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Ep 52: 4 Inches Thick...of Concepts with Eric Meunier
49 Plays5 years ago
Eric joins us to talk all things Guns N Roses! From unused concepts to favorite moments from the creation of the game. Enjoy!
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Transcript
Introduction and Sponsors
00:00:06
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in to the Loser Kid Pinball Podcast.
00:00:08
Speaker
We are on episode 52.
00:00:09
Speaker
I am Josh Roop with me.
00:00:12
Speaker
My co-captain is always Scott Larson and Scott.
00:00:15
Speaker
Let's let's let's talk about those friends of the podcast really quick.
00:00:18
Speaker
And then let's I want to get to our guests because I'm pretty excited about this one.
00:00:23
Speaker
Yeah, it'll be great.
00:00:24
Speaker
Okay, so first and foremost, Flippin' Out Pinball.
00:00:27
Speaker
If you want to pick up that pinball or anything else for your game room, and perhaps go ahead and contact him about the new JJP game, Guns N' Roses.
00:00:38
Speaker
Contact Zach and Nicola, Flippin' Out Pinball.
00:00:40
Speaker
Also, if you want to be able to see all your games a little better, especially on location, please check out Pinshades.com.
00:00:46
Speaker
They're polarized lenses that you can
Guest Introduction: Eric Meniere
00:00:48
Speaker
actually get a competitive advantage by actually reducing the glare on the game.
00:00:52
Speaker
So it helps you see the ball, especially in the upper third of the play field.
00:00:56
Speaker
If you want to check out some information on pinball, check out Pinball Supernova.
00:01:01
Speaker
They always have good information on their website and you can check them out.
00:01:05
Speaker
If you want to decorate your pinball area, go ahead and check out Lit Frames.
00:01:11
Speaker
It's a good way of illuminating all those trans lights that are collecting dust in the corner of your game room.
00:01:18
Speaker
Also, if you want an alternative trans light for some of those classic Williams Bally games, check out Flyland Designs.
00:01:27
Speaker
Just released one for Whitewater, and that's the newest one with ArtBlade.
00:01:30
Speaker
And so if you want to jazz up your Whitewater, go ahead and check that out.
00:01:34
Speaker
Also, if you're looking for a blog, all things pinball talked about, the Pinball Loft.
00:01:41
Speaker
Go ahead and check that out.
00:01:42
Speaker
Tim Purcell's, excuse me, it's Tim Purcell's personal blog.
00:01:47
Speaker
And he talked about his experience with Jersey Jack Pinball's latest release, Guns N' Roses.
00:01:55
Speaker
And he got the collector's edition.
00:01:56
Speaker
So you get all the bells and whistles and the light show.
00:01:59
Speaker
Also, if you want to read up on all things pinball this week in pinball, and if you want to go and check out the what's going on on the Twippy level, please go ahead and check that out and see what how you want to vote.
00:02:15
Speaker
And that's pretty much the friends of the show, my friends.
00:02:19
Speaker
If you want to be a friend of the show, reach out to us and we'll be able to talk about it.
00:02:23
Speaker
Heck yes.
00:02:23
Speaker
So, Josh.
Eric's New Pinball Game
00:02:25
Speaker
All right.
00:02:26
Speaker
What are we doing today?
00:02:28
Speaker
So.
00:02:29
Speaker
this gentleman was our very first official pinball industry interview.
00:02:35
Speaker
And he's, he's an awesome gentleman.
00:02:38
Speaker
He's released his second game that I think has blown hats off of people and socks off their feet.
00:02:44
Speaker
I just, I'm excited to have him back on.
00:02:46
Speaker
We have with, with us, Eric Meniere.
00:02:48
Speaker
How are you doing, sir?
00:02:49
Speaker
Doing great guys.
00:02:50
Speaker
Thanks for having me again.
00:02:52
Speaker
You know, it's been, it's been a minute.
00:02:54
Speaker
I mean, episode eight, we're on 52 now.
00:02:56
Speaker
That's,
00:02:57
Speaker
It's been a couple of years, it seems like.
00:02:59
Speaker
It's been a while.
00:03:00
Speaker
I try to think back to our last conversation and I don't remember anything we talked about.
00:03:06
Speaker
You know, I don't think we remembered either.
00:03:08
Speaker
We were really cutting our teeth on being podcasters in general.
00:03:12
Speaker
And so you always have that honor of being the first guest and really the lab rat for us to try to figure out how to do things.
00:03:21
Speaker
Hopefully we have figured out a better sequence of questions and being able to interact with people.
00:03:27
Speaker
So we are very appreciative of you coming on.
00:03:31
Speaker
And I would argue you're probably having a pretty good few months.
00:03:38
Speaker
Yes.
00:03:39
Speaker
The reception of the game has been very, very high, very well regarded.
00:03:45
Speaker
Definitely, you know, you always hope that the industry will receive, in the world at large, will receive what you've poured your heart and soul into for the last, you know, 18 months to two years.
00:03:59
Speaker
Hope they receive it well.
00:04:01
Speaker
But you never know.
00:04:02
Speaker
This game is definitely a shift in paradigm.
00:04:04
Speaker
It's not your typical music pin.
00:04:07
Speaker
It's not your typical over-the-top complex rule sets.
00:04:13
Speaker
There's definitely the depth there for the players who appreciate that sort of thing.
00:04:18
Speaker
But...
00:04:20
Speaker
It's a very approachable game.
00:04:23
Speaker
Probably our most approachable game yet, in essence, that you can see all this cool stuff.
00:04:28
Speaker
You can always play a song.
00:04:29
Speaker
You can always do the cool stuff in pretty much every game you play.
00:04:35
Speaker
So
Integrating Guns N' Roses in the Game
00:04:36
Speaker
it's different, and we're very happy at how well it's been received.
00:04:42
Speaker
This game has got depth in spades.
00:04:45
Speaker
You know, the typical music Pinball Machine has about 10 to 12 songs.
00:04:49
Speaker
This one's got 21.
00:04:49
Speaker
I mean, you guys took studio music and linked it up to all the live footage.
00:04:57
Speaker
It just this passion or this project oozes passion.
00:05:01
Speaker
I've got to know, were you like a fan of Guns N' Roses before all this?
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Speaker
Is this just, you're like, I'm going all out.
00:05:07
Speaker
I'm throwing the kitchen sink at this.
00:05:08
Speaker
What possessed you to make such a game like this?
00:05:17
Speaker
As far as the music I listen to, definitely Guns N' Roses' latest album.
00:05:24
Speaker
Chinese Democracy is more my style of music.
00:05:27
Speaker
Hard rock and alt rock as opposed to classic rock.
00:05:31
Speaker
Obviously, I know all the GNR songs, all the big ones, and I had played a bunch of their songs because...
00:05:42
Speaker
Delving into the nerdism that is my life.
00:05:45
Speaker
I was in collegiate marching band at the University of Wisconsin.
00:05:50
Speaker
We played Guns N' Roses show a couple times.
00:05:53
Speaker
Like, so I know these songs on my trumpet.
00:05:58
Speaker
It was more the fact that being able to work with, I don't know if it's even arguable, the best, most renowned people
00:06:11
Speaker
guitar player in the world and seeing the passion that he brought to it, you know, was something that inspired me to do better, to represent him and his brand in a way that has never been done before.
00:06:28
Speaker
He is not just a super awesome guitar player.
00:06:35
Speaker
He is he was completely different than I expected.
00:06:40
Speaker
in all of the best ways possible.
00:06:44
Speaker
I anticipated, you know, it's Slash.
00:06:47
Speaker
You just expect someone of his caliber to be aloof and standoffish and arrogant.
00:06:54
Speaker
And none of those words could ever describe this man.
00:06:59
Speaker
He was so down to earth and so involved in every step of this, not in like a micromanagement sort of way at all, more...
00:07:09
Speaker
calling me.
00:07:10
Speaker
He reaches out to me more often than I reach out to him on how Eric, how's the project going?
00:07:15
Speaker
What do you have for art?
00:07:17
Speaker
You know, I really like this idea.
00:07:19
Speaker
I talked to Duff.
00:07:21
Speaker
He's down for doing voice recordings, you know, and just like, like a, like a excited school boy when it came to working on this project, he definitely jumps both feet in, in everything he does.
00:07:35
Speaker
And that came across in spades here.
00:07:38
Speaker
And it was just so much fun to work with someone that passionate.
00:07:42
Speaker
I actually can confirm that actually that he is way more down to earth than you would anticipate.
00:07:49
Speaker
This is a little out of left field.
00:07:50
Speaker
But
JJP's Success and Licensing Opportunities
00:07:51
Speaker
when, you know, in their zenith, in their big heyday during Use Your Illusion, they came to Utah.
00:07:58
Speaker
And my friend is a this is weird.
00:08:02
Speaker
His hobby is hot air balloons.
00:08:04
Speaker
So he has a hot air balloon and they got a call that, hey, we there's someone coming in town and we want to rent to your balloons and we want you to take them up.
00:08:13
Speaker
And he said, OK, that's fine.
00:08:15
Speaker
We'll go ahead and do it.
00:08:16
Speaker
And it turned out it was Guns N' Roses.
00:08:19
Speaker
And so they took it like Axel Slash, all those guys, they took them up.
00:08:24
Speaker
And at the very end, they landed and went and played basketball in their driveway.
00:08:30
Speaker
And he said it was the most surreal experience because you have this anticipation of what a famous, how a famous person is supposed to act.
