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Ep 57: Deeproot to the Future!
51 Plays5 years ago
Josh and Scott talk Twipys, Back the the Future rumors and the current update from Deeproot.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Shoutouts
00:00:06
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in to the Loser Kid Pinball podcast.
00:00:09
Speaker
We are on episode 57.
00:00:10
Speaker
I am Josh Roop and with me, my co-host as always, Scott Larson.
00:00:15
Speaker
And Scott, we have quite the treat today.
00:00:17
Speaker
We've got a couple of news items we want to discuss and just kind of shoot the breeze as we do.
00:00:21
Speaker
But before we do, let's talk about those friends of the podcast.
Pinball Promotions
00:00:24
Speaker
Okay, first and foremost, Flippin' Out Pinball.
00:00:26
Speaker
If you are looking to get in the pinball game and to up your collection, please check out Zach and Nicole Minney at Flippin' Out Pinball.
00:00:34
Speaker
They will be able to cater to all your pinball needs.
00:00:37
Speaker
They even get trade-ins too, so if you don't want that hot new title and you want something that's, if you want to get that Batman 66 that they're no longer making, go ahead and contact them.
00:00:45
Speaker
Next, This Week in Pinball.
00:00:47
Speaker
If you want to get a quick synopsis of all the news in pinball,
00:00:51
Speaker
Check out This Week in Pinball.
00:00:53
Speaker
The Twippies just came out, so we are going to talk about those today.
00:00:58
Speaker
So it's always good to check out the news there.
00:01:00
Speaker
Also, another resource, Pinball Supernova.
00:01:03
Speaker
Just looking on there today.
00:01:05
Speaker
And there's a lot of different things that you can do on there.
00:01:07
Speaker
There's shop, contact, tips, videos, collection.
00:01:10
Speaker
There's also other stuff.
00:01:11
Speaker
So check them out.
00:01:12
Speaker
Another resource that is good for pinball.
00:01:15
Speaker
Next, Flyland Designs.
00:01:17
Speaker
We talked about it before.
00:01:18
Speaker
If you want to update your...
00:01:20
Speaker
Your Bally Williams game from the 90s.
00:01:22
Speaker
He has some alternative frames in there.
00:01:24
Speaker
Medieval Madness, Attack from Mars, released Whitewater.
00:01:27
Speaker
He also has a couple of fun ones that are an amalgam of all sorts of Bally Williams greatest hits.
00:01:35
Speaker
And so if you want to order that, I just ordered a Art Blades to put in my Medieval Madness.
00:01:42
Speaker
So it's just fun to have a different look for an old game.
Improving Pinball Skills
00:01:46
Speaker
Next, if you have that pinball trans light that's been laying around that you want to get up and make it look awesome in your room, check out Lit Frames.
00:01:56
Speaker
Litframes.com.
00:01:57
Speaker
Our friend Brad Hunter over there has a great and economical way of illuminating that trans light.
00:02:03
Speaker
And it's easy to swap them in and out.
00:02:05
Speaker
So if you just want to get one frame and swap them in, or if you want to make a collage on the wall, go ahead and check him out.
00:02:11
Speaker
Tell him we send you.
00:02:12
Speaker
Also, pin shades if you want that polarized lens that works really well on location pinball.
00:02:18
Speaker
It actually works great to cut out the glare.
00:02:22
Speaker
If you're not playing at an elite location with Invisiglass and everything, then it's a good way to step up your competition.
00:02:28
Speaker
Next, if you are looking for a blog, my buddy's website, ThePinballLoft at ThePinballLoft.com, just go ahead and check that out.
00:02:40
Speaker
He's always, the latest thing that he did, which is pretty awesome, he has a collector's edition of Guns N' Roses.
00:02:46
Speaker
And he decided that his ears were not exploded yet from all of that sound.
00:02:52
Speaker
So he even updated the sound bar on his guns and roses, pretty short rocks, the paint off the walls when he plays that next, if you are looking for a way to up your pinball game, check out Ray day pinball.
Pin Clash and Streaming Tips
00:03:06
Speaker
Um,
00:03:07
Speaker
Great resource.
00:03:08
Speaker
Ray's a great guy.
00:03:09
Speaker
Good friend.
00:03:10
Speaker
And also happens to be the world's number one player.
00:03:12
Speaker
So if you want to hop on and figure out how he does it, he really does make it a lot easier than it looks.
00:03:18
Speaker
Or than it is for me anyway.
00:03:22
Speaker
So it's a good way of figuring out how to blow up your game.
00:03:25
Speaker
And Josh, I hear there's another streamer that jumped on recently.
00:03:29
Speaker
You want to talk about that?
00:03:30
Speaker
Yeah, for sure.
00:03:31
Speaker
So...
00:03:32
Speaker
If you haven't heard, Carl D'Angelo has done pin clash again.
00:03:36
Speaker
Uh, this is the second round.
00:03:37
Speaker
The first one was Jurassic park and right now they're doing qualifiers.
00:03:41
Speaker
So if you want to attempt this, it is the least amount of flips finishing the black order, uh,
00:03:47
Speaker
multi-ball or the black order battle royale that's what it is um i decided hey i have two old phones well i have my phone i have an old phone uh i'll figure out this jazz on my laptop and i did and now i'm streaming so if you want to check us out we're at loser kid pinball on twitch.tv so just just look up loser kid pinball and you'll find us there you'll find me
00:04:09
Speaker
Yeah, actually, ironically, how I started following Josh doing it, and I may get into it, who knows, I was actually watching Raymond.
00:04:18
Speaker
Raymond just hopped on and said, Raymond's coming on.
00:04:20
Speaker
So I was watching Rayday, and he was actually playing this pretty awesome retro game that he started building online when he was like 14.
00:04:30
Speaker
And it's Banjo-Kazooie, which I'm totally old enough that I have no recollection of this video game.
00:04:37
Speaker
But it's pretty awesome.
00:04:40
Speaker
And he actually made a pretty deep rule set for it.
00:04:42
Speaker
So I was watching that.
00:04:44
Speaker
I happened to be at work doing nothing.
00:04:46
Speaker
And then he sent it over.
00:04:48
Speaker
He's like, and next, hang on and we'll send it over to Loser Kid Bed Mall.
00:04:51
Speaker
I was like, oh, I guess I need to ask Josh about that.
00:04:54
Speaker
It was pretty cool, too.
00:04:55
Speaker
So it was funny because like the first the first stream that I did was just it's well, you can see it.
00:05:01
Speaker
I mean, there's no background.
00:05:02
Speaker
There's no it's just seriously the play field, my laptop camera and then the pitch, the camera directly on the display.
00:05:11
Speaker
And I was just like, I want to see if I can even attempt this.
00:05:14
Speaker
And so when that worked out, I was like, well, I'll put a little elbow grease into this.
00:05:17
Speaker
So I spent the next night and Streamlabs OBS is fantastic.
00:05:22
Speaker
It's very easy.
00:05:23
Speaker
So I sat down and, and just kind of threw, threw together a, a template for loser kid.
00:05:30
Speaker
And I was like, boom, that's good.
00:05:32
Speaker
And I,
00:05:34
Speaker
I've done that a couple times.
00:05:35
Speaker
I think I've figured out the delay in the microphone because if you have watched the first couple episodes, I talk and then you can see me talking on the screen and then you don't hear me for like two, three seconds.
00:05:48
Speaker
But yeah, it's pretty fun.
00:05:50
Speaker
I've always wanted to stream.
00:05:52
Speaker
I've thought that'd be really fun to do.
00:05:54
Speaker
And with the advances in technology and technology,
00:05:58
Speaker
If you don't have an extra Android phone, I know people do Apple, so obviously you're not going to have an Android phone laying around.
00:06:03
Speaker
But I think smartphones have been around long enough that we have a couple of them in our dresser or wherever you hide your extra dead phones.
00:06:10
Speaker
Pretty sure I have a Nokia 95 somewhere.
00:06:13
Speaker
Exactly.
00:06:14
Speaker
And so I was just like, well, if I can use these phones, and I mean, they make it really easy.
00:06:18
Speaker
You just download the app and you can network everything together.
00:06:20
Speaker
And boom, it was amazing.
00:06:23
Speaker
It was something I could try without sinking a lot of the money into because I already had the equipment.
00:06:26
Speaker
So I was like, let's just do this.
00:06:27
Speaker
Let's see what happens.
00:06:29
Speaker
Okay.
00:06:29
Speaker
So let's talk about that.
00:06:30
Speaker
Let's talk about pin clash.
00:06:32
Speaker
I mean, we talked about it before, but he's throwing something else out there.
00:06:37
Speaker
So tell us about the competition and how people can get involved.
00:06:40
Speaker
So if you want to get involved, all you have to do is you have to record what you're doing.
00:06:44
Speaker
You don't have to stream it.
00:06:45
Speaker
But you do have to record it and upload it somehow, whether it be to YouTube.
00:06:50
Speaker
And it's just the Black Order Battle Royale.
00:06:52
Speaker
So you hold in the flippers and you select challenge and boom, you're there.
00:06:58
Speaker
The secret or the trick, if you've been watching these, is you shoot that mystery scoop or the mystery target, depending on which version you're playing on.
00:07:07
Speaker
And you got to shoot it twice.
00:07:08
Speaker
And the first one will give you Ant-Man and the second will give you Wasp and Wasp will give you a two ball multi ball and doubles the values of all the shots.
00:07:16
Speaker
So it's really nice because if you're used to making that black widow pot belly Hawkeye shot, you can knock this out pretty quick.
00:07:26
Speaker
um if you're not used to that then i don't know what to tell you but it essentially takes if you don't have that going you have to hit every single shot before it advances you to the next black order member and so it's it's really fun i figured to get qualified it's free so like it doesn't cost you a dime if you just want to see hey can i do this or not and i suggest if if you have the stuff to do it just do it you know and how often is that for carl to put this on right
00:07:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:52
Speaker
And that's really, I think I know with the Jurassic park one, it was his own money.
00:07:56
Speaker
He paid like a thousand dollars, his own money for the reward.
00:07:59
Speaker
And so, um, I think it's up to $1,700 this time.
00:08:02
Speaker
Don't quote me on that, but I think it's awesome that Carl puts these on, especially in COVID and all that stuff.
00:08:07
Speaker
And he's picking games that have, uh, like he could probably do those with turtles if you want to, because that's got the, uh,
00:08:15
Speaker
I don't know what to call it.
00:08:16
Speaker
The time racing challenge.
00:08:18
Speaker
But he's picking games that will have objectives that can be obtained later on.
00:08:24
Speaker
And so you're qualifying for the rest of this month.
00:08:26
Speaker
I know people are complaining that Avengers is being streamed away too much.
00:08:29
Speaker
Well, guess what?
00:08:30
Speaker
It's going to happen until the end of the month.
00:08:33
Speaker
And then in June, the top 24 will compete for the money and whatnot.
00:08:37
Speaker
And they're just calling it.
00:08:38
Speaker
It's not even competing.
00:08:40
Speaker
People are saying they're donating to the Escher-Lefkoff fund, which makes sense.
00:08:45
Speaker
So it really it's down between Escher and Ray Day at this point.
00:08:50
Speaker
Actually, no, sorry.
00:08:51
Speaker
ZMAC.
00:08:51
Speaker
ZMAC did it in 17 flips just two days ago, which is just insane.
00:08:57
Speaker
But it's a really cool run.
00:08:58
Speaker
If you haven't checked that one out, go check it out.
00:09:00
Speaker
Let's talk a little bit past the streaming though.
Pinball Podcast Collaboration
00:09:02
Speaker
I want to talk about if you guys haven't been checking out or following us, uh, we, it's not just loser kid.
00:09:07
Speaker
We've been recording with, we recorded with final round in January.
00:09:10
Speaker
If you didn't check it out, it's episode 25 winter kids, really, really fun, uh, being on with Marty and Jeff.
00:09:16
Speaker
We appreciate them having us on and talking about the twippies then and whatnot.
00:09:22
Speaker
And then in February, we joined up with slam tilt podcast on episode one 60, uh,
00:09:27
Speaker
which was a glutton of problems, which was a hoot.
00:09:30
Speaker
I mean, Slam Till is like the original podcasters.
00:09:33
Speaker
They're up there.
00:09:34
Speaker
They've been quite some time and they've, they've spurred all these other podcasts.
00:09:37
Speaker
It was really cool to be on one of the original ones.
00:09:41
Speaker
And then just recently we're on pinball players podcast with Jeff Parsons and Joe Lemire.
00:09:48
Speaker
If you haven't checked that one out, that is episode 67.
00:09:51
Speaker
I can't remember the title of it, but it was a really fun episode.
00:09:54
Speaker
It was really great to talk to these guys.
00:09:56
Speaker
We talked to them behind the scenes, but we were always like, hey, we got to record an episode.
00:10:00
Speaker
What did you think of it, Scott?
00:10:01
Speaker
Did you have fun doing Final Round, Slam Till, and Pinball Players?
00:10:05
Speaker
You know, the best part about it is that these guys genuinely are approachable.
00:10:12
Speaker
We feel like we're...
00:10:14
Speaker
we're starting to get into the middle age of podcast.
00:10:17
Speaker
So we're no longer the, we're no longer the new kids out there, but at the same time, you have to realize that in any industry, there's going to be some sort of competition, right?
00:10:28
Speaker
Like us against them, but really behind the scenes on, on the podcasters that we've reached out to, they've been more than welcoming to us.
00:10:37
Speaker
And it feels that the, the,
00:10:40
Speaker
The friendship is genuine.
00:10:41
Speaker
It doesn't feel forced.
00:10:42
Speaker
The reason why these people are recording is because one, they have a passion for pinball and two, they have someone they can talk to about pinball.
00:10:50
Speaker
I mean, let's be honest.
00:10:51
Speaker
This is, this is a niche kind of weird hobby.
00:10:54
Speaker
It kind of is.
00:10:55
Speaker
It's a little bit that way in that it's not like it was when I was a kid where there were arcades everywhere.
00:11:03
Speaker
It's hard to find arcades unless you're going to a bar.
00:11:05
Speaker
So it's just different.
00:11:08
Speaker
And it's fun to be able to interact with people who have the same sort of passion.
00:11:13
Speaker
And it just for them to be super supportive of everything we do, because we are supportive of everything they do.
00:11:19
Speaker
We listen to we're just we're fans, too.
00:11:22
Speaker
We're listening to other podcasts and it's fun to see how they do things and then just bring our own thing.
00:11:29
Speaker
Yep.
