Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Episode 2: Introducing Scott!
70 Plays7 years ago
This time around I sit down with Scott Larson as my co host. We cover different things like Munsters, Monster Bash, and what we would like to see in the future from the hobby. Also a couple of tips for those people looking to buy pinball for their first time.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Pinball Passion
00:00:11
Speaker
Welcome to the Loser Kid Pinball Podcast.
00:00:13
Speaker
I am your host, Josh Roop, and with me, my co-host, Scott Larson.
00:00:17
Speaker
How you doing, my good man?
00:00:20
Speaker
Howdy ho, neighbor.
00:00:22
Speaker
Are you enjoying all the snow that we're having so far?
00:00:25
Speaker
That's been freezing.
00:00:26
Speaker
Actually, it was like freezing rain over here today.
00:00:32
Speaker
So skiing is nice when you get up above the inversion.
00:00:36
Speaker
Oh, I bet it's way nice.
00:00:37
Speaker
Out here, it stinks because it's like...
00:00:40
Speaker
It's just been snow.
00:00:41
Speaker
It's been like sticking to the ground and it's just, it's been terrible.
00:00:44
Speaker
You'd shovel it and then I'd get all the way to the bottom of the driveway and then I'd go back to the top and start shoveling again because it's just sticking and piling up so bad.
00:00:52
Speaker
Yeah, well, good reason to stay inside then.
00:00:56
Speaker
You know what?
00:00:56
Speaker
Good reason to play some pinball instead of go outside, right?
00:01:00
Speaker
Yep.
00:01:00
Speaker
Hey, so before I get into everything, can you give a little introduction of yourself?
00:01:07
Speaker
Yeah, so I got into pinball probably about four years ago, just on a whim.
00:01:12
Speaker
I picked up, started picking some arcade games, and one of the dealers had three pinball machines that he had just recently taken out of the house.
00:01:23
Speaker
And I saw Simpsons pinball party, and I said, huh, I've never played pinball.
00:01:28
Speaker
Let's buy that.
00:01:29
Speaker
So I bought that, and it was way too complicated.
00:01:33
Speaker
I had no idea how to play it.
00:01:35
Speaker
And sat downstairs for about two years playing it occasionally.
00:01:40
Speaker
And then over one year, I bought about 10 pinball machines.
00:01:45
Speaker
I still don't know how to play Simpsons pinball party, really, but it's still really pretty.
00:01:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:50
Speaker
Yeah, you've got a really nice collection.
00:01:52
Speaker
I don't know if you've noticed the picture that I've posted as like the podcast picture, but it's actually me at your house when we did that tournament.
00:02:00
Speaker
I'm playing on that sweet Tron that you have.
00:02:03
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:02:05
Speaker
So I got all these warnings that said if I wanted to post something, I better make sure it was a picture of my own.
00:02:11
Speaker
I was like, well, I guess I'll use that because that's pinball related.
00:02:14
Speaker
Sure, it's a picture of your own.
00:02:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:17
Speaker
So what's been going on in your pinball life, I guess?
Technical Challenges and Pinball Community Support
00:02:22
Speaker
You know, the main thing is I installed a Pinnovator's thing onto Tron, and now my Tron is a very customized pro version.
00:02:33
Speaker
And now it keeps blowing the fuse on the GI.
00:02:37
Speaker
So right now I still need to figure that out, but I haven't had any time to actually tease in.
00:02:43
Speaker
And considering I know very little about how to troubleshoot machines, it'll probably take a little while longer too.
00:02:51
Speaker
It's always one thing or another with a pinball machine.
00:02:53
Speaker
It feels like sometimes, well, it's a, it's a good hobby.
00:02:58
Speaker
The challenge is you have to be able to have the time to do the maintenance on it.
00:03:03
Speaker
So I'll have to get some of my friends over who know a lot more about maintenance and we'll be able to figure something out.
00:03:08
Speaker
I need to also, uh, email the, the marketers of the, uh,
00:03:14
Speaker
LED OCD chip and the Pinnovators and see if there's a reason why the LED OCD is blowing.
00:03:23
Speaker
Yeah, for sure.
00:03:25
Speaker
It's basically the same Tron that Kevin Manny up at Buffalo Pinball has.
00:03:30
Speaker
I asked him exactly how he customized his machine, and I did basically everything he did.
00:03:35
Speaker
And it's still not working.
00:03:39
Speaker
Well...
00:03:40
Speaker
I didn't customize it myself.
00:03:42
Speaker
Someone else did.
00:03:42
Speaker
Oh, gotcha, gotcha.
00:03:44
Speaker
Who knows?
00:03:45
Speaker
Maybe I'll text Kevin and see if he knows what's going on because he said he was just about to install the Pinnovator chip, so maybe his isn't doing the same thing mine is.
00:03:55
Speaker
Gotcha.
00:03:55
Speaker
Okay.
00:03:57
Speaker
Anything else exciting going on for you?
Unpacking New Machines and Market Insights
00:04:01
Speaker
Gary got a Monster Bash LE, and I know you have your Monster Bash.
00:04:06
Speaker
You know what?
00:04:07
Speaker
I've actually, um, segue really quickly now that you've brought that up.
00:04:11
Speaker
So I get it.
00:04:11
Speaker
I was going to get off of work early today already.
00:04:14
Speaker
And then the babysitter said, um, nevermind, we don't have a problem.
00:04:17
Speaker
You can stay at work.
00:04:19
Speaker
And then I got a call, not even like 30 seconds later.
00:04:21
Speaker
And they're like,
00:04:22
Speaker
we have a shipment here for you.
00:04:23
Speaker
Can we drop it off?
00:04:25
Speaker
And so, so I'm like, when, when do I need to be there?
00:04:27
Speaker
And she's like, uh, now, now.
00:04:30
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:04:31
Speaker
So I run home, I clear the space.
00:04:33
Speaker
Um, and then I wait for an hour, like a kid on Christmas.
00:04:37
Speaker
I'm just like, just show up, please.
00:04:39
Speaker
So he finally backs in and I, you know,
00:04:41
Speaker
He drops it off in the garage.
00:04:43
Speaker
And I'm like, stay, play some pinball.
00:04:45
Speaker
And it was his last call.
00:04:46
Speaker
So he starts playing pinball while I'm unloading Monster Bash and getting it open.
00:04:51
Speaker
Dude, I've never had that experience before.
00:04:53
Speaker
That's my first new inbox.
00:04:55
Speaker
I'm a broke kid.
00:04:56
Speaker
So I never have those experiences.
00:04:58
Speaker
I end up selling half the collection because Monster Bash is one of my holy grails.
00:05:01
Speaker
So I just had to go for it.
00:05:05
Speaker
no longer part of the broke collection if you ever buy a new in box pinball machine well i still feel especially in le you're still in the top five percent it's still broke collectors it's still broke if you have to sell more than half your collection if you have to get rid of a simpsons pinball party and a star trek pro amongst a couple others and plus to pay off some bills and whatnot but that's a different story but yeah i still feel broke i'd look at now i have a nice shiny toy to remind me i am very broke
00:05:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:35
Speaker
No, it's awesome.
00:05:36
Speaker
It still looks pretty.
00:05:37
Speaker
What blows my mind is the manufacture date on it, September 28th.
00:05:43
Speaker
And they announced that a month later.
00:05:44
Speaker
I'm like, I kind of wonder what took them so long.
00:05:46
Speaker
When I talked to our buddy JJ over at Game Exchange, he said they were having some issues with some of the parts breaking, and so they wanted to build it more robust.
00:05:55
Speaker
So I'm all for making something a little nicer, as long as I don't want to fix it later down the road.
00:06:01
Speaker
Yeah, the interesting thing is on Gary's anyway, on the hole, once it goes down to drain, there is a...