00:08:38
Speaker
And really they just kind of hung out with us, which was just completely different than what you would anticipate.
00:08:43
Speaker
And so you telling me that you working with slash was more of a, just a work, a typical working relationship doesn't surprise me, but it's refreshing because usually I think you would anticipate something different.
00:08:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:59
Speaker
So first off, I want to say, I don't know if we should congratulate you or condone you because this game, I swear, is going to ruin the pinball industry because it's got so much theme integration.
00:09:12
Speaker
Do you feel like this is going to help JJP or hinder you guys for future releases?
00:09:18
Speaker
I actually think it helps us in all the best ways because we use this as a presentation to our licensors.
00:09:26
Speaker
Like, look,
00:09:27
Speaker
If you don't want, we've got licensors lined up around the block that now want us to make their games because of what we do.
00:09:35
Speaker
If you can't give us the assets that can make it comparable game, take a walk.
00:09:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:41
Speaker
And I remember, so this is something we did talk about back in episode eight is we were talking a lot about pirates of the Caribbean and how much you put into it.
00:09:54
Speaker
And I,
00:09:55
Speaker
In many ways, I'm paraphrasing, but you said it was challenging because all the license holders didn't really get it.
00:10:05
Speaker
Because they're used to doing a lunchbox.
00:10:08
Speaker
They're used to doing a poster where it's one aspect that they take a look at.
00:10:12
Speaker
They say, yeah, it's good for our brand.
00:10:14
Speaker
And they send it out.
00:10:15
Speaker
But you were asking all these things about music, art presentation, how you were going to integrate the gameplay
00:10:22
Speaker
And it was completely different.
00:10:24
Speaker
And in many ways, they didn't understand why do you need to know this level of complexity?
00:10:29
Speaker
Because it was just so foreign to them.
00:10:33
Speaker
Well, now you can show them.
00:10:35
Speaker
Both of your games, I would say, is over the top.
00:10:39
Speaker
In Pirates of the Caribbean, I think that you even added characters in there that weren't even in the movies.
00:10:44
Speaker
There were so many options that you could possibly do.
00:10:47
Speaker
And with this, with 21 different songs,
00:10:50
Speaker
it's not like you are taking it to the next
Game Experience During COVID-19
00:10:53
Speaker
level.
00:10:53
Speaker
You're taking it to the next galaxy.
00:10:55
Speaker
Like I, the best thing that I could describe this.
00:10:59
Speaker
And I reached out a little bit with, with Tim was talking about his, his, what he thought about the collector's edition.
00:11:10
Speaker
And I,
00:11:11
Speaker
He even said, it's more of an experience.
00:11:15
Speaker
That's what he kept describing it as.
00:11:17
Speaker
It's the experience of playing.
00:11:19
Speaker
It's not like theme integration or, hey, I feel like I'm at the concert.
00:11:25
Speaker
And it's a surreal experience.
00:11:28
Speaker
That is absolutely the intention of this game.
00:11:32
Speaker
It just happened to be serendipitous.
00:11:35
Speaker
I always try to put a silver lining on 2020.
00:11:39
Speaker
No one was able to go to real concerts last year.
00:11:42
Speaker
And, you know, for the majority so far, I don't see real concerts happening around us anytime soon.
00:11:49
Speaker
Hopefully that changes.
00:11:52
Speaker
But being able to release a game where people like Tim, you know, can say I've been transported to a concert.
00:12:00
Speaker
It's like I'm there.
00:12:01
Speaker
That was just such a blessing to, you know, a lot of people who,
00:12:05
Speaker
love going to live shows who love going to concerts, being able to give them that experience in their own home during a pandemic was something that, that really made me feel good.
00:12:18
Speaker
So speaking of theme integration, whatnot, was it a breath of the fresh air having someone like Slash on this project first, you know, helping with those licensing hurdles versus kind of some of the stuff that you ran into with your first project?
00:12:33
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:12:34
Speaker
I mean, I can't even count the number of times where, you know, there was some issue with some sort of clearance, right, with one aspect or another of the game, where it was just like I was talking to Guns N' Roses management, and like, hey, here's what we want to do, and...
00:12:55
Speaker
And it would kind of fall on deaf ears or it wouldn't go that way.
00:12:59
Speaker
And I would just reach out to Slash and be like, hey, man, here's what you and I talked about.
00:13:04
Speaker
What can we do to make this happen?
00:13:06
Speaker
And then literally within the next hour, I would get a response from their management company saying, approved.
00:13:13
Speaker
Good.
00:13:14
Speaker
Good to go.
00:13:15
Speaker
One of the big ones I remember was
00:13:18
Speaker
And it seems like such a simple thing, right?
00:13:20
Speaker
It seems like such a simple thing.
00:13:22
Speaker
The logo for the game, that's the Guns N' Roses logo with the JJP emblem in the middle of it.
00:13:35
Speaker
So it's that bullet logo.
00:13:37
Speaker
That's your typical Guns N' Roses.
00:13:40
Speaker
But we put flippers on it and we put a pinball in it instead of the revolvers with bullets and roses.
00:13:48
Speaker
Taking something so sacred as a huge band's
Game Editions and Market Demand
00:13:54
Speaker
logo and adapting it.
00:13:57
Speaker
I mean, I can't think of another instance where that's just acceptable.
00:14:01
Speaker
And, you know, Slash, just like, this is so cool.
00:14:04
Speaker
I love the flippers.
00:14:06
Speaker
I love the pinball.
00:14:07
Speaker
Let's make this happen.
00:14:08
Speaker
And then...
00:14:09
Speaker
management and you know guns and roses like most major bands do not get to make all of the decisions with their ip right they are a brand at this point there are dozens if not hundreds of people whose livelihoods are invested in their brand but having slash in my corner and saying things like this is what we want to do guys this is what's going to make the game cool um this is what's you know eric has this vision for it let's follow through with it
00:14:38
Speaker
It just paid for itself a thousand times over.
00:14:44
Speaker
You don't have a bigger voice to fight for you than Slash.
00:14:50
Speaker
So when you're going through and in that, okay, I have two questions to this one, when you're designing pinball, it seems that we have all accepted that there are different audiences for different products.
00:15:07
Speaker
I guess that's the best way of putting it.
00:15:09
Speaker
So we, you know, we have the standard edition, we have the limited edition and the collector's edition.
00:15:15
Speaker
So,
00:15:17
Speaker
One question I have is how do you approach making sure that you are nailing each target audience?
00:15:23
Speaker
Because we all know there's building materials.
00:15:25
Speaker
This is a business.
00:15:26
Speaker
We're trying to make sure that we put as much cool stuff in, but we're still profitable for each of the target audiences.
00:15:35
Speaker
That's the first question.
00:15:36
Speaker
Second question.
00:15:38
Speaker
Did you expect the collector's edition to sell out as fast as it did?
00:15:44
Speaker
All right, so to the first question, making the three models of a game, it's not easy.
00:15:53
Speaker
You're basically given a bare bones bill of material and then told to prune it down from the collector's edition, then told to prune it down from there for the other two versions.
00:16:07
Speaker
Like I understand the logistics.
00:16:09
Speaker
I understand that it is a business.
00:16:13
Speaker
It's always a struggle because I always want to put everything possible into every single game.
00:16:19
Speaker
But there are people
00:16:22
Speaker
Who don't care for all the bells and whistles or who use the game in a different way, right?
00:16:28
Speaker
Who are operators who just want the game to look pretty, appeal to the mass public.
00:16:35
Speaker
They're not going to know about an upper play field that's not there.
00:16:37
Speaker
They're not going to know about the glitter play field.
00:16:40
Speaker
You know, it's just the guy walking by at the bar.
00:16:43
Speaker
Oh, cool.
00:16:44
Speaker
The Guns N' Roses game.
00:16:44
Speaker
Let me put my dollar in it and play it.
00:16:47
Speaker
You give that guy the concert experience.
00:16:50
Speaker
You give him cool entertainment for a buck and he's not going to feel bad.
00:16:55
Speaker
Or you give it to the guy who doesn't have 10 grand to drop on the limited edition game or higher.
00:17:04
Speaker
Then for the limited edition, you want to give all the bells and whistles possible to make the game as good as it can be.
00:17:14
Speaker
so that they get the full experience.
00:17:16
Speaker
And then finally the collector's edition are the people who, I don't, those people are great.
00:17:23
Speaker
They have a lot more disposable income than I do.
00:17:26
Speaker
And they can buy $13,000 toys.
00:17:31
Speaker
You give them everything possible plus the kitchen sink.
00:17:34
Speaker
And then you, you know, get your friend Axel Slash and Duff to sign it for them so that it's just one more like notch in the feather.
00:17:45
Speaker
the trying to appeal to those three markets is very difficult, right?
00:17:50
Speaker
There's always, always, always someone who's going to tell you what you did wrong and how they could have done it better.
00:17:57
Speaker
But
00:17:59
Speaker
They don't actually make things on their own.
00:18:03
Speaker
So you've got to have thick skin doing it, designing it the way I do, the way we do here.
00:18:11
Speaker
Roll with the punches sort of thing, because everyone's a Monday morning quarterback when it comes to game design and appeal.
00:18:18
Speaker
And while that thing only costs...
00:18:21
Speaker
$20, they could have put that in there.
00:18:23
Speaker
Well, right, but then you make 5,000 units of something and now you're at $100,000.