00:11:30
Speaker
Well, it was really fun, too.
00:11:31
Speaker
Like it's like you said, it's different with every other podcast, like what Jeff and Marty do with final rounds.
00:11:37
Speaker
Definitely different from what slam tilt does or even pinball players.
00:11:41
Speaker
But it was really funny because there's a part that that Jeff had cut out.
00:11:44
Speaker
He cut out what?
00:11:45
Speaker
20, 20 minute conversation between Joe.
00:11:47
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:11:48
Speaker
Geez.
00:11:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:49
Speaker
You guys just went off.
00:11:50
Speaker
It was like, oh, this is never going to get in there.
00:11:53
Speaker
Well, it was really funny because we talked about play fields.
00:11:56
Speaker
Everyone talks about play fields, right?
00:11:58
Speaker
And then at the end of it, it kind of went silent.
00:12:00
Speaker
And Jeff's like, and guys, that's not going to make it.
00:12:03
Speaker
That's not going to make it because that's not – you guys took a left turn and then you U-turned it and then you went on a corkscrew.
00:12:10
Speaker
But it was awesome.
00:12:11
Speaker
So it was really fun to be on those.
00:12:13
Speaker
And I don't know.
00:12:15
Speaker
It's fun.
00:12:16
Speaker
It's fun going on other podcasts.
00:12:17
Speaker
It's really – it just reinforces –
00:12:22
Speaker
that pinball really is a community sport.
00:12:25
Speaker
It's a community effect.
00:12:26
Speaker
I, I went out to, uh, to Jeff Rivera from the pinball podcast.
00:12:31
Speaker
He had a birthday party on Friday night.
00:12:34
Speaker
And this is the first time ladies and gentlemen, that I have been out and playing on location in a year, just because I, you know,
00:12:45
Speaker
I feel a little obligated and rightfully so that, you know, my job, I'm exposed to sick people all the time.
00:12:53
Speaker
And I felt that it was kind of my obligation to be a leader in saying we need to do things appropriately.
00:13:00
Speaker
Now, that's not saying that I wouldn't go down.
00:13:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:05
Speaker
This, the, we don't have as much location pinball here in Utah and I've been so crazy busy over the last year.
00:13:12
Speaker
So I think there
Pinball Experiences and Mental Health
00:13:14
Speaker
are ways of doing it safely.
00:13:16
Speaker
So I, I'm not taking the high road and saying that anybody who plays location pinball is, is being reckless.
00:13:22
Speaker
What I am saying is there are intelligent ways of doing it, like going and wearing masks and doing all that.
00:13:27
Speaker
It just hasn't really fit into my schedule.
00:13:31
Speaker
And we've been so busy at work and really at home trying to maximize my time with my kids.
00:13:38
Speaker
It just hadn't bubbled up.
00:13:40
Speaker
So it was great to get out and play on location, though, because the locations do need it.
00:13:46
Speaker
And in this location, it's about an hour away from my house.
00:13:49
Speaker
So to do it is a commitment for me to hop in the car and drive down because it's at a bar.
00:13:57
Speaker
So I'm not bringing the kids.
00:14:01
Speaker
So that's the reason why I haven't been doing a lot here.
00:14:05
Speaker
But it was a lot of fun.
00:14:06
Speaker
It was just different.
00:14:07
Speaker
We had a quick tournament.
00:14:08
Speaker
I didn't take last in every group, so that was good.
00:14:12
Speaker
Just took last in two out of three.
00:14:14
Speaker
So it was still fun, and that's what I did over the weekend.
00:14:20
Speaker
Nice.
00:14:20
Speaker
And I wish I could have went to I texted Jeff and said, hey, buddy, I'm sorry, I'll miss it.
00:14:24
Speaker
I'm I'm three hours away.
00:14:26
Speaker
He said we'll catch up.
00:14:27
Speaker
But it's funny because, you know, people gave us crap about having Keith always on.
00:14:30
Speaker
But I think Jeff is tied.
00:14:32
Speaker
We've had Jeff on three times.
00:14:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:35
Speaker
And I'm like, we should have him on again because it's been a while.
00:14:38
Speaker
It's been since what, February of last year?
00:14:40
Speaker
Yeah, it has been.
00:14:42
Speaker
Legitimately, Jeff's been going through some that he has been very open with some personal challenges and just trying to solidify things.
00:14:51
Speaker
So as everything, pinball takes a backseat when you have other things that bubble to the top.
00:14:58
Speaker
Amen to that.
00:14:59
Speaker
And life takes precedence over pinball, unless you're working for Stern or something.
00:15:05
Speaker
But, you know, that is that's just something that to be aware of.
00:15:10
Speaker
And as we've said before, very pro getting help if you need it.
00:15:16
Speaker
Talking about, you know, talk about your feelings, talk about things that you're frustrated with, talk about things that are going on.
00:15:21
Speaker
And if that involves getting a counselor, if that involves addressing your mental health, you know, your your brain is it's an organ in your body, just like your liver, just like your heart, just like your kidneys.
00:15:31
Speaker
And there are so many.
00:15:33
Speaker
We are grateful that the celestial architects set it up.
00:15:36
Speaker
So our bodies work really well most of the time, but sometimes they don't.
00:15:40
Speaker
And there's a reason why my job is medicine and my job is to help the body when something goes sideways.
00:15:47
Speaker
So again, just want to make sure everybody feels the support they need.
00:15:52
Speaker
And it was just good to see him.
00:15:54
Speaker
And I think things are stabilizing a little more.
00:15:57
Speaker
So we'd love to have him back on.
00:15:58
Speaker
It was good to see him.
00:16:00
Speaker
My kids are actually heading down south at spring break.
00:16:03
Speaker
There's actually right outside Vegas.
00:16:06
Speaker
Utah has St.
00:16:07
Speaker
George.
00:16:08
Speaker
And that's where my in-laws live.
00:16:10
Speaker
And so they're going to go down for a few days.
00:16:12
Speaker
I didn't get the time off because the hospital is still open.
00:16:15
Speaker
So we, um, so I'll be up here and I'm actually planning on doing a pinball night with Jeff.
00:16:20
Speaker
So cool.
00:16:22
Speaker
That is awesome.
00:16:23
Speaker
Well, you'll have to, yeah, I wish I could be there, man.
00:16:27
Speaker
It's yeah.
00:16:28
Speaker
Well, yeah, I know it's a, and I'm actually working Saturday.
00:16:31
Speaker
Otherwise I'd probably try to sneak away for a weekend, but yeah.
00:16:34
Speaker
I don't blame you.
00:16:35
Speaker
Yeah, we're getting to that point where it's like, we've been so pent up for so long.
00:16:39
Speaker
It's time to start getting out.
00:16:40
Speaker
And my second shot's Thursday, so I'm excited about that.
00:16:44
Speaker
I just...
00:16:46
Speaker
Life is feeling like it's starting to get back to normal.
00:16:48
Speaker
I don't know where you guys live and if it's getting back to normal there.
00:16:52
Speaker
I know like Teola set up in Canada, they're a little bit slower in rolling out the vaccine.
00:16:55
Speaker
So I hope for those that want it, I hope you get it.
00:17:00
Speaker
I'm excited.
00:17:00
Speaker
I'm excited that life is getting back to normal.
00:17:03
Speaker
And I'll make a plug.
00:17:04
Speaker
Vaccines work.
00:17:04
Speaker
I mean, seriously, I've seen that work.
00:17:06
Speaker
So be so devastating to many of my friends.
00:17:11
Speaker
And one of my friends at work ended up getting a double lung transplant because COVID hit her that hard and she was a healthy nurse.
00:17:18
Speaker
Yes.
00:17:18
Speaker
So, you know, it just, I don't want to make this political.
00:17:23
Speaker
I'm just going to say from a medical standpoint, vaccines work, please go get it.
00:17:27
Speaker
So, yep.
00:17:28
Speaker
Well, let's move
Twippies Awards Overview
00:17:29
Speaker
on.
00:17:29
Speaker
We got our three topics we want to talk about today.
00:17:31
Speaker
I know you're chomping at the bit to at least get to one of them.
00:17:34
Speaker
Yeah, I know.
00:17:35
Speaker
Great.
00:17:36
Speaker
Okay.
00:17:36
Speaker
But I think we should save that juicy tidbit till the end because, you know, people come for the rant.
00:17:42
Speaker
They do.
00:17:42
Speaker
Oh, man.
00:17:45
Speaker
Let's talk about Twippies first.
00:17:46
Speaker
Okay.
00:17:47
Speaker
So, Twippies.
00:17:48
Speaker
So, let's do a quick rundown.
00:17:50
Speaker
Do you want me to just run them off real quick, Josh?
00:17:52
Speaker
And then we'll come back and say any surprises, anything.
00:17:56
Speaker
How did you feel?
00:17:57
Speaker
Yeah, let's just do a quick run of the list.
00:18:00
Speaker
So let's start with best music and sound effects.
00:18:04
Speaker
So that was, well, you know, we'll just talk about in category.
00:18:09
Speaker
So best music and sound effects.
00:18:11
Speaker
I have everything in front of me, Josh, and I'm sure you're familiar with it, but you may not know the percentages because I have the percentages pulled up.
00:18:18
Speaker
What was your gut feeling on what should have won and what and I'll tell you what did win?
00:18:22
Speaker
Okay, so are we going with best music first?
00:18:26
Speaker
Best music and sound effects, so it's a combined category.
00:18:29
Speaker
This one's hard because, I mean, obviously Guns N' Roses has fantastic music, but it's not technically music made for pinball.
00:18:37
Speaker
But you could argue Slash made specific riffs for the game.
00:18:40
Speaker
So I don't know.
00:18:43
Speaker
I think GNR did walk away with this one, and I'm fine with it just because Slash had put more music into it, additional riffs.
00:18:52
Speaker
than just the songs and if you've played gnr it's not specific like you don't actually start in a song you have to work into getting a song so yeah that's my pick is gnr yeah and that's it was the overwhelming favorite uh 42 of the vote yep so i mean it's kind of hard when you have an iconic band where a band member
00:19:15
Speaker
who makes the music is also involved in the design process.
00:19:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:19
Speaker
It's, it's hard to compete on it because it's really a different level, right?
00:19:23
Speaker
Yep.
00:19:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:25
Speaker
So next thing is favorite homebrew pinball machine.
00:19:28
Speaker
Now this is challenging just because unless you're familiar with all this stuff, you're not going to know like what is out there because you see them on pin side, but you don't really understand.
00:19:40
Speaker
It's not like you're going to see a high volume of these things.
00:19:46
Speaker
I'm just going to scramble these a little bit.
00:19:49
Speaker
There's a Mad Max rethemed pinball machine.
00:19:52
Speaker
There's a Legend of Zelda linked to the past.
00:19:54
Speaker
There's an Aladdin one.
00:19:55
Speaker
There's a crazy mansion by the pinball amigos.
00:19:58
Speaker
There's Steamboat Willie.
00:20:00
Speaker
There's Sonic the Hedgehog, and there's Dragon Ball Z.
00:20:04
Speaker
Have you followed any of these things, Josh?
00:20:06
Speaker
Because this is a tighter category than I would have anticipated.
00:20:10
Speaker
I've followed a few of these.
00:20:11
Speaker
I was actually kind of shocked to see some of these on the list because I didn't know they existed.
00:20:15
Speaker
But that's the thing, though.
00:20:16
Speaker
I don't follow the homebrew very closely.
00:20:19
Speaker
I follow Sonic Spinball because I think that is a fantastic game.
00:20:23
Speaker
And Ryan McQuaid has done a lot to it.
00:20:25
Speaker
I was super impressed with The Crazy Mansion.
00:20:27
Speaker
Is that what it's called?
00:20:28
Speaker
Yeah, The Crazy Mansion by the Pinball Amigos.
00:20:31
Speaker
Man, that one is insane.
00:20:34
Speaker
Don't get me wrong.
00:20:34
Speaker
I like Spinball, but holy crap.
00:20:37
Speaker
Those guys have done something special with that.
00:20:39
Speaker
Right.
00:20:41
Speaker
So those are the top two.
00:20:44
Speaker
And it's actually pretty close.
00:20:45
Speaker
What did you think won?
00:20:47
Speaker
Sonic.
00:20:47
Speaker
I think it had more exposure than any of these other games.
00:20:50
Speaker
It did.
00:20:50
Speaker
And really, if there's one theme, you're right, that's going to translate so well to pinball.
00:20:57
Speaker
Anybody who grew up like I grew up playing the Sega Genesis.
00:21:01
Speaker
I had a Nintendo Entertainment System.
00:21:04
Speaker
And actually, I never bought the Super Nintendo.
00:21:06
Speaker
But I did buy...
00:21:07
Speaker
the, uh, I did buy the, um, Sega Genesis, which had Sonic the Hedgehog.
00:21:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:14
Speaker
So it was 22% of the vote, but there was a lot less votes in this compared to the other categories.
00:21:19
Speaker
And I think it's just because people didn't, uh, they didn't know, uh, as much.
00:21:25
Speaker
And I, I don't even know if I had an educated guess on these things.
00:21:29
Speaker
So, um, okay.
00:21:31
Speaker
Next one, best theme.
00:21:33
Speaker
So this is actually going to be different.
00:21:35
Speaker
Um, so what do you, uh,
00:21:38
Speaker
I'll just rattle them all off.
00:21:41
Speaker
Avengers, TMNT, Stranger Things, Hot Wheels, Guns N' Roses, Heavy Metal, Rick and Morty, Heist, and Ranger in the Ruins.
00:21:50
Speaker
So this is a weird category to me because what constitutes the best theme?
00:21:55
Speaker
Like what sells the most?
00:21:57
Speaker
What's the most integrated into our society?
00:22:00
Speaker
It's just, it's a weird, especially since there's a best theme integration category as well.
00:22:05
Speaker
Isn't there?
00:22:05
Speaker
Yes.
00:22:06
Speaker
Theme integration.
00:22:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:07
Speaker
And so it's weird to me that there's like a best theme because it's, it's all very subjective.
00:22:13
Speaker
I guess a lot of these are subjective.
00:22:14
Speaker
Well, okay.
00:22:15
Speaker
I'll put it this way though.
00:22:18
Speaker
Best theme.
00:22:21
Speaker
I would argue in seasons past that star Wars was on everybody's must have theme list.
00:22:30
Speaker
Yeah, that's true.
00:22:31
Speaker
Now I will say, if you talk about theme integration, some people love the game, some people didn't.