00:06:12
Speaker
you know, kind of like a cliffy down there, but it's gotten stuck on the cliffy twice because they did a cutout.
00:06:21
Speaker
Obviously, it was hanging up on that cliffy, and so they made a cutout so the ball could channel through that, and then it still hung up on it twice the night they opened it up.
00:06:31
Speaker
Gotcha.
00:06:33
Speaker
Well, knock on one, mine hasn't hung up yet, but I've only got five games on it.
00:06:36
Speaker
I seriously unloaded it.
00:06:38
Speaker
It took the 30 minutes or an hour, however long it took.
00:06:41
Speaker
Me and my son, my eight-year-old son trying to help me with this pinball machine getting all set up.
00:06:48
Speaker
And man, it took forever.
00:06:50
Speaker
And then my wife shows up and she's like, you realize it's 6.30, almost 7, right?
00:06:53
Speaker
Like we need to make some dinner.
00:06:54
Speaker
Crap.
00:06:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:57
Speaker
Yeah, okay.
00:06:59
Speaker
So you ordered a pizza and you kept playing.
00:07:01
Speaker
I wish.
00:07:02
Speaker
No, I went in and made dinner because, you know, wife's pregnant.
00:07:05
Speaker
Because you're a good husband.
00:07:07
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:07:09
Speaker
Let me tangent really quick.
Personal Stories and Market Dynamics
00:07:11
Speaker
It was funny because last night I tuned into Dead Flip, right?
00:07:14
Speaker
And his wife is pregnant as well.
00:07:18
Speaker
And I asked him, what do you guys do?
00:07:19
Speaker
And she's like, well, she's 20 weeks along.
00:07:22
Speaker
I'm like, dude, my wife's 20 weeks on Sunday.
00:07:24
Speaker
I just thought about it.
00:07:26
Speaker
if we both have our babies on the same day, we should make a pact to name our kid after each other.
00:07:31
Speaker
But then I thought that was a terrible idea because my kid would be the cool kid running around saying, I'm Jack Danger.
00:07:37
Speaker
And then his kid would be running around saying, I'm Josh the Loser Kid.
00:07:42
Speaker
so i think you could have you could have dangerous his middle name yeah true true but it was just i'm like that's a short end of the stick i doubt he'd go for that yeah but cool man well i gave my thoughts on monsters last week um i didn't know if you wanted to give your thoughts what your first impressions were yeah i'll give some quick thoughts um
00:08:03
Speaker
So The Munsters always seemed to be like a Saturday afternoon rerun.
00:08:08
Speaker
I never watched The Addams Family when I was a kid.
00:08:13
Speaker
And also The Addams Family movie, I never watched it until like two years ago.
00:08:19
Speaker
So since I really didn't get into pinball, I grew up in the 80s.
00:08:24
Speaker
And so that was when the arcades were really ramping up and the pinballs were kind of left to die in the corner.
00:08:31
Speaker
Then I was really busy in the 90s during the first renaissance.
00:08:35
Speaker
We're kind of in the second renaissance.
00:08:37
Speaker
So I don't have that emotional connection to Adam's family that other people have.
00:08:42
Speaker
In fact, I bought an Adam's family from someone.
00:08:47
Speaker
Actually, I bought it from Jeff Rivera from the Pinball podcast.
00:08:51
Speaker
And I had it in my garage for about six months, and I just didn't have room.
00:08:54
Speaker
So I moved down to...
00:08:57
Speaker
to my friend's house to babysit.
00:08:59
Speaker
And then I decided this seems kind of ridiculous.
00:09:01
Speaker
It was down at his house for a year.
00:09:03
Speaker
And so I sold it to my good friend, Josh Rupp.
00:09:06
Speaker
You know what, man?
00:09:07
Speaker
And it's getting plenty of good use out here.
00:09:10
Speaker
I couldn't pass up.
00:09:11
Speaker
When you called or texted me and said, hey, I'm getting rid of it, I'm like, the thing with Adam's family, dude, at first I didn't get the hype.
00:09:19
Speaker
I was like, this is just some kind of nostalgic crap that people –
00:09:23
Speaker
always got because they grew up with it.
00:09:25
Speaker
Now that's in my house and I've been playing it, I understand.
00:09:28
Speaker
It's not a game.
00:09:29
Speaker
It's like an experience between the seance and the knocker and everything.
00:09:32
Speaker
It's just, and the magnets, it's fantastic.
00:09:35
Speaker
Okay, I totally get it.
00:09:37
Speaker
For me, if you look at my collection, I have...
00:09:41
Speaker
12 games downstairs in Twilight Zone in the garage.
00:09:44
Speaker
And I need to... I just didn't have enough space to get rid of one, to move it downstairs.
00:09:53
Speaker
And also, my friend has Adam's family, and he's two minutes away from me.
00:09:58
Speaker
He's the one who has the Monster Bash LE.
00:10:00
Speaker
And so I've started viewing our collection as kind of a joint collection.
00:10:04
Speaker
And so that was the reason why I sold it, was more of a...
00:10:09
Speaker
if I look at our collection as a mega collection, then I'm not willing to hold onto that as a duplicate and sell one of the other machines.
00:10:19
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:10:20
Speaker
I get you.
00:10:21
Speaker
So that was the reason.
00:10:22
Speaker
So I, I don't, I still don't have that emotional connection with Adam's family monsters.
00:10:26
Speaker
I actually did remember like monsters better than, um, the Adams family.
00:10:33
Speaker
Also the Adams family for some weird reason had guest spots on the Flintstones.
00:10:37
Speaker
Um,
00:10:39
Speaker
Yeah, I still don't figure that out.
00:10:41
Speaker
But they... So when Monsters was announced, I thought, well, this seems like a... It seems like their attempt to steal the thunder from Monster Bash.
00:10:53
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:10:54
Speaker
What it felt like.
00:10:55
Speaker
Well, that's what I thought, too.
00:10:56
Speaker
Well, it was a two birds for one stone.
00:10:57
Speaker
Between that and Alice Cooper, because Alice Cooper is more of a monster game, in my opinion, than it is a rock star game or a music pin.
00:11:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:06
Speaker
But... Yeah.
00:11:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:08
Speaker
Yeah, so I didn't really know what to think about it, but looking at it, I think that they, from an art standpoint, I think they nailed it.
00:11:19
Speaker
They were able to capture three different things.
00:11:23
Speaker
I'm not sure.
00:11:24
Speaker
The black and white version, I think they did a good job of something different that will stand out from the others.
00:11:32
Speaker
I personally like the colorized version, but...
00:11:35
Speaker
It seems like the down, the down, there's from what I can gather has a lot more going on than your typical lower play field.
00:11:43
Speaker
So I think it'll be a home run for him, at least in the modern era.
00:11:48
Speaker
I agree.
00:11:48
Speaker
So I, it's, I'm not going to buy it, but I, Hey, if I see it on route, I'm totally going to,
00:11:54
Speaker
you know, put five, 10 bucks in it.
00:11:56
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:11:57
Speaker
Well, I think that's, that's the thing that has astounded me with the Munsters release is there is so much information.
00:12:03
Speaker
It seemed like anything you wanted to know, it was covered between them revealing it, the two days with Jack danger and Gary and Zach down in Vegas.
00:12:13
Speaker
And then they come back to Chicago and,
00:12:15
Speaker
and Jack goes through it with Dwight, and they take the glass off, and they just go through every little thing.
00:12:20
Speaker
And then you have Franchi and all them on special with Lit, and they go through everything.
00:12:26
Speaker
And you learn that John Borg, this is his dream theme he's wanted to do for so long, and he's finally getting to do it.
00:12:34
Speaker
And Dwight even kind of sounded the same way as well.