00:18:32
Speaker
To the other question, did we expect the collector's edition to sell out in, it was 90 minutes that it sold out?
00:18:40
Speaker
And the answer is no.
00:18:44
Speaker
we did not expect it to sell out that fast and it was very crazy i mean i really felt like we were on the floor of the new york stock exchange when we went live with that thing because they were just like papers flying in the air phone calls people's personal cell phones are ringing you know jack was in the office his phone's going crazy and then all the lines that are hooked up to take sales orders it was just it was madness complete and utter madness um which was just you know kind of astounding
00:19:14
Speaker
That had to have been the moment where you felt that you had a juggernaut on your hands.
00:19:20
Speaker
That
Pinball Market and Influencers
00:19:21
Speaker
this was not just a special game, but this was an epic thing that people have been waiting for.
00:19:30
Speaker
It was kind of surreal.
00:19:31
Speaker
Like, there's always the thought of, well, this is a very expensive toy.
00:19:38
Speaker
I mean, we're talking almost 13, likely in most cases, more than $13,000.
00:19:43
Speaker
with taxes and shipping.
00:19:46
Speaker
And, you know, it's kind of the juggling act.
00:19:50
Speaker
I am from the pinball industry in a way.
00:19:55
Speaker
Like, I grew up with buying an old crappy game and refurbishing it.
00:20:01
Speaker
You know, I've never personally bought a new in-box game just because I had all the contacts for used games and being able to buy them and refurbish them.
00:20:10
Speaker
Like, that's how I built my collection.
00:20:15
Speaker
But there's the other end of that where people don't do that.
00:20:19
Speaker
They just, that's what I want.
00:20:21
Speaker
I want it now and I'm going to buy it.
00:20:23
Speaker
So to have the customers respond in such a enthusiastic way was really cool.
00:20:33
Speaker
Getting Guns N' Roses on board because they shared it with their social media.
00:20:37
Speaker
And I mean, and Slash shared it with his personal social media, which has like
00:20:42
Speaker
5 million followers on Instagram and Guns N' Roses has, you know, equal to that or more.
00:20:49
Speaker
Just really opened it up to a huge market that, you know, some of these people have heard of pinball, but they don't know that it's still around, that it's flourishing, that it's going crazy.
00:21:00
Speaker
But that absolutely helped broaden the market in a way that I don't think any other game recently has done.
00:21:07
Speaker
So Eric, here is a reality check though.
00:21:11
Speaker
In 90 minutes, you guys sold $6,500,000 worth of product.
00:21:22
Speaker
Revenue, not profit.
00:21:24
Speaker
No, no product.
00:21:26
Speaker
So, so that's how much you sold.
00:21:30
Speaker
And I would argue that has to be a, just a jaw dropping.
00:21:36
Speaker
What do I have in my hands here?
00:21:38
Speaker
Like that, that's just mind boggling that that much money moves so quickly on basically an expensive toy people are going to put in their house.
00:21:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:48
Speaker
I mean, it's, it's a bit surreal, you know, like I,
00:21:52
Speaker
I don't even know how, I mean, obviously it costs more than anyone besides probably Gary understands.
00:22:00
Speaker
It costs a lot of money to make pinball happen.
00:22:04
Speaker
You know, you have a bill of material, you're like, okay, well, your bill of material is X. Okay, now take that times however many games you're going to build.
00:22:13
Speaker
5,000, okay, so 5,000 times your bill of material, that's the amount of capital you have to put up first before you ever put a game out the door.
00:22:21
Speaker
So you're talking millions and millions of dollars to invest before you ever get a penny of return on it.
00:22:32
Speaker
The number is huge
Future Theme Integrations
00:22:34
Speaker
in the scheme of what it takes to get a pinball company running and buy product.
00:22:41
Speaker
It's
00:22:42
Speaker
It helps cut into that cost for sure.
00:22:45
Speaker
It's a nice breath of fresh air when looking at the bottom line.
00:22:51
Speaker
So going back to theme integration for a minute, do you think the depth of theme integration is unique to Guns N' Roses, or do you think we'll be seeing this amount of theme integration from future JJP titles?
00:23:04
Speaker
I can only hope that we can match Guns N' Roses.
00:23:08
Speaker
To say that we'll ever get this kind of cooperation out of a licensor again is, you know, fingers crossed.
00:23:18
Speaker
That's what I hope.
00:23:19
Speaker
You know, I hope for, I don't know, if we do some other game.
00:23:26
Speaker
I'm trying to think of one that's not actually a game that we're going to do.
00:23:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:32
Speaker
It's Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.
00:23:34
Speaker
Right.
00:23:34
Speaker
If we do Attack of the Killer Tomatoes and we get the director, you know, who's been dead for 35 years to be with us in lockstep every step of the way.
00:23:43
Speaker
And he's a pinball guy who has 25 games in his house and 10 more at his office and six more in his studio.
00:23:50
Speaker
You know, that's that's absolutely what Slash was all about.
00:23:56
Speaker
Like he is a pinball guy.
00:23:59
Speaker
And he gets it and he cares so much.
00:24:02
Speaker
I just hope that the next license or, you know, someone on their team is a pinball person who who cares and they own their own games and they see, you know, they start to peel back some of the layers of what it actually takes to build this thing.
00:24:19
Speaker
And they say yes, when most other license orders would say, meh, I'll look into it.
00:24:25
Speaker
Well, I think there's a it's a hard line, too, because
00:24:27
Speaker
we see pinball as a passion, as a hobby, but it's, it's also a business, like it's business first and then you get the product that comes with it.
00:24:36
Speaker
And so it's hard to translate that to a licensor or something like that when they see it only as a business product, you know?
00:24:44
Speaker
And so, but no, I think, I think you've definitely stepped up the bar, you and slash and everyone with guns and roses has definitely stepped up the bar of what theme integration could and should be for a pinball machine.
00:24:57
Speaker
It just might ruin us.
00:25:00
Speaker
I will say your, your little promo, like that 92nd thing you did, like everybody who saw that said, this is a, no, this is going way back and probably before either of you two.
00:25:16
Speaker
But when MTV came out,
00:25:19
Speaker
Everybody was recording their videos just on like just a handheld thing.
00:25:24
Speaker
And it was really very basic stuff.
00:25:27
Speaker
Michael Jackson was the first one to said, no, I'm going to film these like a movie.
00:25:32
Speaker
And as soon as Michael Jackson did that, everybody else said, I got to do that.
00:25:37
Speaker
And so when I saw this 90 second promo, I immediately said, if every pinball company is not paying attention to this is how you're supposed to do a release, then they should.
00:25:49
Speaker
Because the, the, the earth has shifted and that's how you're supposed to do it.
00:25:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:56
Speaker
That was a very
Game Development Challenges
00:25:57
Speaker
fun project.
00:25:58
Speaker
Um,
00:25:59
Speaker
Element Studios is a company that put that together for us.
00:26:02
Speaker
And I work hand in hand with Alex, one of the leads there in coming up with it.
00:26:07
Speaker
And he is a person who shares passion for what he does.
00:26:12
Speaker
And that's what really makes a product stand out.
00:26:16
Speaker
If you have the passion, doesn't matter what you're doing, you have the passion that you just you care, then that shows.
00:26:24
Speaker
And it really shows in Alex's video.
00:26:26
Speaker
I mean, he would talk like
00:26:29
Speaker
While we were in development with that, I absolutely talked to Alex more on the phone than I did with any member of my family for those like three months that we were shooting that thing.
00:26:41
Speaker
Yeah, that's pretty impressive.
00:26:44
Speaker
And I want to follow that up with, this is a quote from Tim Purcell.
00:26:49
Speaker
He's the one with the pinball loft.
00:26:51
Speaker
So I asked him, hey, you own the game.
00:26:53
Speaker
Send me some questions that you want to send to Eric.
00:26:56
Speaker
And here's one of the questions that stood out to me.
00:26:59
Speaker
This is Tim asking, getting the rights to use live and let die was amazing, especially how it happened with slash phone call to Paul McCartney.
00:27:08
Speaker
Did you already know it would be one of the standout songs in the game?
00:27:12
Speaker
And was there extra care put into that song and engineering the sound lights and gameplay?
00:27:17
Speaker
And if you actually read his blog, he specifically says when that happens,
00:27:23
Speaker
when that song started, he was actually moved to tears and he's like, that's not me.
00:27:28
Speaker
That's not what I typically do when I'm playing a game, but that's part of that experience.
00:27:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:35
Speaker
I read Tim's blog post.
00:27:37
Speaker
That was, it was quite moving.
00:27:38
Speaker
And I sent him a message about it too, because it was like those kinds of reactions really, you know, make me step back and realize, um,
00:27:50
Speaker
what I do and how it impacts, how it can impact other people.
00:27:52
Speaker
And I know for most people, it's a hobby.
00:27:55
Speaker
It's something they do for fun.
00:27:57
Speaker
But to be able to, you know, have someone be so fundamentally moved by something that I've created in such a positive way is very rewarding.
00:28:11
Speaker
Okay, so to the question that Tim asked about live and let die,
00:28:16
Speaker
That was actually the first song that we ever did when it came to lights and mode and music integration.
00:28:27
Speaker
That was the first ever.
00:28:28
Speaker
That was the bar we set.
00:28:29
Speaker
It was set by Joe Katz to the other programmers.
00:28:33
Speaker
He said, basically, you know, he put his best foot forward and said, this is how all of our songs should be.