00:22:36
Speaker
So it was a, it was a little different when it came to what the theme people wanted versus how it was integrated.
00:22:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:44
Speaker
And you could argue the same thing about, um,
00:22:49
Speaker
when you talk about Pirates of the Caribbean, it was, it was an immersive theme integration, but one of the knocks on it, and we're talking about JJP one, one of the knocks on it is that, well, it's doesn't have any of the movie assets.
00:23:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:05
Speaker
It just had like, yes, it's a pirate.
00:23:07
Speaker
It's, it's pirate and it's linked to Pirates of the Caribbean, but it doesn't have the same amount of volume.
00:23:15
Speaker
So anyway, I would say that,
00:23:18
Speaker
That's the argument on that.
00:23:19
Speaker
So of those, what would you say is the best theme?
00:23:23
Speaker
And then we'll talk about who won.
00:23:26
Speaker
Honestly, the best theme is either Guns N' Roses or Avengers Infinity Quest.
00:23:31
Speaker
Just because they're so predominant in our culture right now.
00:23:34
Speaker
Okay.
00:23:34
Speaker
Is my opinion.
00:23:35
Speaker
Okay.
00:23:36
Speaker
And I would have personally – I think I ended up going with Turtles because Turtles is the perfect theme for me.
00:23:41
Speaker
Yeah, and that's your dream theme.
00:23:42
Speaker
Yeah, that's why I'm like – the problem is this best theme is very subjective.
00:23:45
Speaker
It becomes – It's personal.
00:23:46
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:23:46
Speaker
Yeah, it's very personal.
00:23:48
Speaker
It's not – and I think that's the problem I have with the Twippies is –
00:23:52
Speaker
With the pinball industry awards, everything was almost overthought.
00:23:56
Speaker
You know what I'm saying?
00:23:58
Speaker
Does this deserve that?
00:23:59
Speaker
It has to be – we all kind of gave – even though there wasn't a criteria, we all gave it criteria to follow.
00:24:05
Speaker
With Twippies, it kind of is like – it is popular vote.
00:24:09
Speaker
Yeah, but I actually think that they're really different award categories.
00:24:14
Speaker
Really?
00:24:15
Speaker
And, and the, uh, the pinball industry awards, I think is great.
00:24:19
Speaker
And okay.
00:24:19
Speaker
Full disclosure.
00:24:20
Speaker
We won the, the Twippy for, uh, um, or sorry.
00:24:24
Speaker
I'll let you edit that.
00:24:27
Speaker
Okay.
00:24:27
Speaker
Uh,
00:24:28
Speaker
we won the award for excellence in podcasting and we are extremely grateful for that.
00:24:34
Speaker
However, it's a different, it's a different selection criteria.
00:24:37
Speaker
It's a different people voting.
00:24:39
Speaker
And I totally get that, that Twippy's, this is, this is the ultimate pinball fan participation.
00:24:46
Speaker
So Jeff's done a great job of letting, letting the people decide what's going to be.
00:24:51
Speaker
So yeah, I, you know what?
00:24:54
Speaker
Best theme.
00:24:55
Speaker
I, I,
00:24:56
Speaker
I'm in the dad rock category.
00:24:58
Speaker
And so I would say that the one that people really wanted was guns and roses.
00:25:03
Speaker
I'm going to vote with my heart though, and say that Avengers was immediate buy for me.
00:25:08
Speaker
Like when I found out it was Avengers, I just told Zach, I, I called him and I had heard the rumor the night before I actually was pretty blindsided, but they said, well, the rumor is this.
00:25:19
Speaker
And I said, okay, if it's a Keith L. One game, put me down, put me down for the LA.
00:25:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:23
Speaker
Um, but I totally get that there are people who love Rick and Morty and that's what won.
00:25:29
Speaker
It was, it was slim between that and guns and roses.
00:25:32
Speaker
So I think it was the hipsters versus the dad rock guys.
00:25:35
Speaker
Well, and I think it's awesome that spooky took home this award.
00:25:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:38
Speaker
I mean, it really is a great theme.
00:25:40
Speaker
Like Rick and Morty is obviously doing something right because of how much influence they have in pop culture right now.
00:25:46
Speaker
So they're actually on commercials for sodas or whatever it is.
00:25:49
Speaker
So that surprised me more than anything.
00:25:52
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:25:54
Speaker
Okay, favorite pinball location.
00:25:55
Speaker
I'm just going to call this out because all these locations are good.
00:25:59
Speaker
Logan's Arcade won in Chicago because why not, right?
00:26:03
Speaker
It's between Logan's and Sunshine.
00:26:05
Speaker
Those are the ones that I hear so much about.
00:26:07
Speaker
But every single one of these I'm going to call out because I want to give
00:26:11
Speaker
airtime to Logan's arcade, Chicago, Illinois, old school pinball experience, Sao Paulo, Brazil pinball palace in Brunswick, Georgia, Jack bar, Brooklyn, New York, sunshine laundromat, Brooklyn, New York, the pinball lounge, Oviedo, Florida district 82, uh, day pierre, Wisconsin moms, organic market, college park, Maryland.
00:26:35
Speaker
Seriously.
00:26:36
Speaker
There's gotta be some, some four 20 going on there.
00:26:40
Speaker
Uh,
00:26:40
Speaker
Fort Wayne Pinball Wizards World Arcade in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and my parents' basement on Avondale Estates, Georgia.
00:26:52
Speaker
Yeah, a lot of East Coast locations.
00:26:55
Speaker
Yeah, all of them.
00:26:57
Speaker
Yeah, really, Illinois or Indiana are probably where the line of demarcation goes.
00:27:03
Speaker
But hey, pinball is an Eastern sport, so we're an outlier in the West.
00:27:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:09
Speaker
Okay.
00:27:09
Speaker
I'm kind of shocked that pinball hall of fame didn't make that at all.
00:27:13
Speaker
That's actually a good point.
00:27:16
Speaker
Um,
00:27:17
Speaker
You know, I never thought about that.
00:27:19
Speaker
Because you think about it.
00:27:20
Speaker
Like, if you talk pinball and that new massive location.
00:27:24
Speaker
It looks great.
00:27:24
Speaker
Yeah, it looks great.
00:27:26
Speaker
But, I mean, that has got to be the ultimate location, right?
00:27:28
Speaker
Like, it's got every single pinball.
00:27:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:31
Speaker
Okay.
00:27:32
Speaker
The ultimate location is out of Banff, California.
00:27:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:35
Speaker
But, you know, they can't turn the lights on there all the time.
00:27:38
Speaker
So, I would say that they're going with places that they are familiar with and they're playing.
00:27:46
Speaker
Yep.
00:27:47
Speaker
So I'm actually a little surprised that more people from the Portland and the Seattle area didn't get their locations in.
00:27:54
Speaker
But I think it's because we don't hear about them as much.
00:27:59
Speaker
There's still a lot of people and a lot of podcasters.
00:28:02
Speaker
We're actually kind of an outlier in the West.
00:28:04
Speaker
Most of the podcasters are back East podcasters.
00:28:07
Speaker
And so they've been to these locations.
00:28:09
Speaker
They've talked about them.
00:28:10
Speaker
We've been like free gold watch.
00:28:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:12
Speaker
You know, there's a couple of West Coast ones.
00:28:14
Speaker
I'm surprised they're not on there.
00:28:16
Speaker
But let's let's move on.
00:28:18
Speaker
OK, favorite pinball publication or article.
00:28:22
Speaker
I feel so bad because like Jeff Patterson is embarrassed that he got this.
00:28:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:26
Speaker
OK, but at the same time.
00:28:28
Speaker
And it's yeah.
00:28:29
Speaker
So Guns N' Roses, Pinball, Deep Dive.
00:28:33
Speaker
Come on, Jeff, you deserve this game, this award, because that was an amazing.
00:28:40
Speaker
I actually, but third to that, the third vote was the Deep Root Pinball platform, pinball, pin armor ecosystem, future games and future plans.
00:28:52
Speaker
Such a great article and so accurate.
00:28:54
Speaker
OK, all right.
00:28:56
Speaker
Next, best toys and gimmicks.
00:29:00
Speaker
Okay, I don't get this one at all.
00:29:02
Speaker
I remember this one distinctly.
00:29:04
Speaker
Okay.
00:29:07
Speaker
Okay, the challenge.
00:29:09
Speaker
How do you define a toy or a gimmick?
00:29:11
Speaker
I don't know.
00:29:12
Speaker
When I think toy or gimmick...
00:29:14
Speaker
Honestly, what comes to mind is Pat Lawler.
00:29:16
Speaker
I think of Adam's family with the thing hand.
00:29:20
Speaker
I think of Twilight Zone with the battlefield.
00:29:23
Speaker
I think of something that's not conventionally in a pinball that is maybe specific to that machine.
00:29:29
Speaker
Yeah, I think it seems like peripherally involved in the gameplay.
00:29:33
Speaker
It's not just like a Barbie doll that you've glued under the glass.
00:29:38
Speaker
Or a Trolls doll you stuck in Rollercoaster Tycoon.
00:29:40
Speaker
Right.
00:29:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:41
Speaker
Okay.
00:29:41
Speaker
So it's that.
00:29:42
Speaker
So it interacts with play at some point, but it's... Like newer stuff, Groot or Sparky from Metallica.
00:29:50
Speaker
Like they are called Bash Toys.
00:29:53
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:29:54
Speaker
You could say that now.
00:29:56
Speaker
So this is Guns N' Roses by Jersey Jack.
00:29:58
Speaker
And I will say that, OK, I think that Avengers has, you know, they have some really cool things in there.
00:30:06
Speaker
I think the subway is cool and all that.
00:30:08
Speaker
I think just putting in.
00:30:11
Speaker
all of the instruments into the play field with the drumsticks and with the guitar lock and the spinner that's a guitar pick.
00:30:27
Speaker
And then you have the bass on the left side that has the different ramps.
00:30:31
Speaker
I mean, that really is a pretty amazing integration that Eric did there.
00:30:35
Speaker
But to me, that's theme integration.
00:30:37
Speaker
That's not toys and gimmicks.
00:30:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:40
Speaker
Okay.
00:30:40
Speaker
But I would say that that's a toy and a gimmick is part of theme integration.
00:30:45
Speaker
See, then you start muddying the waters on that.
00:30:48
Speaker
Okay.
00:30:49
Speaker
Well, there's 1,800 votes in this.
00:30:51
Speaker
I can interpret it however I want.
00:30:53
Speaker
This is where I felt like pinball industry awards got it right because they gave it to Stranger Things.
00:30:58
Speaker
Even though like that might not be Harold is a fantastic game.
00:31:01
Speaker
That projection system has never been done on a pinball machine.
00:31:04
Speaker
Yeah, that was cool.
00:31:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:05
Speaker
Well, actually, I thought the black light effect was was really cool.
00:31:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:09
Speaker
If I got in.
00:31:10
Speaker
Oh, my gosh, that pinball topper looked really cool.
00:31:13
Speaker
And yes, it was straight out of the 80s, which of course it is.
00:31:15
Speaker
But it was really cool.
00:31:17
Speaker
And like, I'm not a huge fan of stranger things.
00:31:20
Speaker
I know people are starting to warm up to it.
00:31:21
Speaker
I knew it took a year and a half or whatever it's been, but like it has a bash toy.
00:31:25
Speaker
The Demogorgon is a bash toy.
00:31:27
Speaker
Like it just, it may, that's why I have a rough time with this category.
00:31:32
Speaker
Cause like, don't get me wrong.
00:31:34
Speaker
Guns and roses is a fantastic machine, but there's nothing.
00:31:37
Speaker
I look at that play field and think that is a fantastic toy.
00:31:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:41
Speaker
Okay.
00:31:42
Speaker
So that's just me.
00:31:43
Speaker
All right.
00:31:45
Speaker
So your hate mail.
00:31:45
Speaker
Okay.
00:31:46
Speaker
Um,
00:31:47
Speaker
So favorite pinball virtual event.
00:31:50
Speaker
I'm just going to say this out.
00:31:51
Speaker
It was the virtual pinball expo by Chicago.
00:31:54
Speaker
I think they did a great job.
00:31:55
Speaker
They won with 27% of the vote and they were 11%
Virtual Pinball Events
00:32:00
Speaker
over the next guy.
00:32:00
Speaker
So, and pin clash was next.
00:32:02
Speaker
So I would say that that was pretty amazing on the fly being able to, well, not really on the fly, but able to retool it.
00:32:09
Speaker
So that was pretty awesome.
00:32:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:11
Speaker
Best theme integration.
00:32:12
Speaker
So same players.
00:32:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:16
Speaker
Guns and roses.
00:32:17
Speaker
Hands down.
00:32:17
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:32:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:18
Speaker
I would, I would argue that if you stripped off all of the cosmetic paint on a game and walk up to it and say, what do you think this is?
00:32:30
Speaker
If you walk up to a stripped down guns and roses, you're going to think it's guns and roses.
00:32:34
Speaker
Yep.
00:32:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:36
Speaker
Okay.
00:32:37
Speaker
Favorite website.
00:32:39
Speaker
honest.
00:32:40
Speaker
Is there any other besides like, don't get me wrong, Jeff Patterson.
00:32:42
Speaker
We love this weekend pinball.
00:32:44
Speaker
I use pin side more than any other pinball website that's out there.
00:32:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:48
Speaker
You know what?
00:32:49
Speaker
The top three on here are what I go to a lot.
00:32:52
Speaker
Um, pin side,
00:32:53
Speaker
Hands down.
00:32:55
Speaker
Even with all the drama on Pinside, it's still a great resource.
00:33:00
Speaker
This Week in Pinball, again, great resource to summarize all that drama on Pinside.
00:33:06
Speaker
And the Internet Pinball Database, it's so great.
00:33:10
Speaker
Now I will say there's, there's obviously some other honorable mentions that I'm just going to run down.
00:33:15
Speaker
So pinball news, tilt forums, pop a pinball, pinball magazine, John's arcade, Buffalo pinball and fun with bonus really actually great, great sites.
00:33:26
Speaker
And I just want to make sure everybody knew about them, but yeah, the, the top three are going to be the juggernauts.
00:33:31
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:33:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:32
Speaker
Well, and the thing about Pinside, I actually never see the drama, but I use, there's 10 tabs on there.
00:33:37
Speaker
You know what I'm saying?
00:33:38
Speaker
I just, there's so much information there.
00:33:40
Speaker
It's hard not to go to Pinside because if you need to know something about a pinball machine that just popped up on Craigslist, you go to Pinside or, or internet pinball database.