00:12:37
Speaker
I mean, it just seems like anything you want to know about this pin, you found out within the last week.
00:12:43
Speaker
And so it would make me feel more confident if I was buying a limited edition, because in this market right now, it seems like you either got to be in on it or not within that 48 hours.
00:12:53
Speaker
And if you're not, then you're just, you're plain out of luck.
00:12:57
Speaker
But I
Collection Preferences and Nostalgia
00:12:58
Speaker
don't know.
00:12:58
Speaker
Well, you're out of luck for a new inbox, but as we all know, in the canary market, there's,
00:13:05
Speaker
There's always that pin available.
00:13:07
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:13:07
Speaker
If you just have patience and something will pop up.
00:13:10
Speaker
The grail pins, they're only grail pins because it takes a while just to get them.
00:13:15
Speaker
But you can always get them unless they're like the Michael Jordan Special Edition or the Aaron Spelling Special Edition.
00:13:23
Speaker
Those ultra rare ones, that's different.
00:13:25
Speaker
But if you want a pin, you can get it.
00:13:29
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:13:29
Speaker
Oh, I totally agree.
00:13:31
Speaker
That's what our buddy Ryan's always telling me.
00:13:33
Speaker
He's like, I'll just sell one.
00:13:34
Speaker
I have no emotional connection to these things, man.
00:13:36
Speaker
I can't get back as soon as I want it.
00:13:38
Speaker
So it's, it's interesting to see.
00:13:42
Speaker
I think it'll be good.
00:13:43
Speaker
I'd like to see the difference and see if the lower play field really does much for the gameplay.
00:13:50
Speaker
As we know, sometimes the, you know,
00:13:54
Speaker
premium experience doesn't necessarily make or break the game.
00:13:58
Speaker
A lot of people I know buy just the pro version of Metallica.
00:14:03
Speaker
And even Iron Maiden really has very little difference between the pro and the premium.
00:14:08
Speaker
I actually, on Iron Maiden, I prefer the AR package or the pro.
00:14:12
Speaker
But I grew up with Iron Maiden.
00:14:14
Speaker
Well, and do you think, speaking of limited editions really quick, do you think the
00:14:20
Speaker
the rage or just whoever's throwing a temper tantrum about the extra hundred units is warranted?
00:14:26
Speaker
Or did you hear about this?
00:14:29
Speaker
Yeah, I heard about it.
00:14:31
Speaker
I think that the bottom line is
00:14:35
Speaker
if you know how Stern has resurrected their marketing ploy, is they're trying to cater to three different markets.
00:14:42
Speaker
So they're trying to cater to the route market, home market, and the collector market.
00:14:47
Speaker
Because it's the guy that came from Harley-Davidson.
00:14:49
Speaker
And so they can't, and if you really look at it from a car manufacturing standpoint, no car manufacturer is going to manufacture one version of their car.
00:15:02
Speaker
I have to cater to multiple audiences and you can't fill all the audiences with one, with one, uh, pen.
00:15:12
Speaker
You know, it's just like in the nineties, you know, Valley Williams, they all just put out here's Twilight Zone.
00:15:17
Speaker
You buy that and that's it.
00:15:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:19
Speaker
But it was also a different time.
00:15:21
Speaker
Um, I have no problem with them having a different collector market, uh, with, uh, star Wars.
00:15:28
Speaker
I know they had a hard time, or at least I hear they had a hard time selling all the LEs.
00:15:32
Speaker
I actually had 1,000 down on the LE.
00:15:35
Speaker
And when it was released, I just looked at it and said, you know, maybe this isn't mine.
00:15:41
Speaker
So I actually moved on.
00:15:45
Speaker
But I don't really care that much.
00:15:48
Speaker
Having something limited, that doesn't really mean anything to me.
00:15:52
Speaker
Limited versus premium, I kind of view them as the same game.
00:15:56
Speaker
And so as long as the gameplay is the same on the premium and the LE, and the LE is more of a cosmetic package, I don't have a problem with it.
00:16:04
Speaker
But I know there are people who, they do buy games because they are limited.
00:16:10
Speaker
Like the Primus game, they want to buy that because it's limited to 100.
00:16:14
Speaker
I don't really get a buzz of having something that someone else does.
00:16:19
Speaker
But I'm also not the only demographic they're targeting.
00:16:22
Speaker
Yeah, true.
00:16:22
Speaker
So I don't really care.
00:16:24
Speaker
Well, and the only reason I went with the limited on the monster, on the monster bash, the monster bash, the monster bash is just because I knew it was going to be in my collection indefinitely.
00:16:35
Speaker
You know, I don't foresee me getting rid of monster bash, monster bash and attack for Mars and medieval madness fall in a very interesting category.
00:16:43
Speaker
I think a lot of pinball players could feel the same way is you might get bored of it, but
00:16:49
Speaker
But you always come back to it.
00:16:51
Speaker
So like my collection with the Monster Bash and the Attack from Mars, I know there'll always be staples.
00:16:58
Speaker
And so then I have one rotating pin besides my World Cup soccer, which is a different story.
00:17:03
Speaker
But I always have a one rotating pin that I'm going to play for anywhere from a couple months up to a year or whatever it is.
00:17:09
Speaker
But I know it's not going to stay in the collection because it's going to rotate out.
00:17:12
Speaker
I'm going to get something else because, you know, stuff stagnates.
00:17:15
Speaker
But I always go back to Attack for Mars.
00:17:19
Speaker
For the last five years, it seems like I've always just loved Attack for Mars.
00:17:24
Speaker
And so, I don't know.
00:17:25
Speaker
I get, like, there's a lot of people out there right now saying, like, Monster Bash gets old.
00:17:29
Speaker
It's easy.
00:17:31
Speaker
I mean, it's fun, though.
00:17:32
Speaker
It's one of the funnest games I've played.
00:17:35
Speaker
Okay, but who is saying that?
00:17:38
Speaker
You have to consider the source.
00:17:40
Speaker
So the people that are playing that
00:17:43
Speaker
are heavily involved in tournament play.
00:17:46
Speaker
True.
00:17:46
Speaker
Very true.
00:17:47
Speaker
And so they're the ones who are chasing scores.
00:17:50
Speaker
They're the ones that, see, full disclosure, I don't have time to go play tournaments.
00:17:58
Speaker
We actually have, I would say, a fairly decent tournament scene in Utah.
00:18:02
Speaker
Oh, I totally agree.
00:18:04
Speaker
With Dan and Josh.
00:18:07
Speaker
They've done a great job about getting it going.
00:18:09
Speaker
But I don't have much time if I make it to three tournaments in a year Even casual tournaments, then I'm doing a pretty good job and I'm into it just for an escape and maybe some social some socializing and so I don't care if I if I get a billion or ten billion or a hundred billion on something.
00:18:32
Speaker
Oh, yeah, and so
00:18:33
Speaker
That's why it doesn't matter to me.
00:18:35
Speaker
I'm just looking for fun.
00:18:37
Speaker
But I totally understand if you're a heavy tournament player, you're going to want something that has – you're going to want something that's super challenging, high-risk reward, and a Lyman Sheets rule set that goes down that only 1% of the market is even going to scratch the surface on.
00:18:56
Speaker
But again, I'm not that guy.
00:18:59
Speaker
And so I just want a fun game that my kids can play.
00:19:02
Speaker
People come over to my house can play.
00:19:04
Speaker
And when people talk about Monster Bash, they talk about it being a gateway pin.
Engaging Newcomers and Market Impact
00:19:09
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:19:09
Speaker
Like this is a great starter pin.
00:19:11
Speaker
And that's really what I'm searching for in a home collection.
00:19:15
Speaker
Um,
00:19:16
Speaker
Because I want people to go down and push that button.