00:28:38
Speaker
And the other programmers were like, dang, you, uh,
00:28:43
Speaker
This is how we're going to do every one of them, huh?
00:28:45
Speaker
Like, yep.
00:28:46
Speaker
And that's what we did.
00:28:47
Speaker
We made every single song and it was absolutely a labor of love.
00:28:51
Speaker
I mean, I spoke to it a couple of times, but I don't, I don't necessarily think everyone listening quite gets how much goes into making a light show for a song.
00:29:07
Speaker
I mean, it took Joe probably 80 man hours, two solid weeks of work,
00:29:13
Speaker
to make that three and a half minute song lights look the way they do.
00:29:19
Speaker
Yeah, that's eight hours a day for 10 days at his computer listening to the song two seconds at a time, three seconds at a time, going over it with a fine tooth comb, making sure the beat drops, match the lights, making sure the sound effects work, they're in the right key, all that stuff.
00:29:36
Speaker
It's just, it's such a labor of love.
00:29:40
Speaker
And that was the first one that we did.
00:29:43
Speaker
And then there's over two hours of more music for songs that the other guys had to follow up with.
00:29:52
Speaker
Is there something, because obviously I didn't know that you guys put so much into these games.
00:29:57
Speaker
I mean, 80 hours just for one song is amazing.
00:30:02
Speaker
Is there something like you can show us behind the veil that may give us a better appreciation?
00:30:06
Speaker
Maybe like, because I think the problem is, is a lot of how you say, why didn't you do this?
00:30:10
Speaker
Why didn't you do that?
00:30:12
Speaker
I mean, just 80 hours on one song, that's a lot of time and work.
00:30:17
Speaker
Is there anything you could give us behind the scenes that would, I don't know, may us as hobbyists appreciate what you guys do a little better?
00:30:24
Speaker
I can't speak to other game designers.
00:30:28
Speaker
I don't know what goes on at American or at Stern, but I know that I personally, me, with my own two hands,
00:30:40
Speaker
fabricate every single part that goes into my first whitewood i personally make it with a laser cutter with a shear with a break with a bend welding i put the harness on i put the first game together 100 with my own two hands and that is hundreds of hours
00:31:03
Speaker
Because that way I know when it gets to an assembly line, I'm the first one who's ever done this.
00:31:10
Speaker
I can put it together in this way.
00:31:13
Speaker
I've personally done it so I know it works and I can teach other people how to do it.
00:31:18
Speaker
I mean, it's...
00:31:20
Speaker
hundreds of hours and it's not just you know it's it's when you look at a finished game you see um on guns and roses for example you see the right ramp and it leads up to the drumsticks what you don't see is the six or seven iterations of that ramp before it got turned into a final tooled part and at one point that ramp had a diverter that kicked it up to the upper play field and went over the top of it and i built that
00:31:49
Speaker
I actually made it.
00:31:51
Speaker
I formed a, uh, we have a shop bot here at our, in our shop.
00:31:57
Speaker
I modeled it.
00:31:59
Speaker
I cut it a 3d mold on the shop bot.
00:32:02
Speaker
And then I use a vacuum former to make a ramp that did all of that stuff and it got tossed out.
00:32:08
Speaker
So, I mean, there's dozens of hours there that were spent with an idea.
00:32:13
Speaker
Um, and the idea wound up not working or not being within budget or some other reason.
00:32:18
Speaker
and it got left on the cutting room floor.
00:32:21
Speaker
You see the final product of thousands and thousands of man hours, but what you don't see is the final product of all of the other thousands of man hours that got cut or reiterated or redone in a different way.
00:32:35
Speaker
And for hundreds of reasons, whether it be budget or time or a cost, or, I mean, you name it, it's as a,
00:32:47
Speaker
game designer, as a software programmer, as a manufacturer, you've got hundreds of spinning plates in the air.
00:32:53
Speaker
You're trying to keep them all up and running so that things stay within balance and you can make a good product.
00:33:00
Speaker
Well, sure, but in fairness, if you're making an album,
00:33:04
Speaker
then if you're making a music album, they're going to have lots of songs.
00:33:11
Speaker
If a typical album has maybe 10, 12 songs, they probably started with 25.
00:33:17
Speaker
And they start cutting out and throwing out and saying, okay, let's put the best 12 ideas forward.
00:33:22
Speaker
So...
00:33:23
Speaker
it is the best 60 minutes that you're listening to as opposed to other filler.
00:33:27
Speaker
And so I would argue it's probably the same thing when you're going through these designs.
00:33:31
Speaker
Yeah, that worked.
00:33:32
Speaker
But really, if you look at the entire project, it's not going to be in the best interest of the entire project.
00:33:38
Speaker
And so you skinny it down to your best ideas.
00:33:41
Speaker
Yep, absolutely.
00:33:43
Speaker
But and it's just something to keep in the back of your mind.
00:33:47
Speaker
You know, when you're looking at a game,
00:33:50
Speaker
And I don't know if we have pictures or if we'll post pictures of like the different stages of Whitewoods.
00:33:55
Speaker
I don't know if that's protected IP or not.
00:33:58
Speaker
That's something that's above my pay grade on determining if that goes out.
00:34:01
Speaker
But the games all start out a lot different than how the public sees it.
00:34:07
Speaker
Just something that most people probably don't think about.
00:34:09
Speaker
So there's one other thing I want to bring up that's talking about the different editions.
00:34:14
Speaker
And one is that I didn't even realize this about the collector's edition until Tim talked about it.
00:34:21
Speaker
And his question was, the Coma lock is simple, fun, and pure genius.
00:34:27
Speaker
Where the name came from seems obvious, but what was the inspiration for the mech?
00:34:31
Speaker
So talk about that.
00:34:33
Speaker
I didn't even know that this existed until he brought it up because I was under the impression that the LE and the CE were the same playfield.
00:34:41
Speaker
So this is actually a variation on the playfield.
00:34:43
Speaker
So why don't you tell me about that?
00:34:45
Speaker
So the inspiration and the theme integration for the ComaLock area has to do, in my conversations with Slash,
00:34:57
Speaker
At every major concert venue, there is an infirmary because people that go to concerts sometimes don't make the best life choices.
00:35:06
Speaker
People will get hurt.
00:35:08
Speaker
People will imbibe legal or illegal substances and need to seek medical attention.
00:35:15
Speaker
So in every concert, there is an infirmary.
00:35:20
Speaker
and due to having the song Coma, we really wanted to theme it after a coma.
00:35:27
Speaker
And it makes sense that when you're in a coma, you're hoping to wake up, right?
00:35:32
Speaker
So it just clicked with me to be a ball save mechanism or a ball save toy somehow.
00:35:40
Speaker
So put that in the left out lane.
00:35:41
Speaker
We've done that on several games at JJP, some little out lane game to potentially save your ball.
00:35:50
Speaker
And that's where kind of the coma lock concept came from.
00:35:55
Speaker
When the bill of material cutting started happening, which happens in every project.
00:36:02
Speaker
And, you know, you got to I've said it a couple of times.
00:36:05
Speaker
You have to have thick skin from outside the company as well as inside the company.
00:36:09
Speaker
You have to be a big boy and make the decisions.
00:36:13
Speaker
Parts get removed from a game and you have to roll with it.
00:36:20
Speaker
The budget in the collector's edition game allowed for it, and the budget in the other versions of the game did not.
00:36:26
Speaker
So
JJP's Manufacturing Move to Chicago
00:36:27
Speaker
we left it in there digitally in software, it's still available, but the physical ball lock stayed in the CE.
00:36:35
Speaker
and i think a lot of people make a lot out of that a lot more than i absolutely intended it's a very small thing but as a game designer i look for every single possible square inch of play field and studying games like well
00:36:56
Speaker
There's that apron down there that just feeds the ball into the trough, but I've got an extra couple inches underneath that apron.
00:37:02
Speaker
What could I do with it?
00:37:04
Speaker
And so first iterations, I put like a glass or a plastic window in there so you could see into it.
00:37:11
Speaker
Then I realized with the height of the apron and all that, I don't actually need to have a little window over it.
00:37:15
Speaker
So just use that play field area and make it something cool.
00:37:20
Speaker
And that's the inspiration for the Koma Lock.
00:37:24
Speaker
That is way cool.
00:37:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:25
Speaker
So you don't have to modify anything for the, the things you just have a physical versus a virtual.
00:37:30
Speaker
So yeah.
00:37:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:32
Speaker
How does, how does the, how did the balls come out of that physical lock?
00:37:36
Speaker
So we do a little bit of stage magic, right?
00:37:41
Speaker
And the idea of stage magic is make them look over at the flashy light as you're, you know, slipping the card from the bot, from underneath your sleeve.
00:37:51
Speaker
So yeah,
00:37:53
Speaker
When you qualify coma and you successfully made all the shots you need to make, then it launches a ball and it starts a multi-ball as the ball from the coma lock drains into the trough.
00:38:06
Speaker
So you're not supposed to be paying attention to it.
00:38:12
Speaker
And most people are like, well, how does it get back there?
00:38:14
Speaker
And most people, unless they sit there and study it,
00:38:16
Speaker
and they're not looking at the multi-ball that's ejecting out of the trough, they don't actually know where it goes.
00:38:22
Speaker
But yeah, it releases the ball down into the trough.
00:38:25
Speaker
Nice.
00:38:26
Speaker
You guys have now moved the manufacturing from New Jersey to Chicago.