00:33:48
Speaker
You know, it just, there's, there's so much I find on Pinside.
00:33:52
Speaker
I just, it's hard to say that there's any other site that's above that.
00:33:57
Speaker
Right.
00:33:57
Speaker
So best rules, same player, except same players.
00:34:01
Speaker
However, I'm going to do an honorable mention and say heist heavy metal and Ranger in the Ruins by Nick Baldridge.
00:34:07
Speaker
By the way, anybody who knows who Nick Baldridge is, he is a crazy savant who does all these bingo games.
00:34:14
Speaker
And I guarantee if anybody actually had access to his game,
00:34:18
Speaker
they would be amazed by what a savant he is.
00:34:21
Speaker
But because he's in Virginia and it's kind of a niche area, I'm glad he got some votes.
00:34:26
Speaker
But let's talk about best rules between Avengers, GNR, Rick and Morty, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Stranger Things, and Hot Wheels.
00:34:35
Speaker
It's Avengers.
00:34:36
Speaker
Is there really any other thing?
00:34:38
Speaker
I mean, honestly.
00:34:40
Speaker
The rules on everything else are great, but the problem is Keith is pushing the bounds of what rules can be.
00:34:46
Speaker
It's hard.
00:34:47
Speaker
It's kind of hard to compete with the best player ever when you're trying to do the rules integration because he has such a great finger on the pulse of, okay, this is a great rule set and it's accessible.
00:35:02
Speaker
Like his, okay, even if I can stumble through his rules, you know, what was that?
00:35:08
Speaker
Even a blind squirrel finds a nut in the cupboard every once in a while.
00:35:14
Speaker
But he's able to take it to an excellent level.
00:35:17
Speaker
So even the top players in the world love the rules.
00:35:21
Speaker
So...
00:35:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:23
Speaker
And I, yeah.
00:35:25
Speaker
Total fan boy for his rule sets, which is why I own every one of his machines.
00:35:30
Speaker
And I, you know, I have a maiden pinball come in the summer.
00:35:33
Speaker
So, okay.
00:35:34
Speaker
Best animations in display.
00:35:37
Speaker
I'm fine with this one.
00:35:38
Speaker
GNR.
00:35:38
Speaker
I mean, yeah, the display, you could just say display.
00:35:42
Speaker
Like they have so much on there.
00:35:44
Speaker
It's not even close.
00:35:46
Speaker
Between GNR and Rick and Morty.
00:35:48
Speaker
Cause Rick and Morty was great too.
00:35:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:51
Speaker
I would agree with that, but you also, that's when you have to take into the content and having that much concert footage is just unbelievable.
00:36:01
Speaker
I agree.
00:36:02
Speaker
Well, when, what Eric say on our podcast, when we interviewed him, did he say it was like two terabytes, four terabytes?
00:36:08
Speaker
It was so much that it's, they're never going to be able to, to watch any of that stuff.
00:36:13
Speaker
When they mail you a hard drive.
00:36:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:17
Speaker
That is a ton of content.
00:36:19
Speaker
So, and professionally shot that guns and roses was the highest, uh, the highest earning concert of the year until they shut it down.
00:36:29
Speaker
So, uh, okay.
00:36:31
Speaker
Favorite pinball YouTube channel.
00:36:34
Speaker
Straight down the middle.
00:36:38
Speaker
What is that, four years running?
00:36:40
Speaker
Yeah, it's great.
00:36:40
Speaker
You know, I will say there are a lot of great options out there.
00:36:45
Speaker
And I'm just going to run through these two straight down the middle.
00:36:48
Speaker
TNT Amusements.
00:36:49
Speaker
I mean, who has not pulled up Todd Tucky and watched something?
00:36:53
Speaker
Papa TV, obviously, if you're going to look at rules, you know, Kerry Hardy, Pinball Moss, Flipping Out Pinball, No Coin Drop Required.
00:37:02
Speaker
uh marv loco and hurry up challenge so all of these deserve at least honorable mentions so well and the cool part too i don't know if you caught that this year but if you made the top 10 regardless if you won or not you still get a plaque as honorable mention or for for top 10 and that's pretty awesome yeah that is really cool jeff to do that this year as well best call outs
00:37:24
Speaker
Rick and Morty, baby.
00:37:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:26
Speaker
And the funny thing is I so we don't have a Rick and Morty around here, so I've only been able to see it online.
00:37:32
Speaker
But I hear everybody who plays it.
00:37:34
Speaker
They laugh so hard at it, which is what a great way of doing it.
00:37:37
Speaker
Right.
00:37:37
Speaker
Yep.
00:37:38
Speaker
And I'm fine with Rick and Morty.
00:37:39
Speaker
Oh, absolutely.
00:37:40
Speaker
No, perfect.
00:37:41
Speaker
Yeah, it's a lot better.
00:37:42
Speaker
I don't know.
00:37:43
Speaker
The only other one that you could probably go with is, is probably Guns N' Roses.
00:37:48
Speaker
Cause that was all custom call outs as well too.
00:37:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:52
Speaker
It's yeah, exactly.
00:37:54
Speaker
But I'm, I'm biased.
00:37:55
Speaker
So I like Mark Silk's like his, his work on teenage Mario turtles, man.
00:37:59
Speaker
Well, it's great.
00:38:00
Speaker
Okay.
00:38:01
Speaker
I would say all top three are pretty amazing.
00:38:03
Speaker
You have Rick and Morty of Guns N' Roses and TMNT.
00:38:06
Speaker
And so, yes.
00:38:07
Speaker
And yeah,
00:38:09
Speaker
I guarantee if they just turned on the mic and let Mark just go to town, he would come up with even funnier call outs than what they were able to allow him to do.
00:38:19
Speaker
That's the secret.
00:38:19
Speaker
Did you know that's the secret?
00:38:20
Speaker
You know, Godzilla is supposedly rumor and Mark Silk's doing the Godzilla voice.
00:38:25
Speaker
He's doing the Godzilla voice.
00:38:26
Speaker
Yeah, I believe it.
00:38:27
Speaker
That's the rumor we're starting.
00:38:29
Speaker
But can he do that?
00:38:30
Speaker
He's not really a dinosaur.
00:38:31
Speaker
So can he play a dinosaur?
00:38:33
Speaker
I don't know.
00:38:34
Speaker
Okay.
00:38:36
Speaker
Best pinball mod.
00:38:38
Speaker
Okay.
00:38:39
Speaker
I don't know if you guys listen to Kerry Hardy.
00:38:42
Speaker
He went over the twippies and he kind of pounded this category.
00:38:47
Speaker
And the problem is, is now that I've listened to him, I kind of agree.
00:38:50
Speaker
Like,
00:38:51
Speaker
It should be in a modification to the pinball machine.
00:38:54
Speaker
And the one that won this was this.
00:38:56
Speaker
The Stranger Things UV kit.
00:38:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:58
Speaker
Yes.
00:38:58
Speaker
And so the problem is, he's like, you go to Stern's website and it's an accessory.
00:39:03
Speaker
Like it's, you find it under accessories.
00:39:05
Speaker
It was planned to be with the game.
00:39:07
Speaker
It was never a modification modification for the game.
00:39:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:11
Speaker
Okay.
00:39:12
Speaker
I will say though, talk about anything that changes the game.
00:39:16
Speaker
Okay.
00:39:17
Speaker
Changes in really, if you look at all this stuff, it's all amazing.
00:39:22
Speaker
So the stranger things, UV kit, if you own a stranger things, why on God's green earth, do you not have this in your machine?
00:39:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:30
Speaker
It is amazing.
00:39:31
Speaker
And get the top or two.
00:39:32
Speaker
Well, can you argue that when we were talking with Martin on Final Round, he said when they got to Australia, they were already equipped.
00:39:40
Speaker
They came with the light kit.
00:39:41
Speaker
So technically, it's not a modification at that point.
00:39:45
Speaker
I don't know.
00:39:45
Speaker
You could technically say toppers are modifications.
00:39:48
Speaker
I just don't know.
00:39:49
Speaker
We start getting muddy waters again.
00:39:53
Speaker
I'll call it.
00:39:53
Speaker
I'll say, yeah, that's good.
00:39:54
Speaker
So you have the interactive backboard display by 86 pixels, excuse me, Avira House of Horror, the Gargoyle.
00:40:01
Speaker
Yeah, all these things.
00:40:03
Speaker
All the...
00:40:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:05
Speaker
The pirates of the Caribbean ship sculpts.
00:40:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:09
Speaker
I, those things are amazing by the art of, uh, I don't know how to pronounce this guy's name.
00:40:15
Speaker
He's out of the country, uh, Loire, but it's, it's pretty amazing.
00:40:20
Speaker
The red smoke, which mod, uh,
00:40:22
Speaker
we need to get this guy on.
00:40:24
Speaker
I talked to him about a year ago because I got on the list for the red smoke, which mod 2.0 by Steve.
00:40:30
Speaker
And I have all of his mods.
00:40:31
Speaker
I, that reminds me I need to reach out, Steve.
00:40:33
Speaker
Sorry.
00:40:34
Speaker
I, we've, I'm really, I do follow up.
00:40:37
Speaker
Sometimes it just takes a while.
00:40:39
Speaker
So, you know, there's some other things on there.
00:40:40
Speaker
So yeah, pretty awesome stuff.
00:40:43
Speaker
Um,
00:40:44
Speaker
Yeah, Measle Mods is on there for the Avengers Infinity Quest, Penn Stadium Lighting, Flipper Cooling by, you know, Creature from the Backlroom, Black Alley Creations.
00:40:54
Speaker
So all good.
00:40:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:56
Speaker
Favorite pinball streamer.
00:40:57
Speaker
I mean, come on.
00:41:01
Speaker
It's Deadflip.
00:41:02
Speaker
I mean, he's the one everybody recognizes.
00:41:05
Speaker
four years in a row baby and that's so it's great like dead flip does good for the community like he obviously streams stern stuff he is on the forefront of showing games he's been doing it the longest
00:41:16
Speaker
And so, well, it's hard too.
00:41:17
Speaker
Cause it's like, he gets all the prime content, like Buffalo pinball might follow up.
00:41:22
Speaker
Cause they got guns and roses right out of the box.
00:41:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:26
Speaker
And so they would be the only one that's comparable to having resources like dead flip does.
00:41:30
Speaker
So I don't know, but you're getting the personality too.
00:41:34
Speaker
So, and God bless RB flip France.
00:41:37
Speaker
Those guys are hilarious.
00:41:38
Speaker
I, I, I turned them on and I watch him.
00:41:40
Speaker
I have no idea what they're talking about.
00:41:42
Speaker
But it's fun to watch someone in another country enjoying it.
00:41:47
Speaker
Yes, it's fantastic.
00:41:49
Speaker
No shock that Dead Flip won.
00:41:50
Speaker
Yeah, good for him.
00:41:52
Speaker
And hey, Zach Manning's still on there flipping out pinball.
00:41:55
Speaker
Okay, best light show.
00:41:57
Speaker
And come on.
00:41:59
Speaker
Guns N' Roses, no chance.
00:42:01
Speaker
No one ever has a chance on that one.
00:42:04
Speaker
Yeah, I agree.
00:42:05
Speaker
Favorite pinball topper.
00:42:07
Speaker
Yeah, so Rick and Morty took it away.
00:42:10
Speaker
I don't know how I feel about that one.
00:42:12
Speaker
It is a free topper.
00:42:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:14
Speaker
It's a good topper.
00:42:15
Speaker
But do you feel like there was other toppers out there that were better this year?
00:42:18
Speaker
No, I just didn't think there was a lot of great toppers this year.
00:42:21
Speaker
And I'm a topper guy.
00:42:23
Speaker
OK, I actually bought the Jurassic Park topper.
00:42:25
Speaker
I bought the Avengers Infinity Quest topper.
00:42:29
Speaker
OK, there wasn't a Black Knight topper.
00:42:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:34
Speaker
Well, I mean, technically Turtles was because at the moving eye, but it didn't talk to you because it's the Technodrome.
00:42:40
Speaker
I just, I don't know.
00:42:41
Speaker
I had a hard, I had a hard time with that one because it was like a Walmart display.
00:42:46
Speaker
And I feel bad because speaking of toppers, it's fantastic that Rick and Mori was free.
00:42:51
Speaker
Or it came as a thank you for all the games selling out within four hours or whatever it was.
00:42:57
Speaker
But you look on the opposite end of the spectrum because Turtles, I was in on a Turtles topper until it came out $1,000.
00:43:02
Speaker
Yeah, that was kind of a lot.
00:43:05
Speaker
It's hard to justify $20.
00:43:07
Speaker
percent of the game so and i i felt like that was searching for the ceiling because i think they found it because i didn't buy it um yeah i didn't buy it either and i actually buy most of it and i actually i ordered a led zeppelin one because it has the interactive search lights which looks pretty cool um but yeah i yeah that was that was a dud for me but you know buy it now and you can sell it on pin side and for three thousand and two years or whatever yeah uh favorite pinball podcast i mean
00:43:35
Speaker
Okay.
00:43:36
Speaker
Good for him.
00:43:37
Speaker
Chris took it.
00:43:37
Speaker
Kaneda.
00:43:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:40
Speaker
So he's entertaining.
00:43:42
Speaker
Obviously, there's a reason why people listen to his show.
00:43:46
Speaker
Well, and let's go back over the streamer, YouTube, podcast.
00:43:51
Speaker
These guys have won it four years in a row.
00:43:54
Speaker
They've been around for a while.
00:43:55
Speaker
They've got quite the fan base.
00:43:58
Speaker
It's funny to me because we saw a lot of drama.
00:44:02
Speaker
There's always, for some odd reason, there's a lot of drama with the pinball podcast.
00:44:06
Speaker
That's not odd.
00:44:07
Speaker
It's self-generated.
00:44:10
Speaker
Yes, it is self-generated.
00:44:11
Speaker
But I really did want to see Super Awesome take it.
00:44:14
Speaker
I feel bad that they put a lot of that effort in.
00:44:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:19
Speaker
It was certainly the most well-produced show.
00:44:21
Speaker
It probably should have been in its own category because it wasn't just Chris and Chris talking.
00:44:27
Speaker
You know, Franchi put a lot of time editing and really polished the show.
00:44:31
Speaker
What we do is more of an afternoon chat.
00:44:35
Speaker
Like you call up your buddy and we're talking.
00:44:37
Speaker
But they put a lot more into refining it.
00:44:41
Speaker
So maybe it should have been a different category.