00:19:19
Speaker
Oh, I totally agree.
00:19:20
Speaker
I want them to say, oh, that was fun.
00:19:21
Speaker
I want to do that again.
00:19:22
Speaker
I've never played pinball machines.
00:19:25
Speaker
I can't tell you how many times...
00:19:27
Speaker
I tell people, yeah, I have pinball machines.
00:19:29
Speaker
And they look at them and say, do they still make those?
00:19:31
Speaker
Oh, I totally agree.
00:19:32
Speaker
You know, living out in the middle of nowhere, there's not very many people are into pinball.
00:19:37
Speaker
So when people actually do come over to my house, I don't want them to get discouraged.
00:19:41
Speaker
And that's why I have Attack for Mars.
00:19:43
Speaker
But one of the ones that people love that are new beginners is actually World Cup soccer because it's so easy to understand.
00:19:49
Speaker
And really, if you're flailing, you can just shoot it into the goal like eight times out of ten.
00:19:55
Speaker
and you're good to go.
00:19:56
Speaker
And so I've had people have come over and they'll play them all.
00:20:00
Speaker
And then they'll tell me that they love world cup the most.
00:20:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:05
Speaker
The P the ones that people play on mine, uh, they always play medieval madness, but that's the one that they all go and play, um, consistently just because it has something for everybody.
00:20:19
Speaker
It's still challenging enough because it's still,
00:20:22
Speaker
The risk of going straight up the middle and hitting the castle, but it still has the all time best toy in any pinball machine with the exploding castle.
00:20:31
Speaker
And so they look at that and say, I want to do that again.
00:20:34
Speaker
Well, I think the nice part about medieval madness, it kind of takes out some of the risk.
00:20:38
Speaker
for the reward.
00:20:40
Speaker
I mean, you look at Attack for Mars, yeah, you're hitting those drop targets, and then you hit that, or sorry, no, you hit the target bank, and then once those drop down, you're going for the drop target.
00:20:48
Speaker
And so seasoned players like Attack for Mars because there's more of a challenge, but it's the exact same gameplay on Medieval Madness, but you have the moat there, so it's like you hit the drawbridge, and then you don't have to worry about draining first shot.
00:21:02
Speaker
Well, it also angles, so it actually bounces off and goes to the right flipper.
00:21:07
Speaker
And so you get, you know, it's a, I would say it's a more elegant game on medieval madness, but I totally understand the heavy tournament player who has the outpost completely removed and taken all the rubbers off and they want that ultra brutal game.
00:21:27
Speaker
Um,
00:21:28
Speaker
but you're still catering to the top 2% of players.
00:21:32
Speaker
The average player, even the average home player, they don't really care that you just want a fun game.
00:21:37
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:21:37
Speaker
I totally agree.
00:21:39
Speaker
Well, that's because that's why we were going to have some of our staples, no matter what.
00:21:42
Speaker
There's going to be games that never leave your collection.
00:21:44
Speaker
You texted me the other day and texted me half of the ones.
00:21:46
Speaker
I'm like, what's available in your collection?
00:21:47
Speaker
And you just texted me the ones that aren't available.
00:21:50
Speaker
And it's like, whatever else you want, go for it, you know?
00:21:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:56
Speaker
I guess we kind of went off track there about Munsters, but I mean, really, I guess that's what it comes down to.
00:22:01
Speaker
It's what your personal preference is.
00:22:02
Speaker
But that's the point.
00:22:04
Speaker
And really, Munsters also feels like a throwback to the glory days of the 90s in that there was, you know, pinball was campy.
00:22:15
Speaker
It was fun.
00:22:15
Speaker
It was a little tongue-in-cheek, maybe a little irreverent, and times have changed.
00:22:20
Speaker
I totally understand that.
00:22:22
Speaker
But...
00:22:23
Speaker
I think that that's why people who are interested are going to say, oh, I want that.
00:22:30
Speaker
I don't necessarily want another music pen, another movie pen.
00:22:33
Speaker
And I'm not saying those are bad.
00:22:35
Speaker
They're really marketing strategies.
00:22:37
Speaker
You go where the money's hot.
00:22:38
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:22:39
Speaker
But...
00:22:39
Speaker
This is, that's one reason why even when I just looked at the layout and the cartoony-ness of Oktoberfest, I thought that looks like it's throwing back to the 90s glory days as opposed to the 2010s glory days.
00:22:56
Speaker
So I think that's why it's going for.
00:22:59
Speaker
And I think it'll be, I think Munsters will be a big hit.
00:23:03
Speaker
So I think Munsters will be a big hit.
00:23:05
Speaker
And I think they did a brilliant job of
00:23:07
Speaker
of finding their market.
00:23:08
Speaker
So, you know, it's, it's a competition.
00:23:11
Speaker
I think that I still think a monster bash will, will be a big seller for Chicago game company.
00:23:18
Speaker
And I've always had that attitude that games should never be limited, that if there's something that people want to buy, they should be able to remake them, make a run of a hundred, make a run of 200.
00:23:27
Speaker
Oh, I totally agree.
00:23:30
Speaker
And, you know, keep visiting it as long as you have the license and the ability to produce it.
00:23:35
Speaker
That was the challenge with ACDC is that people couldn't buy the premium after they did their run until they did the vault edition, just because they didn't clue in or into the technology to actually do small batch runs that they do now.
00:23:50
Speaker
Well, I think the other thing about Munsters 2, and Dwight really pointed this out, was the fact that they made the Munster multiball or whatever it is, kind of like the mini wizard mode, a lot more attainable for those that aren't necessarily new to the hobby.
00:24:08
Speaker
And so I think, like you said, it is a throwback to the 90s because it felt like with Medieval Madness, the easy goal is to destroy the castle, but
00:24:16
Speaker
But for the expert player, there's trying to become, you know, kingdom or I can't remember what it's called.
00:24:22
Speaker
Ruler of the kingdom, whatever it is.
00:24:25
Speaker
And so, I mean, you see that with Attack for Mars and those really base the quote unquote basic games have great strategies for beginners and they get them hooked.
00:24:36
Speaker
And then it's got meat for the experienced player.
00:24:38
Speaker
And that's what I feel like they're doing with monsters is they really want
00:24:42
Speaker
to kind of do that throwback, they want to bridge the gap between the two.
00:24:45
Speaker
Because honestly, the last five years, like you said, they've all been kind of almost tournament games.
00:24:50
Speaker
And that's been a lot of their demand.
00:24:52
Speaker
And I wonder if Stern's going to start doing kind of, you know how they release three models a year?
00:24:58
Speaker
I think they might, each model might be different.
00:25:00
Speaker
One might be catered like this.
00:25:02
Speaker
One might be more of a tournament like a Keith Elliman, Iron Maiden or,
00:25:06
Speaker
whatever it may be.
00:25:07
Speaker
And then whatever the goofy title might be in the middle, the Deadpool or whatever it is, you know, people still love it, but it's not necessarily a tournament game.
00:25:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:16
Speaker
And I think that actually getting that with, with, with the games that they can, I kind of dealt, you know, delved into that with the scalability that they can say, Hey, we're going to run a hundred of primates or we're going to do
00:25:29
Speaker
something that is still hey we're gonna we're gonna run i have no idea how many supreme games they made but hey that's a money maker for them so good oh yeah they knocked it out of the park with that one yeah absolutely and uh it's the same thing that you i think as the pinball audience we just need to realize that um you know a 44 year old male is not the only target audience oh i totally agree and people
00:25:55
Speaker
People forget that there's so many other audiences out there.
00:25:58
Speaker
And you know what, guess what?
00:25:59
Speaker
Maybe a game is for you, maybe it's not.