00:38:32
Speaker
How has that been, and how do you feel like it has benefited the process?
00:38:36
Speaker
I assume it hasn't hindered it, but how has that been for you?
00:38:42
Speaker
I couldn't think of another way that I could be more successful.
00:38:48
Speaker
So having engineering and production in separate locations, separate states, thousands of miles away was a burden.
00:38:59
Speaker
I mean, it was not an insurmountable burden, but it was a burden.
00:39:03
Speaker
Just because I care so much.
00:39:06
Speaker
I want to be there.
00:39:10
Speaker
I was a jerk coming to this meeting because I was half an hour late or this interview because I was on the line and I was checking games, making sure that they live up to my over demanding expectations of everyone else.
00:39:26
Speaker
If, you know, if I weren't there to oversee things and things, you know, we'll always slip through the cracks.
00:39:34
Speaker
make every effort possible to make sure that can't happen, but it does still happen even with me standing there.
00:39:43
Speaker
Being able to be there and immediately be able to pivot when an issue comes up.
00:39:48
Speaker
These issues always come up in every manufacturing discipline that anyone's ever experienced, but being able to have boots on the ground and the capacity to come up with a solution immediately as opposed to
00:40:05
Speaker
get on a phone call while I can't really see the issue.
00:40:08
Speaker
Can you guys bring the phone over there with the video?
00:40:10
Speaker
I still don't really understand it.
00:40:13
Speaker
Being able to be here and I'm doing this interview from the manufacturing building.
00:40:22
Speaker
Being able to be here, look at physical issues immediately and come up with a solution is just immeasurable in its value.
00:40:32
Speaker
Well, and the other follow up I have to that too, I know that other manufacturers have different timelines on when they start projects and whatnot.
00:40:40
Speaker
I know that we've spoke with Keith Elwin and he's usually already on game four when game three just released kind of situation.
00:40:49
Speaker
How does your guys' schedule line up, if I may ask?
00:40:54
Speaker
Because obviously you're still doing a lot with Guns N' Roses right now.
00:40:58
Speaker
But are you working on your next project while you're helping on the manufacturing line and doing all that stuff?
00:41:05
Speaker
My next whitewood is very fun to shoot.
00:41:09
Speaker
Gotcha.
00:41:10
Speaker
All right.
00:41:11
Speaker
So, yes, I have to split my time.
00:41:18
Speaker
I'm very focused on making sure Guns N' Roses games go out the door.
00:41:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:24
Speaker
you know, and meet my expectations.
00:41:28
Speaker
But, you know, in a year when it's time for another game to come out, there's no room for excuses, right?
00:41:40
Speaker
There's, let's see, about 70 people that work at Jersey Jack Pinball.
00:41:46
Speaker
And if I don't have a game ready, nobody has a job.
00:41:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:51
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:41:55
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:41:56
Speaker
It's not on you.
00:41:57
Speaker
No, wait, it is.
00:42:01
Speaker
Okay, so I reached out to a few other people because I knew that we were interviewing you.
00:42:05
Speaker
And so this is actually from Mrs. Pin.
00:42:09
Speaker
I said, do you have any questions from Eric?
00:42:11
Speaker
And she said, quote, how is he so freaking awesome?
00:42:15
Speaker
Is there a recipe for that?
00:42:16
Speaker
Unquote.
00:42:19
Speaker
So apparently she has a pin crush, I think.
00:42:21
Speaker
So.
00:42:22
Speaker
Sarah is one of the coolest people in pinball.
00:42:26
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:42:26
Speaker
She was my secret Santa last year.
00:42:29
Speaker
Well, yeah, she was my Santa.
00:42:31
Speaker
She gave me presents.
00:42:32
Speaker
And it was very cool.
00:42:34
Speaker
Got to know her better and her family and Christian and everyone.
00:42:39
Speaker
Very fun to hang out with.
00:42:41
Speaker
There's...
00:42:44
Speaker
I don't really know how to respond to your question.
00:42:49
Speaker
I try to be nice.
00:42:50
Speaker
That's what I do.
00:42:51
Speaker
I have passion for what I do.
00:42:52
Speaker
I want others to have passion to try to match mine and make cool stuff.
00:43:02
Speaker
Well, I think the passion certainly shows.
00:43:05
Speaker
The best advice that I heard was Mike Rowe was talking about things one time and he always said, don't follow your passion, but follow opportunities.
00:43:15
Speaker
But the caveat is,
00:43:17
Speaker
bring your passion to your opportunities.
00:43:19
Speaker
And I think you've been able to maximize that with everything in your background, with your background in pinball, with your engineering degree, your mechanical and electrical degree in masters, and then bringing those opportunities and passion back together.
00:43:34
Speaker
I think it certainly shows.
00:43:37
Speaker
One thing that Christian did ask, so Dr. Penn, he asked your approach to blowing up Guns N' Roses.
00:43:45
Speaker
because
COVID's Impact on Design Processes
00:43:46
Speaker
he specifically said, I don't know how to pronounce this guy's name.
00:43:50
Speaker
He said, I need an edge to take down Rodney Kamigies.
00:43:55
Speaker
I don't know how to say that last name, but anyway, his high score.
00:43:58
Speaker
And so I was like, well, I will ask Eric how he approaches his own game and what's the best way to get a high score.
00:44:06
Speaker
Well, if you want the super nerdy answer or the quick answer, the quick answer is never cash out.
00:44:12
Speaker
Never, ever, ever take the jackpot.
00:44:15
Speaker
During a song.
00:44:17
Speaker
If you do, you don't get the best value.
00:44:21
Speaker
It's always risk reward.
00:44:22
Speaker
Every time you clear a stage in a song, you shoot the center scoop, you have the option to take the jackpot and run or no whammy, no whammy, keep going.
00:44:34
Speaker
And you keep going.
00:44:35
Speaker
It adds a multiplier to your jackpot.
00:44:38
Speaker
I mean, it doesn't necessarily double it every time, but it pretty much does.
00:44:44
Speaker
So, you know, your jackpot starts at, oh, it's 100,000 points.
00:44:47
Speaker
Cool.
00:44:47
Speaker
And by the fourth or fifth round, you're sitting at a six or seven million point jackpot.
00:44:52
Speaker
The value keeps building with every shot you make.
00:44:57
Speaker
And there are other aspects that go into making your songs super valuable.
00:45:02
Speaker
So the booster multiballs that you can play before your song, right?
00:45:08
Speaker
What makes a concert experience super awesome?
00:45:11
Speaker
all your lights, your pyro, the amplifiers to bring the sound, and then the state of the crowd.
00:45:18
Speaker
So if you play those four booster multiballs beforehand and you do well in those, they directly impact the scoring of your songs.
00:45:27
Speaker
Then understanding the patch system.
00:45:30
Speaker
Like all cool 80s rockers, there's a denim jacket with patches.
00:45:34
Speaker
The patches all have unique abilities.
00:45:38
Speaker
Definitely a throwback to kind of the fun aspect of queuing up your pirate lane awards in Pirates.
00:45:45
Speaker
You can queue up your patch with the action button, and there's some that make this song more valuable, or some that make Slash available for the rest of the game, or some that do touring bonuses.
00:46:00
Speaker
So if you understand the patch system,
00:46:03
Speaker
You can look at that, you can study, you can build your patches in a great way.
00:46:08
Speaker
Have them be very lucrative as you're going into a song.
00:46:11
Speaker
You can get huge jackpots.
00:46:15
Speaker
I haven't yet streamed Guns N' Roses, but when I do, I'll be able to go over all of these rules and how I play it.
00:46:23
Speaker
But watching Carl's stream, Carl understands rules.
00:46:26
Speaker
He understands gameplay.
00:46:27
Speaker
Carl DeAngelo, i.e.
00:46:29
Speaker
Pinball.
00:46:31
Speaker
He gets it.
00:46:31
Speaker
His streams are just amazing to watch because the dude is so much better at pinball than me.
00:46:38
Speaker
And he understands the rules as well as me.
00:46:41
Speaker
So it's cool to watch Carl play.
00:46:43
Speaker
If you're looking for a great way on how to blow up a game, Carl lost 111 million point jackpot on a song.
00:46:51
Speaker
Whoa.
00:46:52
Speaker
Yeah, which is more than most people will ever cash in.
00:46:56
Speaker
Well, it's crazy.
00:46:57
Speaker
I just watched his one where he did almost a hundred million jackpot.
00:47:00
Speaker
And it almost made the points after that.
00:47:04
Speaker
It was like, where are the rest of the points going to come from?
00:47:08
Speaker
It was massive.
00:47:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:11
Speaker
Never cash out until you get those crazy jackpots.
00:47:14
Speaker
Build your boosters, build your patches, and you can really take it to town.
00:47:20
Speaker
All right.
00:47:21
Speaker
So basically, it's like betting.
00:47:22
Speaker
Let it ride.
00:47:22
Speaker
Let it ride.
00:47:24
Speaker
Always let it ride.
00:47:27
Speaker
So COVID's obviously been hard on a lot of people and whatnot, and it's definitely had to make us change up our thought process on how we do stuff.
00:47:36
Speaker
Do you feel like COVID's affected the design process from what you guys have been doing?
00:47:42
Speaker
And how has it helped or hindered what you guys have been doing?
00:47:47
Speaker
I would say...
00:47:49
Speaker
Very small helping in such that we moved our manufacturing facility, our manufacturing facility last year in 2020 would have been up and running a much sooner had it not been for COVID, but people weren't allowed to come in and work and do what they needed to do to get the facility up and running.