00:44:45
Speaker
But hey, they took a second.
00:44:48
Speaker
They took a second.
00:44:49
Speaker
It was good.
00:44:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:50
Speaker
I want to reiterate, this is all favorite.
00:44:53
Speaker
This isn't the best.
00:44:54
Speaker
The problem is, for some odd reason, people think that these awards are justifications for either how they run their podcast or it's a pat on the back, essentially.
00:45:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:05
Speaker
Chris Franchi put a lot of work into that show.
00:45:08
Speaker
It is amazing how much editing he put into that show.
00:45:10
Speaker
Nothing to take away from Kaneda because he's been doing this for five years.
00:45:14
Speaker
He's obviously doing something right because, let's be honest, you've got the percentages there.
00:45:19
Speaker
Kaneda was like 900, almost 1,000 votes versus 350 from Super Awesome Pinball Show.
00:45:26
Speaker
So he has quite the following.
00:45:27
Speaker
He is doing something right.
00:45:29
Speaker
Okay, best artwork.
00:45:31
Speaker
I don't agree with this one.
00:45:32
Speaker
I would say this suffers with Zombie Yeti having two options.
00:45:40
Speaker
Okay, I can see that.
00:45:41
Speaker
And so it suffers because I think he did an excellent job with both Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Avengers.
00:45:49
Speaker
And really, if you add both of those together, that's 34% of the vote.
00:45:55
Speaker
So if you're talking best artist, it's going to be Zombie Yeti.
00:46:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:01
Speaker
However, Jersey Jack with Guns N' Roses, they got I don't I don't know the guy's name and I'm sorry about that, but they were able to put together a comparable package.
00:46:14
Speaker
That was excellent package.
00:46:19
Speaker
I would argue it should just go to Jeremy Packer anyway.
00:46:23
Speaker
But hey, all three machines look fantastic.
00:46:26
Speaker
All top three.
00:46:27
Speaker
Guns N' Roses, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Avengers.
00:46:31
Speaker
Yeah, I still think Ninja Turtles, hands down.
00:46:34
Speaker
Yeah, well, that's what I voted for.
00:46:37
Speaker
Best play field, gameplay, and layout.
00:46:41
Speaker
We're almost done, kids.
00:46:42
Speaker
Okay.
00:46:43
Speaker
uh avengers infinity quest i mean yeah it is the layout yeah i agree uh game of the year hold on there's one missing from this category that we never talked about best artwork no wait uh rookie of the year oh yeah you're right it's not on here i don't know why it's not on here but ken cromwell won that one and that was awesome good job man that is you did a fantastic job with the marketing i know it probably isn't just you
00:47:09
Speaker
but it is awesome that you took home that award.
00:47:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:11
Speaker
Well, Guns N' Roses, that release was the best release I've ever seen.
00:47:14
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:47:16
Speaker
Okay.
00:47:17
Speaker
Game of the year.
00:47:18
Speaker
Guns N' Roses.
00:47:19
Speaker
This one is obvious.
00:47:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:21
Speaker
And this seems to be, I actually think the last two categories nailed it.
00:47:27
Speaker
The best play field, gameplay and layout, I think is Avengers.
00:47:32
Speaker
And the game of the year is Guns N' Roses because of the whole experiential thing.
00:47:37
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:47:39
Speaker
Okay.
00:47:40
Speaker
All right.
00:47:40
Speaker
I don't really have anything else to add on that.
00:47:43
Speaker
We only spent 20, 30 minutes on just talking to you.
00:47:46
Speaker
We talked way longer than we were planning on it, but that's okay.
00:47:49
Speaker
Okay.
00:47:50
Speaker
Give us your thoughts too in the comments when we post this episode.
00:47:54
Speaker
Tell us what you thought.
00:47:55
Speaker
If we're close, if you agree with you disagree, I just, I felt like for most of these, these were on par.
00:48:02
Speaker
I was very impressed with how many were taken home by Jersey Jack pinball.
00:48:07
Speaker
It's awesome to see Eric being recognized for the work that he's putting in.
00:48:11
Speaker
Great job, Jeff.
00:48:13
Speaker
Jeff should get an award for an award show.
00:48:16
Speaker
Yeah, and I agree.
00:48:19
Speaker
Let's talk rumors really quick.
00:48:22
Speaker
I know the Pinball Show, I know that we're releasing this after they did their show this week.
00:48:27
Speaker
But last week they talked about the next title rumor and it wasn't hard to not see where this is coming from because it was kind of alluded to on the Twippies.
00:48:40
Speaker
If you saw this, the mayor of back to the future had said, is there another back to the future pinball machine coming?
00:48:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:48
Speaker
And they said like to be continued.
00:48:50
Speaker
So let's talk back to the future.
00:48:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:54
Speaker
Obviously, if we go timeline, Brian Eddy's next, he'd be in charge of Back to the Future.
00:49:01
Speaker
Does that do anything for you?
00:49:03
Speaker
Okay, so we are just going off.
00:49:06
Speaker
We really don't have any spoilers out there or any leaked information.
00:49:12
Speaker
We're just going off who is the next person in line.
00:49:15
Speaker
And it's got to be Brian Eddy since Stranger Things was his last one.
00:49:19
Speaker
And we are assuming, we haven't heard anything different, that he's still in the rotation.
00:49:23
Speaker
So that would make sense by him.
00:49:26
Speaker
The big challenge with this is...
00:49:29
Speaker
with theme versus theme integration.
00:49:32
Speaker
It's all going to depend on what assets they're given and how they're going to be able to integrate this.
00:49:40
Speaker
You're not going to be able to play the Jurassic Park card, which I thought was an excellent choice
00:49:48
Speaker
in basically being a side character in the Jurassic Park story.
00:49:57
Speaker
So you have this parallel thing going on, and so it's associated with it, and it's relevant, but it's not necessary that you're Ned driving to the docks, or you're Ned trying to go in and steal the canister of the embryos.
00:50:14
Speaker
Or so they could have easily gone down that road.
00:50:17
Speaker
And that's what Ghostbusters did with, okay, who brought the dog?
00:50:24
Speaker
And it worked really well with Jurassic Park because it gave them a lot of flexibility.
00:50:30
Speaker
Josh, do you think that approach will work with Back to the Future?
00:50:34
Speaker
No, I think this has to be a theme integrated game.
00:50:37
Speaker
This can't be just some side quest of the series.
00:50:41
Speaker
I guess you could go that route.
00:50:43
Speaker
But with Stranger Things... You would feel left out, though.
00:50:47
Speaker
You would feel that you were shortchanged by the story if you're just interacting with Hildel High as opposed to actually being one of the characters, being Marty, being Biff or whatever.
00:51:01
Speaker
I agree.
00:51:02
Speaker
I think, but if you look at Stranger Things, Brian Eddy did theme integration very well on that game, regardless of how you feel about the gameplay or the actual game itself.
00:51:12
Speaker
The theme integration is fantastic on that game.
00:51:15
Speaker
So I think Back to the Future going to Eddy is a good choice when it comes to theme integration.
00:51:22
Speaker
I think that if you're going to do this, you do the first movie.
00:51:26
Speaker
I feel like the second and third movie were good, but the second movie, so half the story is just pretty much recapping what happened in the first movie.
00:51:36
Speaker
And so the second movie is look at the cool stuff that it's going to happen in the future.
00:51:40
Speaker
I, the stuff that we think about with back to the future is K one hoverboard or, Hey, I want the self-lacing Nikes or, Hey, I want all this kind of stuff, which is fun and gimmicky.
00:51:52
Speaker
But that's really all it was.
00:51:54
Speaker
It really didn't tell the story very well.
00:51:58
Speaker
Back to the Future is a perfect story if you just use the first movie.
00:52:04
Speaker
Yep, I agree.
00:52:05
Speaker
I think there's a lot of meat on the bone for this game.
00:52:08
Speaker
And I could see a lot of wonderful things.
00:52:10
Speaker
There's a lot of people that have talked to me about this being their dream theme, which kind of shocks me.
00:52:14
Speaker
But I did not grow up on the Back to the Future movies.
00:52:18
Speaker
I remember watching them growing up.
00:52:19
Speaker
And they were fantastic.
00:52:21
Speaker
Like as a child, I thought they were great.
00:52:23
Speaker
And I've bought them all since and have rewatched them within the last year or two.
00:52:27
Speaker
And they're good.
00:52:28
Speaker
They just, they're not my cup of tea.
00:52:30
Speaker
And so what I'm more intrigued about is to see what Eddie produces for a play filled this go around.
00:52:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:37
Speaker
I, it has to be just the first movie.
00:52:39
Speaker
I, it really, the, the other ones,
00:52:43
Speaker
the other ones were a money grab.
00:52:45
Speaker
They didn't feel... If you do a critical examination of the story, it's kind of like The Matrix.
00:52:52
Speaker
The Matrix was the perfect one-off story.
00:52:57
Speaker
And when you start getting into third, fourth, fifth, sixth, it just feels like, hey, we made a boatload of money on this.
00:53:07
Speaker
And so let's rewrite something and make it extended.
00:53:11
Speaker
So...
00:53:13
Speaker
I think they have an opportunity to knock it out of the park, as we would say.
00:53:17
Speaker
I hope so.
00:53:18
Speaker
But it also depends on getting the licensing.
00:53:21
Speaker
You have to have the DeLorean in there.
00:53:24
Speaker
Yep.
00:53:25
Speaker
You have to have Michael J. Fox.
00:53:26
Speaker
That's one of the biggest complaints of the Data East one.
00:53:28
Speaker
Yeah, you have to have Michael J. Fox.
00:53:31
Speaker
Christopher Lloyd, you don't have to have Christopher Lloyd, because I know that there was a licensing issue on the Adams family with his likeness and Fester.
00:53:42
Speaker
And so on the virtual, on the virtual pinball machine.
00:53:45
Speaker
So they actually had to change that.
00:53:47
Speaker
So it didn't, it no longer resembled Christopher Lloyd.
00:53:53
Speaker
But you have to have Michael J. Fox.
00:53:57
Speaker
You just have to.
00:54:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:00
Speaker
And there are other things in there that you have, the two things you have to have, you have to have Fox, you have to have the Lord, the DeLorean.
00:54:07
Speaker
Well, and this is what's funny is like, I know that they mentioned this, like people have mentioned this last year, but when are we going to get to the point where we're actually going to see titles that aren't being rehashed that's already been done before?
00:54:18
Speaker
Like Turtles had already been done by Data East.
00:54:22
Speaker
You had Avengers have already been done by Stern.
00:54:26
Speaker
I mean, they're obviously all better upgrades of those titles.
00:54:30
Speaker
um but back to the future's already been done before we know that godzilla is coming because spooky pinball was pretty forthcoming with stern getting the license anyway i mean whether or not they actually make it or they're sitting on it we just know they have the license because that was public airing but regardless like there's a lot of pinball machines that are coming back out there technically rehashed i mean jurassic park is another
00:54:54
Speaker
Data East rehash.
00:54:56
Speaker
So is this just easy, low hanging fruit or is this, this is the prime time to do it.
00:55:02
Speaker
It's the prime time to do it.
00:55:04
Speaker
It's, it's the dad rock stuff where, um, all the people who are growing up and that is their nostalgic sweet spot is arcades and eighties movies.
00:55:17
Speaker
And that's why, um,
00:55:19
Speaker
guys in their forties and fifties are feeling like, you know what, now I can, I can afford some of these toys.
00:55:26
Speaker
And so they're starting to do their own stuff.
00:55:29
Speaker
So this is the stuff they're going to collect.
00:55:33
Speaker
That's, that's probably actually why Beatles didn't sell as well as it could have, because it was aiming for the sixties to seventies year old, even though it's a great game.
00:55:44
Speaker
Well, and I even talked to operators and they say that Turtles is the best earner on location.
00:55:50
Speaker
I mean, these are just smart titles.
00:55:51
Speaker
But Turtles is also still relevant though.
00:55:54
Speaker
They have been able to ride that theme on Nickelodeon multiple times.
00:56:01
Speaker
So it's still there.
00:56:04
Speaker
But yeah, the reason why they're milking these 80s themes is because the people who are buying it are in that demographic.
00:56:14
Speaker
Yep.
00:56:15
Speaker
Well, I think we've touched on that long enough.
00:56:17
Speaker
I'm excited regardless to see what happens.
00:56:19
Speaker
We don't know for sure if it's Back to the Future, but listening to the rumblings, it sounds like that's what it is.
00:56:26
Speaker
And we're excited.
00:56:28
Speaker
I'm always excited to see a new pinball machine.
00:56:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:30
Speaker
No, absolutely.
00:56:32
Speaker
Let's move on to the last one.
00:56:34
Speaker
This is what people showed up for.
00:56:36
Speaker
The...
00:56:37
Speaker
We should do... I've been watching a lot of wrestling movies.
00:56:40
Speaker
We've been watching Young Rock on NBC, which is fantastic.
00:56:43
Speaker
If you have not watched that, you should go watch, if you're a fan of Dwayne The Rock Johnson.
00:56:47
Speaker
Are you serious?
00:56:48
Speaker
There's a show called Young Rock?
00:56:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:50
Speaker
So it's about his... He says it's pretty accurate.
00:56:53
Speaker
Besides the stuff that happens in the future, it's all based on The Rock running as president, and he's rehashing it.
00:56:58
Speaker
the stories as a child to relate to the American public that he is like them, essentially.
00:57:06
Speaker
And so we watched that.
00:57:07
Speaker
I watched Fighting With My Family.
00:57:08
Speaker
If you haven't watched that one, that's a really cool one about Paige.
00:57:12
Speaker
She was in WWE.
00:57:14
Speaker
She talks about how she got involved, and she's from London.
00:57:20
Speaker
And Dwayne The Rock Johnson was actually in London recording Fast and the Curious 6.
00:57:25
Speaker
And he had saw a local news article on this, and that's why he decided to make this movie.
00:57:31
Speaker
Fantastic.
00:57:31
Speaker
So that's why I'm like, when we were on Pinball Players, and I was like, dude, I've had an itch.
00:57:36
Speaker
I was like, that's why we should do the intro for You vs. Robert Mueller.
00:57:44
Speaker
Okay.
00:57:45
Speaker
So where do we start?
00:57:45
Speaker
So Josh set this up.
00:57:47
Speaker
I sent you the release that was sent out to the people who ordered the game and they're not releasing anything publicly.
00:57:56
Speaker
They've stopped talking to anybody except for the people who they have the money from.
00:58:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:58:02
Speaker
And so they sent this release to them.