00:26:02
Speaker
See, that's why this podcast appeals.
00:26:04
Speaker
We're not the top 10%, Scott.
00:26:08
Speaker
I might not be killing it at the tournaments.
00:26:10
Speaker
I at least try.
00:26:11
Speaker
I go out for the social aspect for the most part.
00:26:13
Speaker
I get a little frustrated, but I don't know.
00:26:20
Speaker
We're not Ryan and Martin from the head-to-head where they're killing it every time, you know?
00:26:25
Speaker
No, we're the bottom theaters.
00:26:26
Speaker
I'm okay if I'm like, oh, okay.
00:26:29
Speaker
All right, whatever.
00:26:30
Speaker
I didn't go straight down the middle.
00:26:32
Speaker
What's funny is my first tournament I did was the Salt Lake Gaming Con two years ago.
00:26:36
Speaker
And I honestly didn't think I was even... So with that one, the way that the tournament worked is if you were in the top 16, then you went to the finals, and then they did whatever they did.
00:26:45
Speaker
Well, I drove 180 miles.
00:26:47
Speaker
I didn't think I was making it because there was over 100 and some odd people that went into that.
00:26:50
Speaker
It was just...
00:26:51
Speaker
And Dan texts me as I'm driving back to Vernal.
00:26:55
Speaker
I'm halfway there.
00:26:56
Speaker
So what is it?
00:26:57
Speaker
90 miles?
00:26:58
Speaker
He's like, where are you at?
00:27:00
Speaker
I'm on my way home.
00:27:01
Speaker
He's like, well, you made it into the finals.
00:27:03
Speaker
You're in the top 16.
00:27:06
Speaker
Oh, I didn't know, you know?
00:27:07
Speaker
Okay, well, good luck.
00:27:09
Speaker
Yep.
00:27:10
Speaker
Well, someone take my spot, I guess.
00:27:12
Speaker
Nothing I can do now.
00:27:14
Speaker
Well, let's kick it back to one of the things that we wanted to talk about was made some advice to give to those people that are coming into the hobby.
00:27:22
Speaker
So I was thinking about at least what I would do, talk to people who are getting into the hobby.
00:27:29
Speaker
And
00:27:32
Speaker
the best advice I can say is games are out there.
00:27:35
Speaker
So if you don't get the one game you want, guess what?
00:27:38
Speaker
Someone has it.
00:27:39
Speaker
And eventually they're going to get bored of it and they're going to move on.
00:27:42
Speaker
And so this isn't, you're not marrying a game.
00:27:45
Speaker
You can buy a game, you can have some fun, you know, a pinner a little bit, you know, you don't have to commit to one game for the rest of your life.
00:27:52
Speaker
You can certainly just have that, that game and
00:27:56
Speaker
Sometimes it can be an expensive game.
00:27:58
Speaker
Sometimes it can be a cheap game, but you can always find some sort of fun.
00:28:04
Speaker
And if you don't, if you don't find that one game, great, go and explore this other one.
00:28:09
Speaker
Because if you, if you buy those games and you just say, I need to keep this game because I'm never going to find another one.
00:28:17
Speaker
You know what?
00:28:17
Speaker
You will.
00:28:18
Speaker
You just, it just, and I would say that,
00:28:24
Speaker
You can find fun on every level as long as you find a game that you can enjoy.
00:28:31
Speaker
at least have a decent playability.
00:28:33
Speaker
If your game's always broken, it's gonna be frustrating.
00:28:36
Speaker
And so just find something.
00:28:39
Speaker
But those are the two things I would say.
00:28:41
Speaker
Don't get attached to just one game and get involved in the pinball community.
00:28:46
Speaker
Because you can start asking things like, hey, what's going on with this?
00:28:50
Speaker
Or how can I fix this or that?
00:28:53
Speaker
Because as we say, it's a cannonball flying around at high speed under glass.
00:28:59
Speaker
And so it's gonna break something.
00:29:00
Speaker
Well, not only that, like you said, though, get a part of the community.
00:29:03
Speaker
I know at least in our community, we actually sell the pinball machines a little bit cheaper just to keep them in our area.
00:29:08
Speaker
Because with Utah, there's not a ton of pinball machines in Utah.
00:29:12
Speaker
So we want to keep them within the community, I guess.
00:29:15
Speaker
And we don't mind taking a couple hundred bucks off to see it go to a friend instead of traveling across the states, you know, or even out of states.
00:29:25
Speaker
The one thing I keep thinking about is budget because there's no reason.
00:29:30
Speaker
I've got this going on.
00:29:30
Speaker
Are you interested?
00:29:33
Speaker
Do what?
00:29:35
Speaker
I was just saying a lot of our deals are kind of handshake deals of, hey, I know you were looking for this game.
00:29:40
Speaker
Do you want it?
00:29:40
Speaker
Yeah, sure.
00:29:41
Speaker
I'll take it.
00:29:41
Speaker
Yep.
00:29:43
Speaker
So like I was saying, the next thing I think is budget.
00:29:46
Speaker
There's no reason to be looking for a limited edition Iron Maiden if all you can afford is a World Cup soccer.
00:29:53
Speaker
And so figure out what your price range is and then start studying pinballs in that range.
00:29:58
Speaker
And when I say study,
00:30:00
Speaker
go for, I go through IPDB, I go through Pinside, I find out if it's near me on location, and then I go play the crap out of it.
00:30:11
Speaker
Because you're gonna love any pinball machine you get for about the first 20 to 50 plays.
00:30:17
Speaker
And then you're like, well, what do I do with it now?
00:30:21
Speaker
Especially those ones that don't, like, one of the first ones I owned was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
00:30:25
Speaker
Love the theme.
00:30:26
Speaker
That's one of my dream things.
00:30:27
Speaker
I would love to see that made into a,
00:30:29
Speaker
a pinball machine nowadays too, too much of a conversation to go into there.
00:30:34
Speaker
But that's, that was one of the first ones I got.
00:30:36
Speaker
I got at home, I started exploring it, was really into it.
00:30:40
Speaker
And then it came down to after about 50 plays, I realized it's just collecting the turtles, which is a bunch of, uh, target banks and shooting the two left ramps.
00:30:50
Speaker
Cause there's no right ramp.
00:30:51
Speaker
You just shoot the two left ramps and that's about it.
00:30:54
Speaker
I mean, there's a sewer hole,
00:30:56
Speaker
and you start multiball.
00:30:58
Speaker
But other than that, there was really no depth or code to it, and it just got really boring after a while.
00:31:03
Speaker
And it got even harder because I bought a crappy version,
00:31:06
Speaker
Because I figured, well, this is going to stay in my collection the whole time, so it doesn't matter if it's crap or whatnot.
00:31:11
Speaker
If I want to rebuild it or whatever, I'm going to.
00:31:15
Speaker
Well, then I got to the point where I'm like, well, I don't even want this.
00:31:18
Speaker
I don't think I can get rid of it because of how much it's worth and how much damage is done to it.
00:31:25
Speaker
That's always it.
00:31:26
Speaker
I would also say it's just like buying a car.
00:31:31
Speaker
Be careful about buying a clunker and thinking you're going to fix it up and turn it into gold.
00:31:35
Speaker
If you look at the game and think, you know what, this is going to take a lot more effort and value your time.
00:31:41
Speaker
If it's going to take you 40 hours, unless you want that experience of building it up, just put a dollar figure on how much you make per hour, $10 an hour, $20 an hour, and then multiply it by how many hours you think it's going to take.
00:31:54
Speaker
And if it's going to take 2000 of your hours to do, maybe it's just better to save up and work at your trained job and just buy a better game.
00:32:01
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:32:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:02
Speaker
You could do what I did.
00:32:05
Speaker
I go into homes a lot.
