pick on Dennis, but Dennis has made it very clear that he's like, don't waste your time.
00:53:56
Speaker
We're going to kidnap Dennis this year.
00:53:58
Speaker
And Tony, you and I are going to go to Dennis's house, ring the doorbell, and capture him like they did on Nightmare Before Christmas.
00:54:06
Speaker
They capture Santa and just put him in a bag and we're going to take him to Expo.
00:54:10
Speaker
I think the problem is when we went to Expo the year that Eclectic Gamers went with us, it was right after COVID.
00:54:18
Speaker
It was shaky as is.
00:54:20
Speaker
No one knew exactly what was going to be happening.
00:54:23
Speaker
And so I think...
00:54:25
Speaker
has just gotten better and better every year like i was very happy with expo last year i felt like it was it was awesome and it was good i can't wait to maybe they'll take my concept i was pitching an idea to rob because uh he's he's taking in ideas right now like they're still they want to do some something unique and do you ever remember seeing maybe this is more your generation maybe maybe not but would they park the car in the middle of the mall
00:54:51
Speaker
And everyone had to put their hand on the car.
00:54:53
Speaker
Oh, jeez.
00:54:54
Speaker
And the last person with their hand off got the car.
00:54:57
Speaker
Or the last person with their hand on it.
00:54:59
Speaker
You get like a 30-minute bathroom break or whatever.
00:55:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:03
Speaker
do that with a pinball machine how many people would show up and do that starting night one oh my gosh yeah that that okay pinball events are stinky enough we don't need to have some unshowered people there who are there for 72 hours trying to win a godzilla premium or a jaws pro or something like that there's a
00:55:22
Speaker
50 people have signed up you've got 50 people to switch to keep their hand on a jaws we know if it was a venom there would only be like five people oh wow that's not that's not fair it's not fair i'm sorry i i it was an easy jab i apologize you know brian eddie you're awesome i actually enjoy venom i wouldn't own it but i did i when i played it it was a good game i'm any
00:55:50
Speaker
It all depends what game you're giving away.
00:55:52
Speaker
That's
Anticipation for Texas Pinball Festival
00:55:53
Speaker
right.
00:55:53
Speaker
That's right.
00:55:53
Speaker
Yeah, actually, they're just going to blow off one of those WWE, you know, with the gold trend that they were giving out forever because no one bought it.
00:56:04
Speaker
I felt so bad.
00:56:05
Speaker
So there's a guy in my – there's not very much pinball in my area.
00:56:09
Speaker
So when I find someone that owns pinball, I'm like, whoa.
00:56:12
Speaker
Hey.
00:56:13
Speaker
There's one person here in town.
00:56:16
Speaker
The only game they own is WWE.
00:56:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:20
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:56:21
Speaker
I asked him like, what's, what's wrong with the side?
00:56:23
Speaker
The, the decal has been peeling off for years now.
00:56:26
Speaker
And I'm just like, first off it's a WWE and then it looks like it's like crap.
00:56:31
Speaker
It's an Ellie and it's falling apart.
00:56:33
Speaker
Like, Oh, that just, that sucks.
00:56:35
Speaker
So bad for you.
00:56:40
Speaker
Oh my goodness.
00:56:41
Speaker
Well, this was awesome.
00:56:41
Speaker
Scott.
00:56:42
Speaker
It's great to have you have you on the mic.
00:56:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:44
Speaker
No, it's good to be back and good to be back in town for a while.
00:56:48
Speaker
And I am looking forward to, well, I'm really looking forward to seeing what is revealed from Texas.
00:56:54
Speaker
So I hope that there are a few people who are going that know us and they can actually give us, I can live vicariously through you.
00:57:02
Speaker
So I'd appreciate that.
00:57:03
Speaker
Yep.
00:57:05
Speaker
Once again, thanks for those that reached out and shared their comments with the last episode.
00:57:10
Speaker
We hope that you did enjoy it.
00:57:12
Speaker
There was a lot of
00:57:13
Speaker
A lot of love around the episode.
00:57:16
Speaker
If you want to get ahold of us, we are loser kid pinball podcast at gmail.com.
00:57:20
Speaker
We have a YouTube.
00:57:21
Speaker
Did you know that?
00:57:22
Speaker
I do know that we're on it right now.
00:57:24
Speaker
YouTube.com slash at loser kid pinball.
00:57:27
Speaker
It's where you do have to put the at sign in there.
00:57:30
Speaker
It's kind of weird.
00:57:31
Speaker
Anywho, if you want to get ahold of us, Facebook X Instagram, it's all at loser kid pinball hit us up.
00:57:41
Speaker
We respond best on Facebook and whatnot.
00:57:43
Speaker
uh but like i said if you have any questions or you have some really crazy ideas that that we should be pitching at expo uh send them in via loser pinball podcast at gmail.com maybe we'll read them out made some really wild ones right like i don't know yeah yeah i'm not even this is family friendly it's family friendly we have to keep it clean
00:58:04
Speaker
All right, Scott, give us the last word.
00:58:06
Speaker
Okay.
00:58:06
Speaker
You know what?
00:58:07
Speaker
Go out.
00:58:07
Speaker
I want, I want you, your homework assignment is to go to Texas pinball festival and let us know what you're looking forward to.
00:58:15
Speaker
Yes.