00:48:05
Speaker
What that did is it gave our programmers extra time to perfect their light shows.
00:48:11
Speaker
and get the rest of the code in there.
00:48:13
Speaker
We released the game at version 1.0.
00:48:15
Speaker
It had all the modes available and playable, not all finely tuned and refined.
00:48:20
Speaker
There's still always fixes we want to do and improvements and that sort of stuff.
00:48:24
Speaker
But it gave us much more time to get the game
00:48:29
Speaker
code further along.
00:48:31
Speaker
It definitely hindered in a way that, you know, during Pirates and Wonka, it would be me and Katz and Kiefer and JT playing these games pretty much every day.
00:48:43
Speaker
You know, we would like
00:48:45
Speaker
go out to the lobby and play the game for half an hour, 45 minutes, and having me plus three programmers there.
00:48:56
Speaker
I'm playing and they're watching, or one of them is playing and I'm watching.
00:48:59
Speaker
We'd always have notebooks with us, take notes on what improvements we could make, or, hey, I thought I saw a little glitch here or a bug there, like one frame was off, something like that.
00:49:11
Speaker
that aspect of the game development cycle has just not been there.
00:49:17
Speaker
We're not able to hang out and play the games together, um, in a way that we have in the past.
00:49:24
Speaker
So yeah, that aspect of COVID has really made it suck.
00:49:28
Speaker
And then the other one, I've always been really intrigued after I heard the JJP podcast where, where Ken Cromwell interviewed slash.
00:49:36
Speaker
And he, he said, um,
00:49:39
Speaker
Let's see if I wrote this down right.
00:49:41
Speaker
He said he'd be willing to come design another pinball machine in the future.
00:49:46
Speaker
So do you think we'll see another Eric and Slash design pinball machine in the future?
00:49:51
Speaker
Is it in the cards?
00:49:52
Speaker
Yes, it's a Velva Revolver machine.
00:49:54
Speaker
Boom.
00:49:54
Speaker
Done.
00:49:58
Speaker
I would.
00:49:58
Speaker
I mean, Revolver's music is fantastic.
00:50:03
Speaker
Is it in the cards?
00:50:04
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:50:05
Speaker
Slash is now I would consider him a personal friend.
00:50:10
Speaker
and he has expressed interest in doing more with us.
00:50:15
Speaker
He is absolutely a good person to know.
00:50:21
Speaker
And whether it be for his personal ability to add greatness to a game, like if he wants to do music, or, I mean, his voice calls, not something that he really enjoys doing, but he is friends with everyone.
00:50:35
Speaker
I mean, you ask a person...
00:50:38
Speaker
if they want to be friends with Slash, and the answer is yes.
00:50:41
Speaker
So he knows everybody.
00:50:44
Speaker
He has been showing off his game to other people who have licenses.
00:50:51
Speaker
Like, hey, look what Eric has done for me and for GNR.
00:50:56
Speaker
He can do the same for you sort of thing.
00:50:59
Speaker
So he's a great guy.
00:51:02
Speaker
He's a great guy to have on our team and in our back pocket because he can do stuff for us that
00:51:08
Speaker
It's just, you're not going to find anyone else like him.
00:51:11
Speaker
You know, that
Challenges for Pinball Locations During COVID
00:51:12
Speaker
is the dream is to be a rock star and then become a pinball designer.
00:51:15
Speaker
I know that in those, in that order, right?
00:51:17
Speaker
In that order.
00:51:18
Speaker
Yes.
00:51:19
Speaker
The pinnacle is being the pinball designer as we've all established on the show.
00:51:24
Speaker
Yes.
00:51:24
Speaker
I've maybe I've said this on, on another podcast.
00:51:28
Speaker
Um, but one of the most, um,
00:51:31
Speaker
kind of surreal moments of this whole project is when we were recording with Melissa Reese, who is a keyboardist for Guns N' Roses.
00:51:39
Speaker
We were mid-session and I was like showing her the game, right?
00:51:42
Speaker
I took my phone and we were on Skype or Zoom or something and I showed her the game.
00:51:48
Speaker
And she, right, a world-renowned touring rock star said, and I quote, Eric, you have the coolest job ever.
00:52:00
Speaker
Yeah, well, I pretty flattering.
00:52:04
Speaker
Considering I last night I was putting people to sleep because they had a steak stuck in their throat.
00:52:10
Speaker
Yes, I would say that your job is way cooler than mine.
00:52:15
Speaker
Yeah, not kidding.
00:52:16
Speaker
Happened twice last night.
00:52:18
Speaker
So that might if you're wondering if my job is glorious.
00:52:22
Speaker
No, it is not.
00:52:26
Speaker
But yes, I would say talking to Slash and Melissa, that is amazing.
00:52:33
Speaker
One question I have is with COVID has drastically affected how you do things, but it's also drastically affected location pinball.
00:52:44
Speaker
And we've even seen, and I'm just going to throw this out there, that Pinball Hall of Fame in Vegas, they are moving and they are trying to
00:52:54
Speaker
bridge the gap.
00:52:55
Speaker
They actually had the funds, but because COVID shut down their place, it's actually been difficult.
00:53:02
Speaker
They're about, I think Tim said they are $500,000 short.
00:53:06
Speaker
They're trying to raise the funds.
00:53:08
Speaker
And so if you want to go to his, it's a GoFundMe, just go ahead and throw a few dollars.
00:53:17
Speaker
If you haven't been to the Pinball Hall of Fame, it's actually a great place.
00:53:20
Speaker
And if you're in Vegas, it's certainly a place that you can take the family.
00:53:25
Speaker
So I'm going to throw that out there.
00:53:26
Speaker
But I also want to talk from an industry insider.
00:53:31
Speaker
When you see the effect of these establishments struggling to stay alive, what are you as an insider thinking about this?
00:53:43
Speaker
And is there anything that the industry can do to help revitalize these locations that are hurting?
00:53:50
Speaker
Yeah, it's heartbreaking to see because I grew up as an operator.
00:53:56
Speaker
I mean, we had my family's business, Kingpin Games, up in Wisconsin.
00:54:01
Speaker
We had over 100 arcades in the Wisconsin Dells area.
00:54:06
Speaker
And they've since changed their business model.
00:54:10
Speaker
They haven't been doing route operations for many years now.
00:54:15
Speaker
It's very tough.
00:54:18
Speaker
Everyone wants to see location pinball thrive.
00:54:21
Speaker
That's one of the main reasons that we released our standard edition at the pricing we did is so that we can get it out on location.
00:54:29
Speaker
Trying to...
00:54:33
Speaker
show these games and bring them into the modern era, having internet connected, having things integrated like score of it, where you can compete, you know, with your friend who's got a game at home, you know, you can post your score of it score and they can post theirs and you guys can try to chase leaderboards, bringing something that,
00:54:55
Speaker
means you don't necessarily have to play on the same physical machine together, but you can still play together, is something that I pushed for hard, which is why we got the score with integration into GNR and why we plan on releasing it for all of our games.
00:55:14
Speaker
I want to talk also about the contributions of Backgalley Creations.
00:55:20
Speaker
So they did the sculpts on this.
00:55:23
Speaker
So the three that are, well, the four that are obvious, you see Axel and you also see Slash's hat.
00:55:31
Speaker
And on the collector's edition, you see the roses and you see the skull there around the shooter rod.
00:55:37
Speaker
Now I'm, I'm curious as to what the choice was, which I think is the correct choice, by the way, that you decided to,
00:55:44
Speaker
put a skull around the shooter rod without actually affecting the standard shooter rod.
00:55:50
Speaker
So that's one thing.
00:55:51
Speaker
And also how is your approach of making something that is, you want this to be cool.
00:55:57
Speaker
You want this to be thematically appropriate with guns and roses.
00:56:02
Speaker
And you also want it
Musical and Thematic Design Elements
00:56:03
Speaker
to fit in the machine.
00:56:06
Speaker
Having Matt Reisterer from back alley as a personal friend,
00:56:11
Speaker
Makes all of those questions you just asked a lot easier.
00:56:14
Speaker
Matt knows what to do.
00:56:17
Speaker
I'd say, Matt, here's what I want.
00:56:19
Speaker
I want an Axl Rose doing a back bend, screaming into his microphone.
00:56:25
Speaker
And he'll say, Eric, that sounds crazy.
00:56:27
Speaker
Let's do it.
00:56:29
Speaker
And Matt, I want to put a skull around the outside of a shooter housing.
00:56:33
Speaker
And I want the shooter rod to go straight through its forehead like a bullet to the brain.
00:56:39
Speaker
Okay, let's do it.
00:56:41
Speaker
And I bring the engineering.
00:56:44
Speaker
Matt brings the artistic capacity.
00:56:47
Speaker
And I mean, he is a very much a hands-on designer when it comes to his stuff.
00:56:53
Speaker
So I'll give him the raw parts, right?
00:56:55
Speaker
Here's an upper play field where Axel's got a mount.
00:56:58
Speaker
Here is the lockdown bar with a button.
00:57:02
Speaker
Here's a shooter housing.
00:57:04
Speaker
Take into account where the leg goes, where the coin door is.
00:57:09
Speaker
And we do iterative process.
00:57:11
Speaker
Matt comes back with sculpting clay and you can just whip something out right there and then, okay, that's good.
00:57:22
Speaker
We'll cast that.