00:32:05
Speaker
I do heating and air conditioning.
00:32:06
Speaker
I'm a technician.
00:32:07
Speaker
So I go into homes a lot, and I'd walk by pinball machines here in town that looked like they hadn't been turned.
00:32:13
Speaker
I mean, there's a layer of dust on the glass.
00:32:16
Speaker
One of the grandkids had wrote their name in the dust.
00:32:19
Speaker
And I looked at the dude, and I said, hey, do you ever play this thing?
00:32:22
Speaker
He's like, well, it broke five years ago.
00:32:24
Speaker
It was a high roller casino.
00:32:27
Speaker
And he's like, it broke five years ago.
00:32:28
Speaker
I never use it.
00:32:30
Speaker
Why?
00:32:30
Speaker
And I said, well, you need a new water heater.
00:32:33
Speaker
I'd be more than happy to install a new water heater for you for free if you, well, you know, we do a trade.
00:32:38
Speaker
You give me the pinball machine.
00:32:39
Speaker
I looked up how much it was worth.
00:32:41
Speaker
You give me the pinball machine.
00:32:42
Speaker
We'll call it even.
00:32:44
Speaker
And he was like, that's the best thing you could ever have offered me.
00:32:47
Speaker
He thought was the best deal he'd ever made.
00:32:50
Speaker
And so I ended up with a pinball machine that I might not necessarily want, but I knew that I could fix up and then turn around and sell because it was in decent condition.
00:32:58
Speaker
And I mean, you don't have to have the top 100 in your house right off the get go.
00:33:04
Speaker
I started out with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
00:33:07
Speaker
I started out with Amazing Spider-Man.
00:33:09
Speaker
I fixed them up.
00:33:10
Speaker
I flipped them.
00:33:11
Speaker
I got my World Cup soccer and my World Cup soccer I got for cheap, but it was beat to heck and back.
00:33:18
Speaker
It was just terrible.
00:33:19
Speaker
That's one other thing.
00:33:20
Speaker
That's one of my big advices to anyone that's getting into pinball.
00:33:23
Speaker
I tell them all the time, don't buy one that's broken as your first one.
00:33:28
Speaker
You're going to get frustrated.
00:33:30
Speaker
You're going to wish that you could just play it.
00:33:33
Speaker
And you're going to go out and you're going to probably buy another pinball machine just so you can play that one so you can work on this one that you just bought while you fix it up.
00:33:42
Speaker
Your first game should be one that works.
00:33:45
Speaker
You just turn it on and go.
00:33:46
Speaker
And also, I would say that
00:33:48
Speaker
But be part of the community.
00:33:50
Speaker
Pinball is social.
00:33:51
Speaker
Pinball really isn't a solo sport.
00:33:53
Speaker
There's a reason why it's morphed into the social thing.
00:33:56
Speaker
And if you have a reputation of doing fair deals with people, then they will include you into the bigger picture.
00:34:07
Speaker
But if you have a deal of being a shark about being aggressive about either aggressive about lowballing someone or giving them a ridiculous price, the community is small enough that you're going to get a reputation and you're not going to be very popular.
00:34:25
Speaker
So I think if you just have that, I'm not going to be a jerk and I'm just going to be fair, I'm
00:34:30
Speaker
then that will come around and you'll be viewed as an asset to your local community.
00:34:34
Speaker
No, I totally agree.
00:34:36
Speaker
I can think of a couple guys that I had one guy when I was trying to get rid of my Simpsons pinball party, he reached out to me and he said, why are you selling it for the price that you're selling?
00:34:45
Speaker
It was like, I think it was like 500 bucks less than what was the pin side value, which everyone knows is solid as gold, right?
00:34:55
Speaker
But he's like, you could sell it.
00:34:57
Speaker
I just sold mine for, it was like 5,800 in the same condition to some guy across the country.
00:35:05
Speaker
Why don't you do that?
00:35:05
Speaker
And I'm like, I just, I don't want to, you know?
00:35:09
Speaker
And so I sold it to someone in the community here.
00:35:11
Speaker
It was their first pin.
00:35:13
Speaker
They were excited.
00:35:14
Speaker
They knew they were getting a solid pin.
00:35:17
Speaker
They haven't had an issue with it.
00:35:19
Speaker
And
00:35:20
Speaker
It's been fantastic.
00:35:21
Speaker
And to go back to the Ninja Turtles, when I sold that one, the funny part about that one, I told the people, like, it works 100%.
00:35:28
Speaker
They got it home, and she calls me, and I've been, like, 12 hours later, and she's like, how dare you sell us?
00:35:35
Speaker
The machine's not working.
00:35:37
Speaker
How dare you?
00:35:37
Speaker
Like, you swindled us and da-da-da-da-da.
00:35:39
Speaker
And I said, what's it doing?
00:35:42
Speaker
And she's like, it won't kick the ball into the lane to kick out.
00:35:44
Speaker
And I'm like, well, did you level it?
00:35:47
Speaker
Oh, well, we'll try that.
00:35:49
Speaker
And I never heard a word since.
00:35:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:53
Speaker
Just some of the easier stuff.
00:35:54
Speaker
If you're going to buy a pinball machine, make sure that you understand the basics of even just leveling the pinball machine too.
00:36:02
Speaker
Okay.
00:36:03
Speaker
Well, I won't give them too hard of a time because I bought Simpsons completely not knowing what to do with it.
00:36:11
Speaker
So I was lucky.
00:36:12
Speaker
It was a home use only mint condition.
00:36:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:15
Speaker
Yeah, but you got to explore it though.
00:36:17
Speaker
I don't know.
00:36:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:20
Speaker
But that's part of having other people in your community that you can use as resources and say, hey, what's going on here?
00:36:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:29
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:36:30
Speaker
And like you said, that's probably one of the biggest aspects of the hobby that you need to do is go out and just talk to those that are in your community so that way you know that you have someone to fall
Community Support and Future Trends
00:36:40
Speaker
back on.
00:36:40
Speaker
I see a lot of that in our community.
00:36:42
Speaker
Something breaks.
00:36:43
Speaker
That's the first thing they do.
00:36:43
Speaker
They go to Facebook.
00:36:44
Speaker
We have a big Facebook page for all of us.
00:36:47
Speaker
And then they just said on there, hey, this isn't working.
00:36:50
Speaker
What do I need to do?
00:36:51
Speaker
And within nine and five, ten minutes, there's three guys on there that's already given their opinions on how to fix it.
00:36:57
Speaker
Or they'll send them to the site where they need to fix it, PinWiki, wherever it may be.
00:37:01
Speaker
So that really is the best way to do it.
00:37:04
Speaker
There's also, if you find a tech who's a local tech who actually is really good at fixing pinball machines,
00:37:12
Speaker
And you're willing to spend the money.
00:37:13
Speaker
They'll do a great job.
00:37:15
Speaker
We have we have one here.
00:37:17
Speaker
His name is Ray and he's come out and really he was very he was invaluable when I first started getting into the hobby.
00:37:25
Speaker
And I still use Ray if I want just something fixed and I just don't have time to do it.
00:37:31
Speaker
it is more expensive because you're paying premium prices, but that's his livelihood, and you need to look at it that way.
00:37:36
Speaker
Oh, I totally agree.
00:37:37
Speaker
But I wish there was an equivalent in video games because I have a video game where the monitor keeps flickering out, and I would love to just pay someone to come and fix it for me.
00:37:46
Speaker
Oh, I agree.
00:37:48
Speaker
So let's talk about the future of pinball.
00:37:50
Speaker
What are your thoughts or at least your hopes for 2019?
00:37:52
Speaker
I think it's going to level out a little bit.
00:37:56
Speaker
in that we've had rapid growth in the last five years.