00:58:04
Speaker
And why don't you go ahead and recap this gem of a PR release?
00:58:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:58:09
Speaker
I'm going just to kind of boil this down.
00:58:11
Speaker
I don't want to read this all.
00:58:13
Speaker
It's essentially saying, like, like Scott said, we are no longer telling the public any of this information.
00:58:19
Speaker
We're going to give it directly to the people that bought these games.
00:58:22
Speaker
The first paragraph is stating they still haven't got their UL licensing for the U.S. And the CE licensing outside of the U.S. is still becoming a problem with them.
00:58:33
Speaker
At this point, they're thinking they're at least a month out, if not more.
00:58:37
Speaker
So we're looking four to six weeks.
00:58:38
Speaker
They're not a month out.
00:58:39
Speaker
They're not.
00:58:40
Speaker
It's just, they're not.
00:58:42
Speaker
I'm sorry, but you should have had this done.
00:58:44
Speaker
Like, what were you doing for the last three years?
00:58:46
Speaker
Okay.
00:58:46
Speaker
Seriously.
00:58:47
Speaker
Okay.
00:58:48
Speaker
I'm sorry.
00:58:48
Speaker
I can't even get past the first paragraph.
00:58:50
Speaker
Okay.
00:58:51
Speaker
If you come out swinging, like I'm going to do things like Stern and I'm going to be competing with them and we're going to be doing a faster, better and having better, uh, you know, we're having cheaper games and we're just going to flood the market and take over.
Deep Root Pinball Controversies
00:59:07
Speaker
This is like figuring out that you have to put a third prong on the plug.
00:59:12
Speaker
This is the stuff that they want.
00:59:14
Speaker
So when you buy it, it doesn't burn down your house.
00:59:18
Speaker
That's why homebrews don't do this because it costs too much money.
00:59:23
Speaker
You're like, well, if you're tinkering on it, fine.
00:59:25
Speaker
But if you are planning on selling thousands of machines, then you have to make sure that they are safe.
00:59:32
Speaker
And there are these licensing regulations that if you want to stamp on your box that this is safe and yes, we've gone through the certification of it and it's not going to shock you as soon as you hit it, then that's what you do.
00:59:48
Speaker
And guess what?
00:59:48
Speaker
Stern does this four times a year.
00:59:52
Speaker
Like this is not one thing.
00:59:54
Speaker
My understanding though, it's per model.
00:59:56
Speaker
So with Stern, no, sorry, like not per theme.
01:00:01
Speaker
It would be per theme.
01:00:02
Speaker
the spike two system would have to be UL listed.
01:00:05
Speaker
Okay.
01:00:05
Speaker
But everything that, everything that has spike two is UL listed.
01:00:09
Speaker
Okay, fine.
01:00:10
Speaker
But you have to do this.
01:00:12
Speaker
This is part of your job in making something.
01:00:16
Speaker
I mean, it's, it's just such a clown show that, that, that they don't even, it's like a kid who's smoking pot and saying, dude, do you know, it'd be really cool if we made a pinball machine.
01:00:31
Speaker
Do you know how to do that?
01:00:32
Speaker
No, but it's totally easy, right?
01:00:34
Speaker
It's like a ball and a plunger and a flipper.
01:00:37
Speaker
We're cool.
01:00:38
Speaker
What, you have to have two flippers?
01:00:39
Speaker
Okay, fine.
01:00:39
Speaker
We'll put two flippers in there.
01:00:41
Speaker
Maybe some pop bumpers or something.
01:00:43
Speaker
Or we'll call them jets because that sounds cool.
01:00:46
Speaker
But seriously, the fact that they are, it is beyond comical at this point.
01:00:54
Speaker
Just the ineptitude that it trickles top down.
01:00:59
Speaker
And it just blows me away that that's the first thing.
01:01:03
Speaker
And so, okay, so we're going to jump into the next paragraph.
01:01:07
Speaker
We continue to appreciate many of the vendors being able to get timely stuff out to us.
01:01:11
Speaker
Unfortunately, some vendors are having issues.
01:01:13
Speaker
Guess what?
01:01:14
Speaker
Your company's having issues.
01:01:16
Speaker
You can't make a stupid machine.
01:01:18
Speaker
Okay.
01:01:20
Speaker
And if you're having a hard time, you can't even eke out.
01:01:25
Speaker
So they were planning on doing 160.
01:01:27
Speaker
So they had orders for 130.
01:01:28
Speaker
So they were planning on building 30 extra games.
01:01:32
Speaker
And now they have scrapped that too.
01:01:35
Speaker
Okay.
01:01:35
Speaker
So we are just making 130 games because guess what?
01:01:40
Speaker
Nothing ever breaks in a pinball machine.
01:01:42
Speaker
So these are perfect.
01:01:43
Speaker
Yeah.
01:01:44
Speaker
Yeah.
01:01:45
Speaker
This is a ball being catapulted around inside this little glass case with plastic parts and rubber bands.
01:01:57
Speaker
Like, what do you think is going to happen to all this stuff?
01:02:00
Speaker
Well, and what's weird to me is at the end of that paragraph, it says it doesn't make sense now to make more Raza machines than what were ordered.
01:02:06
Speaker
Because if you remember originally from the release that was two months ago, it said we've had 130 on order, but we're going to make 160.
01:02:14
Speaker
And with this paragraph, it's saying like, we don't have enough parts.
01:02:18
Speaker
We can't get the parts that are ordered for the one 30.
01:02:20
Speaker
So we're going to just do the one 30 and call it quits for the day.
01:02:26
Speaker
Okay, Josh.
01:02:27
Speaker
So I, I'm going to give you a quick economics lesson.
01:02:30
Speaker
Okay.
01:02:31
Speaker
Okay.
01:02:31
Speaker
Okay.
01:02:32
Speaker
If I'm going to build a car, okay.
01:02:34
Speaker
How about this?
01:02:35
Speaker
I'm going to build a stealth bomber.
01:02:38
Speaker
How much does one stealth bomber cost?
01:02:40
Speaker
Okay.
01:02:42
Speaker
I haven't a clue.
01:02:43
Speaker
These are made up numbers.
01:02:44
Speaker
Okay, so don't go and Google these.
01:02:46
Speaker
Cost a billion dollars to make one stealth bomber.
01:02:52
Speaker
Okay.
01:02:54
Speaker
Do you know how much it costs to make two stealth bombers?
01:02:57
Speaker
I would assume 2 billion.
01:02:59
Speaker
1.2 billion.
01:03:01
Speaker
Do you know how much it costs to do three?
01:03:04
Speaker
1.25 billion.
01:03:05
Speaker
Because what you have is you have economies of scale.
01:03:10
Speaker
There's a reason why Toyota is able or Ford or whatever is able to sell cars based on very little upfront cost because it's spread over thousands of models.
01:03:26
Speaker
Okay.
01:03:27
Speaker
So I'll do the pinball analogy.
01:03:29
Speaker
Josh, how much does the star Wars license cost?
01:03:32
Speaker
A million dollars.
01:03:33
Speaker
Okay.
01:03:34
Speaker
Yeah.
01:03:34
Speaker
So how much does it cost to make one star Wars pinball machine?
01:03:38
Speaker
A million dollars.
01:03:38
Speaker
A million dollars plus 3,500 parts.
01:03:42
Speaker
Okay.
01:03:43
Speaker
How much does it cost to make two?
01:03:45
Speaker
How much does it cost to make three?
01:03:46
Speaker
Exactly.
01:03:47
Speaker
Okay.
01:03:47
Speaker
I get what you're saying.
01:03:47
Speaker
You see what I'm getting at.
01:03:49
Speaker
And so if you have no clue about manufacturing economies of scale and you think you're going to save money by making 130 machines as opposed to making a thousand machines, if your machine's good, you will sell a thousand machines.
01:04:08
Speaker
You will, but the fact that they have no faith in this POS retro nineties feeling game, that's not even that good.
01:04:19
Speaker
And they're only trying to run away from it so fast that they don't even want to make the more than what is contractually obligated.
01:04:29
Speaker
Here's the thing.
01:04:30
Speaker
I don't think it's that.
01:04:32
Speaker
I think the problem is, is Deep Root has been around for at least three years now.
01:04:37
Speaker
Robert Mueller came out swinging with head-to-head and on Eclectic Gamers and was very bold and upfront.
01:04:50
Speaker
And at this time, when you listen to those interviews for the first time, there is almost a sincerity there from Robert Mueller that you believe what he is saying.
01:05:02
Speaker
And as time went on,
01:05:03
Speaker
We gave them time.
01:05:04
Speaker
We gave them a year.
01:05:06
Speaker
We gave them time because they hadn't taken money.
01:05:08
Speaker
Now they've taken money in orders.
01:05:10
Speaker
And then a year later, they're like, the five days are deeper is coming.
01:05:14
Speaker
So we're like, oh, we finally get to see this.
01:05:17
Speaker
And then that gets canceled.
01:05:19
Speaker
You know, we're going to do that next year.
01:05:21
Speaker
And so two years go by and COVID happens, which is understandable.
01:05:27
Speaker
No, no.
01:05:28
Speaker
COVID rescued them.
01:05:30
Speaker
Yes.
01:05:31
Speaker
Do you think that they were ready for Texas Pinball Festival, the five days of Deep Root, before COVID happened?
01:05:40
Speaker
So my point being, no, they were not.
01:05:43
Speaker
There's no chance.
01:05:45
Speaker
That's like saying, oh, I was driving in to to turn in the turn paper.
01:05:50
Speaker
It was totally done, teacher.
01:05:51
Speaker
But guess what?
01:05:52
Speaker
I got in a car accident, so I couldn't actually make it there.
01:05:56
Speaker
But I totally have it.
01:05:57
Speaker
And a year later, the teacher's like, wait, did are you ever going to turn that paper?
01:06:05
Speaker
But the point I'm trying to make here is we believe these people so much because we thought they knew what they were talking about.
01:06:14
Speaker
All the fancy words, the quad assembly, the we're going to pump it out, we're going to do it bigger or better.
01:06:21
Speaker
And so we're like, fine, you're not taking money.
01:06:24
Speaker
I'm interested.
01:06:24
Speaker
I want to see what you produce.
01:06:27
Speaker
And so as time has went on...
01:06:30
Speaker
And they've backtracked and they've backtracked and they've lied and said, hey, I didn't say that.
01:06:36
Speaker
Yeah, you did.
01:06:37
Speaker
But you're on record of saying that.
01:06:37
Speaker
Yeah, you're on record.
01:06:38
Speaker
It's right there.
01:06:39
Speaker
Yeah.
01:06:39
Speaker
Exactly.
01:06:41
Speaker
Red flags start going up left and right.
01:06:43
Speaker
Boom, boom, boom, right?
01:06:44
Speaker
So the biggest red flag to me is when you have six industry professionals, quote unquote, come into your place of business.
01:06:55
Speaker
And then when they go to leave...
01:07:00
Speaker
your whole operation comes to a screeching halt where we were going to release.
01:07:05
Speaker
These were, we're not going to, that's actually the bad part.
01:07:08
Speaker
They weren't professionals.
01:07:10
Speaker
Yes.
01:07:10
Speaker
They were.
01:07:11
Speaker
These are people that have never built a pinball machine.
01:07:12
Speaker
In the industry.
01:07:14
Speaker
Yes.
01:07:15
Speaker
In that, in the pinball media.
01:07:17
Speaker
Yes.
01:07:18
Speaker
But these are people that have never built a pinball machine though.
01:07:20
Speaker
So, you know, Kate, actually that's the one thing they have in common with Robert Mueller.
01:07:26
Speaker
That's terrible.
01:07:26
Speaker
Yes, I agree.
01:07:27
Speaker
But my point being is that's when not little tiny lawn red flags come screaming up.
01:07:33
Speaker
That's when someone sends up the red flag on a flagpole and puts lights on it.
01:07:39
Speaker
And it's so bad that you have to NDA those six people that came to your building.
01:07:46
Speaker
They're not allowed to say anything, but whatever they've said has halted your operations.
01:07:51
Speaker
You need to take a better look.
01:07:53
Speaker
I think that they have shot themselves so many times in the foot that when it finally came to orders, people didn't trust them.
01:08:02
Speaker
Shocker.
01:08:02
Speaker
Now, if this happened a year ago, let's say COVID didn't happen.
01:08:07
Speaker
I know people wish it never did.
01:08:08
Speaker
Let's say COVID never happened.
01:08:10
Speaker
Let's say everything's actually on track.
01:08:12
Speaker
Let's say Deep Root...
01:08:14
Speaker
unveils texas pinball festival 2020 it's been two years at this point that they've been talking and say hey we're gonna do this and they finally unveil and they're ready they've got games in boxes i guarantee that 130 would have been over a thousand people are dying for a john poppadu game people are dying for something different there people are frustrated not not to take a stab at stern or or jjp but
01:08:41
Speaker
there are underlining issues that aren't getting resolved with these companies.
01:08:45
Speaker
And when someone comes out and says, Hey, we're going to do it better than what Stern's doing.
01:08:49
Speaker
And we're going to do it better than what JJP is doing.
01:08:52
Speaker
And let's just be honest.
01:08:53
Speaker
It's the play field issues.
01:08:55
Speaker
You know, when someone hears that that's music to their ears, like they want a game that they don't have to take the glass off of it's plug and play, which you're not going to get with pinball.
01:09:05
Speaker
Like people wake up.
01:09:07
Speaker
It doesn't exist.
01:09:08
Speaker
It doesn't exist.
01:09:10
Speaker
Even Williams games came.
01:09:11
Speaker
I know everyone covets them, but they came off the line having to be worked on.
01:09:16
Speaker
So.
01:09:19
Speaker
So let's say 2020 TPF games are in boxes.
01:09:22
Speaker
I just I think the problem is, is there's so many red flags at this point that I am actually shocked that they were able to convince 130 people that they were going to do this.
01:09:33
Speaker
Yeah.
01:09:33
Speaker
And I think they had the momentum.
01:09:36
Speaker
They had everything right.
01:09:38
Speaker
They had.
01:09:39
Speaker
They were telling us the sweet little nothings we wanted to hear.
01:09:42
Speaker
They were showing us the designing team we all wanted.
01:09:46
Speaker
You know, Dennis Norman, Barry Osler, John Papaduke.
01:09:49
Speaker
I mean, these are big names in the industry.
01:09:52
Speaker
And so it's like it all felt right.
01:09:55
Speaker
But as time went on, it just got worse and worse and worse.