00:57:23
Speaker
We'll paint it.
00:57:23
Speaker
We'll bring it back.
00:57:24
Speaker
We'll do some trimming.
00:57:27
Speaker
He is just very, very talented individual.
00:57:30
Speaker
One of the best sculptors that I've ever met and one of the best artists that I've ever worked with.
00:57:35
Speaker
So he makes...
00:57:39
Speaker
These sculpts just work, and he's great at it.
00:57:44
Speaker
So the other part of the pinball machine that I really love, because I'm a musician, I love the guitar and the fender head and the drumsticks all integrated into the game.
00:57:56
Speaker
I think that's something very unique that I would have never even thought to put inside of a pinball machine.
00:58:02
Speaker
Where did that idea come from?
00:58:05
Speaker
The drumsticks...
00:58:08
Speaker
were something that I originally drew, I don't know, 2014, 2013, something that I had in the back of my head.
00:58:18
Speaker
I'm like, if I ever do a band game, music game, I'm going to turn a ramp, I'm going to turn two drumsticks into a ramp just because...
00:58:27
Speaker
You know, they're perfect cylinders.
00:58:31
Speaker
If you take the tapered tip out of the equation, a ball can roll across these.
00:58:35
Speaker
I want to make it happen.
00:58:36
Speaker
So I'm actually going to be a personal friend reached out to me who's a teacher.
00:58:42
Speaker
And that's one of the things that I'm going to present to his students.
00:58:47
Speaker
I'm going to give a little talk in a couple of weeks on what engineering is.
00:58:51
Speaker
It's a little class for second and third graders.
00:58:54
Speaker
What engineering is
00:58:56
Speaker
and that's the problem that i'm going to present how do you turn two drumsticks into a ramp for a pinball machine so we're going to go through the iterative process that i took in making that happen all the different aspects that went into it and different things to consider um the guitar head
00:59:16
Speaker
and the fender base head.
00:59:18
Speaker
I really wanted to do the kinetic ball diverters that were first seen in, I think, Bride of Pinbot and Road Kings, I think.
00:59:32
Speaker
Those little triangles that I have in the game.
00:59:35
Speaker
I liked them.
00:59:35
Speaker
I grew up with a Bride of Pinbot in my house as a kid, and I always liked the little kinetic diverter.
00:59:42
Speaker
It's basically...
00:59:44
Speaker
cheap action, low expense action on the bill of material that affects the ball.
00:59:51
Speaker
So how can I use those in a creative way?
00:59:54
Speaker
I wanted to create the bass guitar wire form, right?
01:00:00
Speaker
Four wires, four strings on a bass that go down the left side.
01:00:06
Speaker
I only wanted to feed it in one path.
01:00:07
Speaker
So that's why I use three of those kinetic diverters up there because you shoot the ball into that four times and it's going to go down the three paths.
01:00:15
Speaker
and down the strings of the bass guitar.
01:00:17
Speaker
And then being able to, you know, Slash is such a central part of this game and the concert experience, turning that stage into the neck of the Gibson and having Gibson on board with it.
01:00:32
Speaker
I mean, Slash is, you know, one of their forefront speakers of their brand, getting their cooperation and being able to put Slash's signature Gibson
01:00:42
Speaker
in the game and then use it as a six ball lock was just something that worked well.
01:00:49
Speaker
Six strings on the guitar, use a kinetic diverter to split the ball to go to the six different locations and just release them and start the frenzy.
01:01:00
Speaker
It was something that just worked.
01:01:03
Speaker
The theme, trying to utilize all the aspects of the instruments in a way that made them work well and fit in the game was
01:01:12
Speaker
Something that I draw on a lot.
01:01:16
Speaker
And I have hundreds of hand-drawn sketches of how concepts and iterations of what I wanted to do with the different aspects of this game.
01:01:27
Speaker
That's how they pan out.
01:01:30
Speaker
I think all of us would love someday to get behind the scenes and look at all your concepts.
01:01:35
Speaker
That'd be amazing.
01:01:36
Speaker
The folder is no joke.
01:01:38
Speaker
Here, I'll pull it out of my desk here.
01:01:42
Speaker
is four inches thick wow dang you know and in some in some things four inches doesn't seem like a lot but in a binder it is yeah maybe maybe the new thing will be the director's cut you know when we come to pinball machines later on in life and uh we'll have the eric's director's cut of
01:02:06
Speaker
Of Guns N' Roses.
01:02:08
Speaker
Yeah, it'll be $25,000 because the bill of materials will be $15,000 in itself.
01:02:15
Speaker
Okay, so let's talk about the light show.
01:02:18
Speaker
Now, there are two things that every time I look at the machine that still just kind of blow me away, that you have those concert lights that rotate and spin.
01:02:32
Speaker
Okay.
01:02:32
Speaker
Okay.
01:02:33
Speaker
Whose idea?
01:02:34
Speaker
Was that your idea or was it Slash's idea or who came up with, we're going to put these mini concert lights in there that are spinning in addition to about 20,000 lights that is far and above anything that normally people would put in there.
01:02:51
Speaker
And at the same time, it's not going to be the blinding light that typically people associate with too much light.
01:02:59
Speaker
It actually...
01:03:01
Speaker
It's over the top.
01:03:03
Speaker
Yes, it is crazy.
01:03:04
Speaker
Yes.
01:03:05
Speaker
It's also, it brings you into the machine as opposed to blinds you from the machine.
01:03:10
Speaker
The moving spotlights, and again, I started to lose track over how the idea came to be.
01:03:20
Speaker
You know, you look at a concert, you have moving gobos that light up or spotlights that keep track of the stars on stage.
01:03:30
Speaker
And
01:03:31
Speaker
something that I felt was needed.
01:03:32
Speaker
So I approached my mechanical engineer, one of my mechanical engineers, Peter Dorn, and said, here's what I want to do, man.
01:03:40
Speaker
Let's make it happen.
01:03:43
Speaker
And he roughed it out, worked on the 3D printer, 3D printed some parts.
01:03:50
Speaker
put them together, got axis of rotation in the horizontal and axis of rotation in the vertical.
01:03:55
Speaker
And with that, we're able to just make the lights move around however we want.
01:04:01
Speaker
It's an intricate little mech that just does so much.
01:04:07
Speaker
I mean, it's so cool.
01:04:08
Speaker
But the problem with a lot of this stuff is like, okay, you look at that mech, like, oh, yeah, it's a couple servos.
01:04:15
Speaker
That works.
01:04:16
Speaker
And that's what we need to do to make it happen.
01:04:20
Speaker
Our hardware platform for running electronics needed to reinvent that too because it didn't support running four servos independently at the same time.
01:04:32
Speaker
Same with like the lighting system didn't support running
01:04:36
Speaker
serial address RGB LEDs like we put in the Hot Rails and the bottomers and the backers.
01:04:41
Speaker
So being able to have a team that I can depend on in my electrical engineering department with Tony Tumonero,
01:04:50
Speaker
And Ben Stover, those guys really stepped it up, getting the software department to do better firmware integration, to be able to support the servos and the lights.
01:05:00
Speaker
Duncan Brown really stepped up there.
01:05:03
Speaker
Just having this team of people who are really good at stuff that I'm not good at is really helpful.
01:05:10
Speaker
And to top it off on the collector's edition, you also put in an additional topper with additional lights and an additional sound bar to break your eardrums.
01:05:21
Speaker
Yes.
01:05:25
Speaker
Yeah.
01:05:25
Speaker
We, I mean, I came up with the idea of the topper on, you know, what do you want on a music pin?
01:05:32
Speaker
What do you want on a rock and roll game?
01:05:33
Speaker
Well, you want more sound you want, you know,
01:05:36
Speaker
We already have a very good sound system, one of the best in the industry.
01:05:42
Speaker
And so I was, you know, I had to justify, well, why do we need more speakers if our sound system is already good?
01:05:49
Speaker
Well, it's a rock and roll game.
01:05:50
Speaker
More sound is better.
01:05:51
Speaker
So we added this other set of speakers that adds a little more oomph in the mid range and just fills out the sound in a beautiful way.
01:06:03
Speaker
And I think it was very well received.
01:06:07
Speaker
Yeah, I think that would push anybody to want the collector's edition when you look at all the extra touches you guys put on there.
01:06:14
Speaker
It certainly justifies the elite status of that selection.
01:06:21
Speaker
It's one of those situations where you're going to have to tell the wife, it's time to take the kids.
01:06:24
Speaker
Me and the boys are going to be playing Guns N' Roses and we're turning it up to 11.
01:06:30
Speaker
And we're using adult mode.
01:06:31
Speaker
I agree.
01:06:34
Speaker
I got to say, though, I do appreciate that having a family friendly mode on a pinball machine.
01:06:38
Speaker
And I know that you spoke to this in the past, but was that a conscious decision from day one?
01:06:44
Speaker
I can't remember.
01:06:45
Speaker
Yes.
01:06:47
Speaker
Yeah, it was something that I was pretty strict on, you know, slash not so much.
01:06:54
Speaker
You know, he's like, well, why don't we just have this this girl there with her.
01:07:00
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, with her, yes.
01:07:03
Speaker
And I'm just like, oh, no, I can't do that.