00:38:00
Speaker
Basically, the years that I got into pinball.
00:38:03
Speaker
And I think you're going to find that the growth will be slower.
00:38:07
Speaker
I think it'll still be steady because people are still finding that enjoyment of connecting with something physical.
00:38:16
Speaker
They're kind of burned out on video games.
00:38:18
Speaker
They're burned out on the cell phone interaction.
00:38:20
Speaker
They're burned out on social media.
00:38:21
Speaker
And this is something that's just
00:38:23
Speaker
It's kind of raw, it's physical, and it gets back to, hey, go out and talk to people as opposed to just staring at your phone screen.
00:38:33
Speaker
So I feel that it still gives this connection that nobody has had since the death of arcades, really.
00:38:40
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:38:42
Speaker
But I think that you'll probably still see the rise of more barcades now.
00:38:48
Speaker
more kind of adult themed arcades out there.
00:38:52
Speaker
And when I say adult themed, I just mean that they're geared toward selling food and drinks and hey, you're there for games too.
00:38:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:07
Speaker
Because that would go off really well.
00:39:09
Speaker
Oh, come on.
00:39:09
Speaker
You're not talking about like a gentleman's club.
00:39:11
Speaker
Let's go to the gentleman's club and play some pinball and see some strippers.
00:39:15
Speaker
More and more of those coming up.
00:39:18
Speaker
I think that Stern's kind of hit their stride with where their market share is and where they can sell their games.
00:39:30
Speaker
With the technology out there, I don't know.
00:39:34
Speaker
this, this ability to actually wirelessly wire your scores.
00:39:40
Speaker
I think that will become a huge thing.
00:39:42
Speaker
And I think eventually it will creep into big tournament settings where you don't have to have scorekeepers.
00:39:47
Speaker
It'll just be automatic or you'll still need tournament directors, but I think that that will really help out.
00:39:55
Speaker
I also see a little bit of an evolution.
00:39:57
Speaker
I think some people are getting burned out on the,
00:40:01
Speaker
the tournament whopper chase.
00:40:03
Speaker
And so I'm wondering how that's going to end up because the people who are really doing it, I mean, it's really a part-time job for them.
00:40:12
Speaker
If you look at how many tournaments they play in, you know, you look at the Raymond Davidsons, you know, you look at the Steve Bowden, you see all those guys who are, who every weekend they're doing something.
00:40:23
Speaker
And I think for the, for the one percenters, that's fine.
00:40:27
Speaker
But
00:40:27
Speaker
Really, there needs to be a way to connect more with just the casual guy who has maybe a night every two or three weeks that he or she can go and play.
00:40:39
Speaker
No, I totally agree.
00:40:41
Speaker
So I think, in my opinion, in the next year, we see more competition.
00:40:48
Speaker
I know that Stern has really hit their stride, and they're doing fantastic on what they're doing.
00:40:53
Speaker
But really, what's their biggest competition right now?
00:40:55
Speaker
Jersey Jack.
00:40:55
Speaker
Remade games?
00:40:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:58
Speaker
Jersey Jack and Chicago Game Company.
00:41:00
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:41:01
Speaker
And the problem is, though...
00:41:03
Speaker
Yeah, well, and the problem is, it's like Jersey Jack, they've hit a stumbling block between Pirates of the Caribbean, and they've, I mean, Jack went on head-to-head and said, hey, we're going to try to do two titles nine months apart, and it's like, but the problem is, is they just barely got out Pirates, so are they giving up on Pirates?
00:41:22
Speaker
I mean, they cut short, dialed in, so they could bring out Pirates a year ago, and now it's finally leaving their factory.
00:41:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:27
Speaker
So, but that's the problem, though, is Stern is really honestly the only...
00:41:34
Speaker
pinball people that have been around.
00:41:37
Speaker
And so they had a head start.
00:41:38
Speaker
They knew what to do.
00:41:39
Speaker
They've been doing this for years.
00:41:41
Speaker
And so I think a lot of expectations come from the other companies because they look at Stern and they go, this is what Stern's doing.
00:41:47
Speaker
This is what everyone else should be doing.
00:41:50
Speaker
We should stop pulling Jersey Jack, especially Spooky,
00:41:54
Speaker
which blows my mind because they've come out and they said, we are boutique pinball.
00:41:57
Speaker
We're going to make this at the rate that we can make it.
00:42:00
Speaker
And I think Charlie's brilliant on the way that he does his stuff.
00:42:04
Speaker
Like, yeah, it sucks that you have to wait 18 months if you're number 500 to get your Alice Cooper, but he's not overexerting himself.
00:42:12
Speaker
He's not giving false promises.
00:42:14
Speaker
He's telling you up front what he wants or what he's doing.
00:42:17
Speaker
And he's giving you a good product.
00:42:19
Speaker
And so there's nothing wrong with that.
00:42:21
Speaker
And so I really want to see what happens if Deeproot comes in, or not if, when they come in, and see what they can do.
00:42:28
Speaker
Because it would be nice to see Stern have a little bit of competition.
00:42:32
Speaker
I really think that Stern believes themselves that they're the only one in this market that kind of controls what goes on.
00:42:39
Speaker
I bet you
00:42:41
Speaker
that 80% of the cells are stern.
00:42:43
Speaker
And it's because of the way that they are able to present themselves.
00:42:46
Speaker
I mean, monsters is a fantastic example.
00:42:48
Speaker
It's like, boom, here's monsters.
00:42:50
Speaker
Here's everything you need to know about monsters.
00:42:52
Speaker
Here's photos, here's all that jazz.
00:42:54
Speaker
And in two weeks, you can have it in your home.
00:42:58
Speaker
It's like no one else can do that.
00:43:00
Speaker
So I want to see for 2019, I want to see made expectations less than a little bit from the community, but expectations for the companies themselves to be brought up to a higher standard.
00:43:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:14
Speaker
I think it'll still be a challenge for companies to figure out where to put the games, though.
00:43:19
Speaker
Because there's only so many people out there that can buy a $5,000 toy and put it in their house.
00:43:27
Speaker
And really, you need to find a way.
00:43:29
Speaker
When I was a kid, you would find either arcade or pinball somewhere, either at the skating rinks or at the mall.
00:43:40
Speaker
There was always a place to play an arcade.
00:43:44
Speaker
But that doesn't exist anymore.
00:43:47
Speaker
All the skating rinks, they've all turned into kiddie gambling places with those Ticket Redemption games.
00:43:54
Speaker
And
00:43:56
Speaker
There needs to be they need to find a way of reaching beyond this niche market.
00:44:01
Speaker
But I also may be naive.
00:44:03
Speaker
Maybe that is the best you can expect in today's market when there's so many avenues for people to seek for entertainment that maybe they are happy with just the lane they've chosen and the barcades in the home market will be able to fill their expectations.
00:44:18
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:44:19
Speaker
You know what I would like to see, and I know this is totally just a fantasy, it's probably not going to happen, but Stern has this wonderful back catalog that everyone rants and raves about.
00:44:31
Speaker
Stargazer and Meteor and Stars and all that jazz.
00:44:36
Speaker
I know that they can't remake those without... What's the Stargazer going for now?
00:44:41
Speaker
$1,500 or something like that?
00:44:44
Speaker
If you look at Twilight Zone, for example, I know it's not a Stern game, but...
00:44:50
Speaker
A Twilight Zone would probably be over a $10,000 game when you look at how much stuff is in there.
00:44:56
Speaker
And so they've had to figure out a way of making it economical because it's no longer the machine that people are putting money into on a regular basis.
00:45:07
Speaker
At least half their market is home buyers.
00:45:11
Speaker
And so they need to find a way of getting it into the home buyer.
00:45:14
Speaker
Well, and this is what I, so this is my thought process.