01:09:59
Speaker
And so I truly feel terrible for those that decided to gamble and take a chance on this company.
01:10:06
Speaker
Because I feel like we are at Zidware 3.0.
01:10:10
Speaker
We're not at Zidware.
01:10:11
Speaker
We're actually looking at Skip B right now.
01:10:13
Speaker
Dude.
01:10:14
Speaker
It is so bad.
01:10:19
Speaker
I actually read a book over the last month.
01:10:21
Speaker
It was Malcolm Gladwell's book.
01:10:24
Speaker
It was talking to strangers.
01:10:26
Speaker
And it talks about the truth default that we have.
01:10:30
Speaker
And that it wasn't really saying it was good or bad because on some level you have to accept what someone is telling you is true.
01:10:38
Speaker
But he went through and talked about all these instances where people ended up being like a big spy or even talked about Bernie Madoff.
01:10:48
Speaker
And he talked about all these things.
01:10:50
Speaker
And,
01:10:51
Speaker
He said there were red flags and experienced people had questions about these things, but the truth default made them rationalize why it wasn't what they're seeing.
01:11:04
Speaker
And this is the, you know, this is the, the children's fairy tale, the emperor's new clothes.
01:11:11
Speaker
And if, if you don't know it, it's a fantastic story.
01:11:14
Speaker
And I think about it all the time where, um,
01:11:18
Speaker
I'll sum it up.
01:11:19
Speaker
It's a guy who comes in to the king and he says, I can make this magical clothes for you that the only people that can see it are wise.
01:11:29
Speaker
And so he pretends to make this clothes.
01:11:31
Speaker
And so the guys, so the king is wearing underwear.
01:11:35
Speaker
And of course, everybody who looks at him sees underwear, but no one wants to say it because they don't want to look foolish.
01:11:43
Speaker
And until finally a child.
01:11:44
Speaker
So he's walking outside and the child looks and says, hey, he's not wearing any clothes.
01:11:49
Speaker
And then everyone's like, it kind of breaks the spell, the collusion that everybody has to say, no, no, no, it's totally fine.
01:11:56
Speaker
He's wearing something.
01:11:57
Speaker
I can see it.
01:11:58
Speaker
I'm wise.
01:12:00
Speaker
So this is the challenge that we have with Deep Root.
01:12:03
Speaker
There's not four flags.
01:12:06
Speaker
The entire company is a giant red flag.
01:12:09
Speaker
The entire company.
01:12:10
Speaker
I'm sorry.
01:12:11
Speaker
Like, okay.
01:12:12
Speaker
I, and I have said, I hope to be loud wrong.
01:12:18
Speaker
I hope they pull a Gene Cunningham out of their hat and they make 150 or 130 of these games like big bang bar and prove me wrong that they can do it.
01:12:29
Speaker
But Gene Cunningham still lost money on the deal.
01:12:32
Speaker
He did.
01:12:33
Speaker
He, he still, um,
01:12:35
Speaker
It pretty much bankrupted after he did.
01:12:37
Speaker
Yeah.
01:12:38
Speaker
It bankrupted, but he was committed to do it.
01:12:40
Speaker
And so he did it.
01:12:41
Speaker
So I feel that this is going to be that side project that eventually is, it's so far out there that is just never going to get done.
01:12:51
Speaker
Yeah.
01:12:53
Speaker
Um, let's, let's, so the, the third paragraph kind of reiterates what says in the second one that they're not going to be making more machines.
01:13:00
Speaker
past the 1.30.
01:13:01
Speaker
They're kind of waiting on parts.
01:13:03
Speaker
There won't be any updates till mid-May is what it says.
01:13:07
Speaker
But here's the thing that just boggles me.
01:13:09
Speaker
Do you think there'll be an update?
01:13:11
Speaker
I don't.
01:13:12
Speaker
Well, here's the thing.
01:13:13
Speaker
This is what blows my mind.
01:13:14
Speaker
Let me read this verbatim.
01:13:17
Speaker
I'm not going to do this verbatim.
01:13:18
Speaker
They're going to offer financial relief to those games that were bought.
01:13:21
Speaker
No, no, no.
01:13:22
Speaker
If there are delays.
01:13:23
Speaker
I am going to do this verbatim because it's so ludicrous.
01:13:26
Speaker
Nobody actually with any sort of PR department would write this.
01:13:32
Speaker
With current lead times on the certification and parts, there will not be any significant updates in the next six weeks.
01:13:40
Speaker
Our goal is to update.
01:13:42
Speaker
Our goal, by the way,
01:13:44
Speaker
I would add parenthetically, well, it's been their goal to make machines, is to update in mid-May and at that time, if games are not immediately ready to start shipping, to offer some financial relief for the delays in the form of a return of store credit, discount of the Raza purchase, or allow customers to rescind Raza purchases for a refund with nominal interest.
01:14:11
Speaker
Okay, I want to break this down for two seconds.
01:14:14
Speaker
Return of store credit.
01:14:15
Speaker
What store credit?
01:14:16
Speaker
What are you guys selling?
01:14:17
Speaker
Yeah.
01:14:18
Speaker
Brazos is the very first product.
01:14:19
Speaker
You want a Magic Girl?
01:14:20
Speaker
Like that doesn't shoot?
01:14:22
Speaker
I know Kerry Hardy has already said this, but I totally agree with what he said.
01:14:25
Speaker
Like there is nothing else you're selling.
01:14:28
Speaker
Like I don't want to buy $6,000 worth of pin pods.
01:14:31
Speaker
Are you guys even pushing those out the door yet?
01:14:33
Speaker
Like there is nothing else you guys are selling.
01:14:36
Speaker
Yeah.
01:14:36
Speaker
The warehouse is empty.
01:14:37
Speaker
And guess what?
01:14:38
Speaker
There's no warehouse.
01:14:39
Speaker
Yeah.
01:14:39
Speaker
And if you're not pushing out Rasa's, I guarantee the ship is halfway under the water.
01:14:44
Speaker
No one else is going to want store credit.
01:14:46
Speaker
A discount of Rasa purchase.
01:14:47
Speaker
Okay.
01:14:47
Speaker
So they're already probably losing money at this point because there's no chance 130 machines is going to make up for three years of lead time.
01:14:58
Speaker
So what does that mean though?
01:14:59
Speaker
Like they're going to give you part of your money back?
01:15:01
Speaker
You know what?
01:15:01
Speaker
It's probably an Ikea game.
01:15:02
Speaker
They send it to you and you assemble it yourself.
01:15:04
Speaker
And then you go and get your CE certification and the UL certification.
01:15:14
Speaker
You get it yourself.
01:15:14
Speaker
That's part of the fun.
01:15:16
Speaker
Okay.
01:15:18
Speaker
No, no.
01:15:18
Speaker
This is the one that blows my mind, right?
01:15:20
Speaker
allow customers to rescind their purchase for a refund with nominal interest.
01:15:26
Speaker
Oh, okay.
01:15:26
Speaker
Excuse me.
01:15:27
Speaker
So is it negatively?
01:15:29
Speaker
Is it negative interest?
01:15:31
Speaker
This is how I took it.
01:15:32
Speaker
And, and Robert Mueller's the lawyer, so he could educate us on what, what it said.
01:15:37
Speaker
But my, my thought process is, is you bought Raza for, what is it?
01:15:42
Speaker
$6,000 on the pro.
01:15:43
Speaker
Okay.
01:15:45
Speaker
We're going to go with $6,000.
01:15:45
Speaker
Cause I can't remember exactly.
01:15:48
Speaker
okay, I'm going to give you a refund, but there's interest involved in that.
01:15:52
Speaker
So I'm going to give you $5,000 back because you bought the game, but you no longer want it.
01:16:01
Speaker
So we're going to take a little bit off the top because of...
01:16:05
Speaker
you know, that's a game we're holding onto.
01:16:07
Speaker
What is nominal interest?
01:16:08
Speaker
Like is nominal interest like a restocking fee?
01:16:12
Speaker
That's exactly what I was thinking.
01:16:13
Speaker
Because I wonder what the, I wonder what the, the limitations on nominal interest, because I guarantee they're not paying you a percentage back.
01:16:22
Speaker
You're not going to get like 110% of your down payment.
01:16:27
Speaker
Yeah.
01:16:28
Speaker
I just, that one blows my mind.
01:16:30
Speaker
Unless you're going to give me more money.
01:16:32
Speaker
Like I'll cancel my Raza and you pay me $7,000 or $10,000.
01:16:38
Speaker
But a restocking fee is exactly what that sounds like to me.
01:16:41
Speaker
So you're telling me I took a chance on your company.
01:16:44
Speaker
You're not delivering on your product.
01:16:45
Speaker
You took my money.
01:16:47
Speaker
And after all that, you're going to shortchange me when you give me my money back for refund?
01:16:51
Speaker
Oh, no.
01:16:52
Speaker
That's not happening.
01:16:53
Speaker
Okay.
01:16:53
Speaker
So I just Googled this.
01:16:55
Speaker
Investotope –
01:16:57
Speaker
Investopedia.
01:16:58
Speaker
Okay.
01:16:59
Speaker
What is nominal interest rate?
01:17:02
Speaker
It says nominal interest rate refers to the interest rate before taking inflation into account.
01:17:09
Speaker
So they're expecting the inflation on their machines to go up?
01:17:12
Speaker
I don't know.
01:17:13
Speaker
Normal interest rate refers to the interest rate before taking inflation into the account.
01:17:18
Speaker
The federal funds rate, the interest rate.
01:17:21
Speaker
So I'm actually – So that sounds like to me because when you originally purchased the game, the pre-orders were $6,000, but then it was like –
01:17:29
Speaker
We're going to have an extra 30 games and they're going to be $10,000 a pop.
01:17:32
Speaker
So maybe they're saying, we'll give you back your money for the 6,000 instead of the 10,000.
01:17:35
Speaker
I don't, I have no idea.
01:17:37
Speaker
Like, okay, that could be taken two ways.
01:17:39
Speaker
That could be taken.
01:17:40
Speaker
Well, the interest rate is 1%.
01:17:42
Speaker
So we're going to give you that back.
01:17:43
Speaker
Okay.
01:17:44
Speaker
That's not going to happen by the way.
01:17:45
Speaker
I've seen into the future and I've seen how this ends because it's ended this way for about five other attempted startup companies that never happens.
01:17:55
Speaker
All righty.
01:17:57
Speaker
Last paragraph pretty much just says those are on the mail list that are not Raza customers are not going to be getting those extra machines because they're not going to have them.
01:18:04
Speaker
If people cancel, then you might have the opportunity to buy a machine because we'll make the 130.
01:18:10
Speaker
But that's going to be first come first serve.
01:18:16
Speaker
I would love to hear from anybody who actually has the money down and still is planning on keeping their money in.
01:18:24
Speaker
Because it's obviously someone who has more money than they care about and they're taking that long shot that it's going to be made.
01:18:34
Speaker
Well, what's weird to me is it says that they're going to offer these at the original price.
01:18:38
Speaker
So why the heck did you even jump the price by $3,000 for those extra 30 units?
01:18:43
Speaker
I have no idea.
01:18:46
Speaker
It's just so confusing.
01:18:50
Speaker
That's the problem.
01:18:51
Speaker
Do you know what it's like?
01:18:55
Speaker
It's like listening to my child describe a story where he's
01:19:01
Speaker
Okay.
01:19:01
Speaker
And I was there and, and then, and then the dragon came and the dragon had like a princess outfit on and there was like unicorns and sparkles.
01:19:11
Speaker
And then we were in the desert and there, it's just non sequitur.
01:19:15
Speaker
There's so much stuff going on that doesn't follow any timeline of a reasonable business.
01:19:22
Speaker
So this is my thought process.
01:19:24
Speaker
I'm going to, this is, this is the gospel according to Josh.
01:19:26
Speaker
This is not a hundred percent.
01:19:29
Speaker
accurate, but considering the people that have reached out to us and saying, hey, you're pretty dead on with your description on what's going on at DeepRoot because they've seen behind the curtain, I'm going to go out on a limb and say this is what happened.
01:19:42
Speaker
Robert Mueller loved pinball.
01:19:46
Speaker
He said that emphatically on This Week in Pinball.
01:19:48
Speaker
He loves pinball.
01:19:51
Speaker
And he saw an opportunity to get into a market that seems like it is booming and it has room for growth.
01:19:58
Speaker
He has some money.
01:19:59
Speaker
So he figured, hey, I'm going to hire these designers that I love, Barry Ausler, Dennis Norman, anyone that's willing to accept the call that I send out.
01:20:09
Speaker
So he hires J-Pop, he hires these other designers.
01:20:13
Speaker
And he figures they've made pinball games.
01:20:15
Speaker
All I've got to do is throw money at this, right?
01:20:17
Speaker
I'm going to throw money here in Texas where I'm at.
01:20:21
Speaker
So first year's down.
01:20:23
Speaker
He's liking what he sees.
01:20:25
Speaker
He's starting to see product.
01:20:27
Speaker
And he's just kind of let the kids play off on their own, right?
01:20:30
Speaker
He goes back to work where he needs to be taking care of his law firm business.
01:20:36
Speaker
And the second year rolls around and...
01:20:40
Speaker
Maybe Pinbar popped up at this time, and he said, this is a great innovation.
01:20:44
Speaker
Let's keep going with this.
01:20:46
Speaker
He's getting starstruck by the fact that all these innovations are coming, and this is going to redefine Pinball, and we're going to make money just off the patents alone.
01:20:54
Speaker
And this is a guy that's a lawyer, so patents are his bread and butter.
01:20:58
Speaker
This is a fantastic idea.
01:21:00
Speaker
And he gets just more and more roped into this.
01:21:04
Speaker
Well, the problem is, is the public starts demanding, hey, we need to start seeing product.
01:21:09
Speaker
You're talking this up.
01:21:10
Speaker
You're excited about this.
01:21:11
Speaker
So obviously something's going right.
01:21:13
Speaker
We want to see as well.
01:21:15
Speaker
And so Robert starts visiting the factory more and more because deadlines are showing up, but nothing is being met.
01:21:24
Speaker
And he starts getting frustrated because you don't have a George Gomez.
01:21:28
Speaker
You don't have- You don't have a general.
01:21:31
Speaker
A David Fix.
01:21:32
Speaker
You have-
01:21:33
Speaker
And these kids, I keep calling them kids because this is, I relate this to a playground, right?
01:21:39
Speaker
Like dad's come home.
01:21:40
Speaker
Yeah, but I wouldn't say, okay, I would say that is undermining the professionality of these people.