01:07:06
Speaker
I respect women, and, you know, I have a lot of friends that are in the bells and chimes, and I couldn't stand the fact of them, you know,
01:07:17
Speaker
looking at me with disappointment
Influences and Reflections on Game Design
01:07:19
Speaker
if I if I, you know degraded women in that way like that's not what I want to do I want there want everyone to be able to approach this game and not feel uncomfortable around it and I have a loving wife and I have two young children and I want them to able to enjoy my game as well I don't want my kids to feel ashamed of something that they see in a game that I've created
01:07:46
Speaker
So I was very firm on, I want it to be family friendly, but I know that our market has, you know, mostly adult men that want to play this game on their own or with adult friends.
01:08:00
Speaker
So bring on the swear words, bring on the explicit content in the video, bring on, you know, all of that and let them turn it on if they want to, but I'm not going to ship a game with that enabled by default just because it goes against what I stand for.
01:08:15
Speaker
Now, I will say I appreciate that.
01:08:17
Speaker
And that is walking a fine line because I grew up in the 80s and I grew up in the MTV era.
01:08:27
Speaker
And I would say it's safe to say a lot of the MTV stuff was very dude centric and stereotypical, I would say.
01:08:37
Speaker
Now, right or wrong, that was the 80s.
01:08:40
Speaker
And so I appreciate that you've been able to find a way to still be thematically appropriate to what Guns N' Roses was in the 80s, but bringing it to a modern time and still making it acceptable for 2020, 2021.
01:08:58
Speaker
because that is a very thin needle to thread.
01:09:02
Speaker
And I'm very serious about that.
01:09:06
Speaker
And I appreciate that you even working with Slash and Guns N' Roses, that shows that at least they're aware of the need to be relevant with the times, but also be true to their core.
01:09:24
Speaker
Completely agree.
01:09:25
Speaker
Well, you can definitely tell times have changed.
01:09:28
Speaker
Knowing the guns and roses I grew up with, I would have never expected a woman to be their keyboardist nothing against Melissa or whatnot.
01:09:36
Speaker
But I'm just like, if you've ever listened to appetite for destruction, I would, I would assume it's not, uh, what's the word I'm looking for.
01:09:45
Speaker
It's not inclusive.
01:09:46
Speaker
Yeah.
01:09:47
Speaker
Yeah.
01:09:47
Speaker
Let's put it that way.
01:09:48
Speaker
It's very, well, it's very much dude music.
01:09:51
Speaker
And so, and that's part of being relevant in today to recognize that your market is not this narrow, this narrow demographic.
01:10:02
Speaker
You actually have to appeal to all demographics and,
01:10:05
Speaker
And being able to be inclusive without being exclusive is a very difficult thing to do in today's day and age.
01:10:12
Speaker
And being able to do that, I would say that you still were true with Guns N' Roses in the lifestyle that they portray.
01:10:22
Speaker
But without being, I guess, without being degrading to one segment of the population, it still is welcoming to all.
01:10:34
Speaker
Do you have any
Conclusion and Farewell
01:10:35
Speaker
final thoughts for us, Eric?
01:10:36
Speaker
Is there any special moments that you had with this pinball machine that I know I got to say, like the Paul McCartney story is one of my favorites.
01:10:43
Speaker
Like, it's just something that makes me smile when I hear that one.
01:10:46
Speaker
Yeah.
01:10:46
Speaker
When you were talking about that and super awesome.
01:10:48
Speaker
But is there another moment maybe that just stands out to you when you think of guns and roses in this pinball machine?
01:10:55
Speaker
Um,
01:10:56
Speaker
I don't want to get all sappy on you, but it might come across that way.
01:11:01
Speaker
That's fine.
01:11:01
Speaker
It's being grateful for the impact that my music teachers have had in my life.
01:11:08
Speaker
My high school music teacher, my college band professor, without their guidance and the extracurricular activities that I was able to do as a kid,
01:11:20
Speaker
this game would not be here.
01:11:21
Speaker
It would not exist the way it does.
01:11:23
Speaker
If I didn't have the passion for music that Scott Brewer and Michael Ekron instilled in me, there's no way this game would have been created.
01:11:36
Speaker
I pushed...
01:11:38
Speaker
The envelope in every way to make sure the music was was represented the way it should be that sound effects were in the right key that the notes on the play field around the record mech accurately represent the first eight bars of sweet child of mine like if I hadn't done that if I hadn't pushed for that.
01:12:00
Speaker
this game would not be what it is.
01:12:02
Speaker
And so I'm just very, very appreciative of those people in my life.
01:12:09
Speaker
And I think that that shows it's one of those moments that it's hard to define as we all grow up from being kids to adults is when you recognize those touchstones in life and you're appreciative of those impactful moments.
01:12:27
Speaker
And I think of my parents, I think of my teachers, I think of all those people that in life,
01:12:32
Speaker
completely unpredictable ways have affected my life.
01:12:35
Speaker
And I, I appreciate that that is really what comes to your mind.
01:12:40
Speaker
Um, especially having such a diverse background in music and engineering and, uh, and pinball, I mean, it all kind of comes together in unpredictable ways.
01:12:48
Speaker
Yeah.
01:12:50
Speaker
You know, I just want to be grateful for, I mean, Eric, you took a risk when we didn't know anything about recording.
01:12:59
Speaker
You said, yeah, sure.
01:13:00
Speaker
I'll go on this, this loser podcast.
01:13:03
Speaker
And I, I'm forever appreciative that you took a risk in accepting us and to spending your time and you're volunteering your time to do this.
01:13:12
Speaker
And so I appreciate that.
01:13:15
Speaker
And over the,
01:13:17
Speaker
over the amount of time we've been doing this, I think we've gotten better, but I've appreciated all the, how openness and really inclusive this weird niche hobby that we have.
01:13:27
Speaker
And I just wish you guys all the best in your upcoming releases.
01:13:31
Speaker
And I really can't, I'm so excited for this.
01:13:35
Speaker
I will, in full disclosure, Guns N' Roses was my runaway game of the year.
01:13:40
Speaker
I had no, there was nothing else.
01:13:42
Speaker
I loved a lot of the games that came out
01:13:45
Speaker
But this one seemed to be with everything over the top.
01:13:49
Speaker
And it was the definition of raising the bar.
01:13:52
Speaker
And so I congratulate you.
01:13:54
Speaker
I congratulate everybody at JJP.
01:13:58
Speaker
And I congratulate your synergistic working with Guns N' Roses because it shows in this game.
01:14:05
Speaker
And it is incredible.
01:14:06
Speaker
It's jaw-dropping.
01:14:07
Speaker
And my buddy who lives a mile away, he's actually my tennis teacher too, is Lindsey Ralstrom.
01:14:16
Speaker
He is buying his LE and I can't wait to help him tune it in.
01:14:22
Speaker
Awesome.
01:14:23
Speaker
Awesome.
01:14:24
Speaker
Thanks, man.
01:14:24
Speaker
I appreciate that.
01:14:25
Speaker
It
01:14:26
Speaker
Brings a smile to my face when I hear people.
01:14:28
Speaker
Like I said, when I hear how I positively impact people's lives, it really makes me take a step back and appreciate what I get to do as a profession.
01:14:39
Speaker
I couldn't have said it any better than Scott.
01:14:42
Speaker
And honestly, Eric, each one of your projects are getting better and better.
01:14:45
Speaker
We hope the best for your next one.
01:14:47
Speaker
We know that you're going to do killer on it and just knock our socks off again.
01:14:52
Speaker
We can't wait to see what you got in store for us.
01:14:55
Speaker
Thanks, guys.
01:14:55
Speaker
Appreciate it.
01:14:57
Speaker
You're welcome.
01:14:58
Speaker
If there's, let's see, I was going to ask if there's a way, do you want people bothering you?
01:15:04
Speaker
If there's people who want to reach out to you, are you okay with that?
01:15:07
Speaker
A lot of people have reached out to me personally on Facebook.
01:15:10
Speaker
I don't mind if they connect with me on Facebook on my personal page.
01:15:16
Speaker
And that's probably the best way to do it because that way I can respond when I have time.
01:15:21
Speaker
Awesome.
01:15:23
Speaker
If you want to get ahold of us, you can contact us via Facebook is probably the best way to do it.
01:15:28
Speaker
Uh, whether it be messenger or, uh, commenting on our page at loser kid pinball podcast.
01:15:33
Speaker
Uh, we are also on Twitter and Instagram at loser kid pinball podcast and do it the old fashioned way too.
01:15:39
Speaker
You can just email us at loser kid pinball podcast at gmail.com.
01:15:43
Speaker
Uh, once again, we appreciate everyone that tunes in for the feedback.
01:15:48
Speaker
Uh, thanks for all the positive vibes that you've sent our way, uh, in these last couple of weeks.
01:15:53
Speaker
And yeah, we just really appreciate all the fans and doing this and just having some fun, you know?
01:15:59
Speaker
So send us off, Scott.
01:16:01
Speaker
All right.
01:16:02
Speaker
Well, you guys be excellent to each other and let us try to enjoy this year and hopefully everybody get vaccinated and let's go and play some pinball together.
01:16:13
Speaker
And tune into the Pinball Industry Awards on January 28th to see we were nominated for the podcast and excellence category.
01:16:22
Speaker
We'll see if we become a recipient.
01:16:24
Speaker
We thank those guys for considering us, and we'll see you then.
01:16:30
Speaker
And go buy Guns N' Roses.
01:16:32
Speaker
Yes.
01:16:33
Speaker
Buy two.
01:16:34
Speaker
One for you and one for your friends.
01:16:36
Speaker
Shut up and sit down.