01:21:45
Speaker
The people who hired, they actually are professionals on that level.
01:21:51
Speaker
And they are probably working at what they are told to do.
01:21:56
Speaker
But what he doesn't have is any sort of idea how to manufacture anything.
01:22:01
Speaker
So you don't have a manager to your workers.
01:22:03
Speaker
Let's put it that way.
01:22:04
Speaker
You show up, your workers aren't doing their job because they're being left to their own devices.
01:22:09
Speaker
I would say they're doing what you hired them to do.
01:22:12
Speaker
That's what I would say.
01:22:13
Speaker
But no one's making these games.
01:22:16
Speaker
He doesn't know how to, he hasn't transitioned from concept to manufacturing and that's the hardest part.
01:22:22
Speaker
So now he is at a point where the thing that he's throwing money at, he's running out of money.
01:22:30
Speaker
And so he's got to start making decisions of, if I want to keep this going, I've got to start making money somehow.
01:22:36
Speaker
And that's entered this year, the last six months.
01:22:40
Speaker
And that's the decision for the pre-orders.
01:22:42
Speaker
Even though you said,
01:22:43
Speaker
I'm never going to take pre-orders.
01:22:45
Speaker
The decision for all this other stuff that you just have said you'd never, ever do.
01:22:51
Speaker
And the problem is, is you figured out that you've dug the hole so deep, but there's the only person to blame is yourself.
01:23:00
Speaker
And I feel like this is, this could either be the closing chapter for deep root, or we're going to see it drawn out like highway pinball.
01:23:10
Speaker
And it just, it's sad.
01:23:12
Speaker
It's sad that a love for the hobby, because I guarantee that he loved this hobby three years ago.
01:23:19
Speaker
That's why he did this.
01:23:21
Speaker
And I think right now he just hates it.
01:23:24
Speaker
I bet he, I bet he doesn't go and look at a pinball machine anymore because it just brings so much angst from what has happened.
01:23:32
Speaker
Okay.
01:23:33
Speaker
I'll, I'll tell you what the next press releases.
01:23:36
Speaker
Um,
01:23:38
Speaker
Due to COVID and the ongoing challenges of manufacturing machines, we have decided that we are going to close up shop and we are no longer going to pursue deep root pinball.
01:23:52
Speaker
We thank all the fans and all the fans
01:23:55
Speaker
all the support that we received over the years and the people who believed in us.
01:24:00
Speaker
Unfortunately, these were situations outside of our control.
01:24:04
Speaker
And so we, unfortunately we are a victim of COVID and this is going to, um, you know, stay safe, have fun at pinball, all the best Bobby two socks.
01:24:17
Speaker
Yeah.
01:24:18
Speaker
If it's not that it is going to be an on running story of, um,
01:24:23
Speaker
of trying to buy time to pay back the customers that invest.
01:24:26
Speaker
No, this, this is a, this will be a, this will be a bankruptcy.
01:24:30
Speaker
This is we're getting closer to the event horizon in the black hole where everything just gets disillusioned and dismembered.
01:24:40
Speaker
It's just not going to happen.
01:24:42
Speaker
There's no chance.
01:24:43
Speaker
I think the other thing that really hurt them is Dennis Norman left before they took pre-orders as well.
01:24:48
Speaker
I think that was kind of the nail in the coffin.
01:24:50
Speaker
That was, as Dennis Creasel said on the pinball show, that was the canary in the cold.
01:24:54
Speaker
Right.
01:24:54
Speaker
Yeah.
01:24:57
Speaker
So here's the question.
01:25:00
Speaker
How is this different than Highway Pinball?
01:25:06
Speaker
The only difference between this and Highway Pinball is Highway Pinball sold a game.
01:25:11
Speaker
Yeah.
01:25:11
Speaker
Everything else is exactly the same.
01:25:15
Speaker
Exactly.
01:25:15
Speaker
And it's going to be an interesting part of history.
01:25:17
Speaker
The problem is this is strike three for Papaduke, right?
01:25:22
Speaker
He is persona non grata.
01:25:24
Speaker
There's no chance.
01:25:25
Speaker
Yeah.
01:25:26
Speaker
I just don't see doing anything else.
01:25:28
Speaker
And ironically, do you know who comes out looking the best from all this?
01:25:32
Speaker
American Pinball.
01:25:34
Speaker
Yeah.
01:25:34
Speaker
American Pinball because they saw the potential in John Papaduke and they said, okay, let's jump in.
01:25:43
Speaker
Let's resurrect this magic girl thing and let's make pinball.
01:25:47
Speaker
This sounds awesome.
01:25:48
Speaker
And they got in and they immediately saw what a dumpster fire Papa Duke was.
01:25:53
Speaker
And he said, no, you're out.
01:25:57
Speaker
We are going to retool this.
01:25:59
Speaker
And wait, how long did it take for them to get Houdini up?
01:26:04
Speaker
I thought it was only like five months, wasn't it?
01:26:05
Speaker
It was, it was pretty quick.
01:26:06
Speaker
As soon as Joe Balser was on, man, they, they knocked it out.
01:26:09
Speaker
Yeah.
01:26:11
Speaker
So if you want to see how it was done right, look at American Pinball.
01:26:15
Speaker
Whether or not you love the games, I think they're a different set of games.
01:26:21
Speaker
And it's fun.
01:26:22
Speaker
If you're looking for a different flavor, that's awesome.
01:26:27
Speaker
They have three very different games.
01:26:30
Speaker
And I think, and they've made three different games after they cut bait with, uh, with John Papa Duke.
01:26:38
Speaker
But ever since that, they, they are sinking like the Titanic right now.
01:26:43
Speaker
And guess what?
01:26:44
Speaker
They're playing near my God to thee with the four dudes in tuxedos.
01:26:49
Speaker
Yep.
01:26:51
Speaker
I just, man, it's, it's a sad story.
01:26:54
Speaker
It really, it's the, I just don't see anything else happening at this point.
01:26:59
Speaker
It's just, it's, it's done.
01:27:00
Speaker
Yeah.
01:27:01
Speaker
And that's the problem is that I, I really wanted it to work out, but I felt like I was the only one looking at the emperor's new clothes and saying he's naked.
01:27:12
Speaker
I think a lot of people in this industry has felt that there's just too many red flags.
01:27:17
Speaker
And there has been.
01:27:18
Speaker
Yeah.
01:27:19
Speaker
It's wishful thinking is what it is.
01:27:22
Speaker
And maybe, sadly, this is the closing chapter.
01:27:26
Speaker
It's done.
01:27:28
Speaker
But what's the future for pinball then?
01:27:31
Speaker
I think it's unaffected.
01:27:33
Speaker
I actually think it's unaffected.
01:27:34
Speaker
So you think that these companies that come in with starry eyes and stuff like that, because I know that we've talked about this in the past, like JJP did not have a great start.
01:27:44
Speaker
You know, American pinball was a decent start, but they tripped over some hurdles as well.
01:27:49
Speaker
You're always going to start.
01:27:53
Speaker
If you haven't watched things go bump in the night, the spooky pinball story, I have so much respect.
01:27:58
Speaker
Like Charlie, Emery, KT, Bug, your family is amazing.
01:28:04
Speaker
Awesome.
01:28:05
Speaker
If you haven't watched that documentary, it'll give you a better respect.
01:28:08
Speaker
I don't care what you think of their product.
01:28:12
Speaker
They did it right.
01:28:14
Speaker
But my point being is a lot of these companies that are permanent fixtures now in the pinball industry, the way that they started isn't defining how they're operating now, except for Spooky did a really good job and they limited themselves.
01:28:29
Speaker
If you're a pinball company, you're trying to get in.
01:28:31
Speaker
Like Haggis, you guys are doing a good job, I feel like.
01:28:35
Speaker
Your product is properly priced.
01:28:37
Speaker
You're trying to resolve issues that we're seeing in the pinball industry.
01:28:41
Speaker
My point being is this whole, we're going to churn out a thousand machines first year, or we're going to start producing like Stern.
01:28:52
Speaker
It's not going to happen.
01:28:54
Speaker
My recommendation is if we start seeing companies trying to make their way into the pinball industry here in the next few years, you're going to have to put your own machine, you're going to have to put your own money in and then hopefully sell a machine.
01:29:07
Speaker
And like I said, that's why I admire Charlie and Katie Emery from Spooky Pinball because they ate like box macaroni and cheese for that first year.
01:29:16
Speaker
That's all they had in their house.
01:29:18
Speaker
That's still awesome.
01:29:19
Speaker
Mac and cheese is awesome.
01:29:20
Speaker
It is.
01:29:21
Speaker
But like they remember being like, what are we having for dinner?
01:29:24
Speaker
Oh, never mind.
01:29:24
Speaker
We don't have to ask.
01:29:26
Speaker
And it's because they went on with a business style that suited them and it still suits them.
01:29:33
Speaker
They are truly boutique pinball.
01:29:35
Speaker
Yeah.
01:29:35
Speaker
They sell at most right now is $750 for machine units.
01:29:41
Speaker
That's Rick and Morty.
01:29:42
Speaker
And so I feel like if you're going to want to come into this industry, you're not going to start off at stern levels.
01:29:50
Speaker
There is no way.
01:29:53
Speaker
And anyone out there that is listening to this, I promise you, there is no company that's going to come in at stern levels.
01:30:01
Speaker
If they tell you that, they are lying.
01:30:04
Speaker
That's a red flag.
01:30:06
Speaker
Stern is a, it's a manufacturing machine.
01:30:09
Speaker
It is a juggernaut that, that has been able to finally tune their process.
01:30:15
Speaker
And so they can fly through so many games a day.
01:30:19
Speaker
So, so I guess, I guess what I'm trying to say, and let's, let's wrap this up is just deeper.
01:30:26
Speaker
It's probably going to be gone before we know it.
01:30:29
Speaker
Yeah.
Final Reflections and Future Content
01:30:30
Speaker
It was, it was quite the fryer cracker gave us a big boom.
01:30:34
Speaker
nothing ever else happened.
01:30:35
Speaker
Yeah.
01:30:35
Speaker
I, I'd like to say it was a fun ride, but after a while it just felt like it went to the weeds so fast.
01:30:41
Speaker
It was like a drag racer that, that popped the tire and immediately flew into the stands.
01:30:47
Speaker
Yeah, man, I really just kind of dragged on.
01:30:50
Speaker
I apologize.
01:30:51
Speaker
We kind of rambled.
01:30:52
Speaker
Yeah, we actually have a so we do have a big interview coming up where we're trying to nail down the logistics, but it's taking a little longer to find the right time to to record that.
01:31:04
Speaker
And so that's why we did this.
01:31:07
Speaker
Just recap.
01:31:07
Speaker
And we want to talk about different things.
01:31:09
Speaker
But anyway, it's hope you enjoyed it.
01:31:13
Speaker
We enjoy talking pinball.
01:31:14
Speaker
And if you have feedback, I really I I sincerely want to know what other people think about Deep Root.
01:31:22
Speaker
I sincerely want to know, like, am I am I am I just this evil troll out there?
01:31:29
Speaker
Because it seems that I I don't I don't like being this guy, but I just I have a hard time having any positive vibes for this company.
01:31:37
Speaker
Well, that's what sucks too.
01:31:38
Speaker
It's like, we we've tried to be positive.
01:31:41
Speaker
I mean, I don't think we've said really a negative thing about deep group up deep root.
01:31:48
Speaker
Deep root up until the, they took pre-orders and we had Zach and Dennis.
01:31:56
Speaker
You know, I, I think once we actually gave them the huge benefit of the doubt until they had the, the baby launch with the six, the deep six, and then they pulled the plug.
01:32:06
Speaker
And that's when I just said, okay, you're done.
01:32:08
Speaker
Yep.
01:32:09
Speaker
And so it's hard to be, it's hard to be positive with them.
01:32:11
Speaker
So also let us know back to the future.
01:32:13
Speaker
Is this something you're interested in?
01:32:15
Speaker
Again, we have no idea that seems to be the rumored title.
01:32:19
Speaker
But you know, let us know.
01:32:21
Speaker
And again, congratulations to all the Twippy winners and all the Twippy nominees.
01:32:25
Speaker
I mean, seriously, that says something right there too.
01:32:27
Speaker
So anyway, we hope to have something coming up here in the next, well, we will have something in the next two weeks, but we're hoping it'll be this awesome guest.
01:32:35
Speaker
So we'll, we'll let you know.
01:32:39
Speaker
Again, if you want to get ahold of us, we are loser kid pinball podcast.
01:32:43
Speaker
You can find us at facebook.com slash loser kid pinball.
01:32:46
Speaker
Same with Instagram and Twitter.
01:32:49
Speaker
If you want to get ahold of us the old fashioned way, loser kid pinball podcast at gmail.com or do me a favor.
01:32:58
Speaker
I know you're listening right now.
01:32:59
Speaker
If you're driving, pull over.
01:33:01
Speaker
If you're sitting at home, listening to us while you're trying to work,
01:33:04
Speaker
Sneak away onto your browser.
01:33:06
Speaker
Go to twitch.tv slash Loser Kid Pinball.
01:33:11
Speaker
Hit that follow button.
01:33:12
Speaker
I'm not on a super tight schedule at this point, but we're going to just have some fun with it.
01:33:17
Speaker
I'm not a fantastic pinball player, so you can harass me, whatever you want to do.
01:33:22
Speaker
We want to get to that 50 followers.
01:33:24
Speaker
I think we're at 20 right now, somewhere around there.
01:33:27
Speaker
So go on, hit follow.
01:33:28
Speaker
It helps us out.
01:33:30
Speaker
We're still going to give you great content here on podcasts, but we're still aiming for every two weeks.
01:33:35
Speaker
I know it's been, I mean, technically it was only two weeks because we did the pinball players podcast, but for us, it's been a little more than that.
01:33:42
Speaker
I do apologize, but we have some really fantastic interviews lined up.
01:33:46
Speaker
Um, there's one that Scott doesn't even know that I've been working on that I'm very excited about.
01:33:50
Speaker
I hope, I hope it comes to fruition.
01:33:52
Speaker
Um, just keep your fingers crossed guys and gals.
01:33:56
Speaker
So, all righty, Scott.
01:33:58
Speaker
Okay.
01:33:59
Speaker
All right.
01:34:00
Speaker
See you in two weeks.
01:34:01
Speaker
Be excellent.
01:34:01
Speaker
Play lots of pinball.
01:34:06
Speaker
Shut up and sit down.