00:45:16
Speaker
So they make like a Spider-Man home edition, which would be on the lesser end, right?
00:45:22
Speaker
And I know people hate this concept, but make the play fields interchangeable.
00:45:27
Speaker
I mean, if you look at a Stern right now, really the only thing that defines it is the SD card you put in it and the play field.
00:45:35
Speaker
And so if you could build those Stern classics and it's just swappable play fields,
00:45:42
Speaker
and you're pretty much just paying for an SD card in the play field itself, that's really going to cut the cost.
00:45:47
Speaker
I mean, I would pay, I would easily pay, you know, $2,000 to $2,500 if that's all I was getting was the play field, and all I had to do was slide.
00:45:55
Speaker
I mean, obviously, the cabinet itself, the whole setup first go would be $4,000 or $5,000 because that's what the home additions go for.
00:46:02
Speaker
But if you knew you were paying a little more up front, and then you're, you're,
00:46:06
Speaker
Those games that are less obtainable right now, they were easier just to put into the machine and call it good.
00:46:13
Speaker
I think people would go for that because there is a high demand for that right now.
00:46:16
Speaker
So that's something I would like to see in the future.
00:46:18
Speaker
Sure.
00:46:19
Speaker
Who knows?
00:46:20
Speaker
I see what you're saying.
00:46:21
Speaker
You realize you just described Highway Pinball, right?
00:46:25
Speaker
Well, yes, but that's the thing though.
00:46:27
Speaker
You're taking a product people already know and love and that they can play and you know people would fork money out like that.
00:46:35
Speaker
I mean, look at Nintendo.
00:46:36
Speaker
They made the NES remake.
00:46:37
Speaker
They've made the Super Nintendo remake.
00:46:39
Speaker
They've made those because they knew that they could sell them.
00:46:42
Speaker
Problem with highway is he had product no one, I mean.
00:46:45
Speaker
No one wanted.
00:46:46
Speaker
Yeah, full throttle.
00:46:48
Speaker
No one wants to buy that.
00:46:50
Speaker
There's one in Denver right now.
00:46:51
Speaker
I feel bad for the poor guy.
00:46:52
Speaker
He's got it down to $3,500.
00:46:53
Speaker
Yeah, wow.
00:46:55
Speaker
And he still can't sell it.
00:46:56
Speaker
I mean, no one wants to buy those things.
00:46:58
Speaker
And the only reason people want to buy Alien is because it's Alien.
00:47:02
Speaker
That's it.
00:47:03
Speaker
Yeah, well.
00:47:04
Speaker
That's what it comes down to.
00:47:04
Speaker
Because the theme's important.
00:47:06
Speaker
I mean, that's why I, without knowing anything about pinball, I have a Simpsons pinball party because I like the Simpsons.
00:47:11
Speaker
So.
00:47:12
Speaker
Exactly.
Market Competition and New vs. Vintage Machines
00:47:13
Speaker
Well, that's why I bought Ninja Turtles is because I loved Ninja Turtles.
00:47:17
Speaker
That's why I bought Spider-Man or Amazing Spider-Man, the Gottlieb one.
00:47:21
Speaker
Yeah, I think the Stern one's better.
00:47:25
Speaker
Just a little bit, but there's a 30-year difference between the two, so I hope the one's better than the other.
00:47:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:31
Speaker
I think what I would like to see is, I love that they're doing the vault editions because I think that there's all these games that have been artificially high because of their scarcity.
00:47:46
Speaker
It's the demand.
00:47:48
Speaker
It's the supply versus demand.
00:47:50
Speaker
And if you're able to, the bottom line is,
00:47:54
Speaker
Stern legitimately doesn't care what the aftermarket of their product is as long as they can still sell the primary product.
00:48:04
Speaker
And so they're... Well, they have no skin in the secondary market.
00:48:08
Speaker
There's nothing for them in it.
00:48:09
Speaker
They have no... Yes, I will say that there are people who buy things on the anticipation that they can flip them later.
00:48:17
Speaker
But...
00:48:18
Speaker
If Stern has the opportunity of selling 10,000 Metallicas, they're not going to cap it at 2,000 and say, well, we want to keep the homebuyers happy.
00:48:28
Speaker
They're just like, no, we want to sell 10,000 games.
00:48:31
Speaker
So I would love to see some of these older games come back.
00:48:36
Speaker
And who knows?
00:48:38
Speaker
Maybe some of those older games, like Fathom or Stargazer or Sea Witch,
00:48:44
Speaker
I just don't, as we saw with Total Nuclear Annihilation, they're going to be a lot more expensive to make than you think.
00:48:52
Speaker
So I just don't see them doing it.
00:48:57
Speaker
But Scott DeNisi was awesome.
00:48:59
Speaker
He brought a lot more concepts.
00:49:00
Speaker
I mean, under the play field digital displays, I mean, there's a lot more to those games.
00:49:05
Speaker
I have a really hard time believing that Beatles is an $8,000 game.
00:49:10
Speaker
I mean, based solely off the product itself, not necessarily the license.
00:49:14
Speaker
I mean, the license, yeah, it's, if it is a million dollars plus, then yeah, I get why it's $8,000, but the actual game itself.
00:49:21
Speaker
Okay.
00:49:21
Speaker
But have you run the figures on that?
00:49:24
Speaker
I guess I have not.
00:49:25
Speaker
So you run the figures on it and it basically licensing fee on the Beatles, which they say is the most expensive.
00:49:32
Speaker
And I'm making a few assumptions here.
00:49:34
Speaker
I know, but even if they paid a million dollars for it, you're only paying $500 for the license.
00:49:40
Speaker
True per game, right?
00:49:42
Speaker
At 1900.
00:49:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:49:43
Speaker
1964.
00:49:43
Speaker
So you're only paying 500.
00:49:45
Speaker
So that's for them to break even on that.
00:49:46
Speaker
And so I, it's, uh, the Beatles is a prime example of a game that they're selling based on a, a fixed and I fixed scarcity and I'll say scarcity in air quotes.
00:50:01
Speaker
I know you can't see my claw hands in the air, but, uh,
00:50:06
Speaker
Because we don't know how many of these things they're making anyway.
00:50:10
Speaker
And I just can't see, even if they made more than 1966 of these Beatles, I don't think the demand will be there from the average market.
00:50:20
Speaker
There will be from the Beatles collector market, but from the average market, I don't know.
00:50:27
Speaker
I wasn't interested.
00:50:28
Speaker
I like the Beatles and I wasn't interested.
00:50:30
Speaker
I like the Beatles too.
00:50:31
Speaker
And I,
00:50:32
Speaker
I mean, I really believe that they're one of the main reasons we have modern rock music.
00:50:35
Speaker
But I would rather have a Monster Bash at $8,000 than I would a Beatles.
00:50:42
Speaker
Yeah, no question.
00:50:44
Speaker
No question whatsoever.
00:50:45
Speaker
Of course, I would also like some of the other ones.
00:50:48
Speaker
I want the Chicago Gaming Company to make Whitewater.
00:50:51
Speaker
I'd love to see what they do to modernize that sucker.
00:50:54
Speaker
And you can still get Whitewaters for around $5,000, $6,000.
00:50:57
Speaker
But, you know, eventually they're going to run out of the expensive remakes.
00:51:03
Speaker
And, hey, again, a Chicago gaming company can break even selling something, even though a 30-year-old game is selling for $6,000.
00:51:11
Speaker
Someone can say, well, I can buy a new one for $7,000.
00:51:15
Speaker
Well, this is the brilliance of Chicago gaming, in my opinion.
00:51:17
Speaker
You've got a lot of games at that $6,000 range, that $5,500 to $6,000 range, and where their base model is pretty much the same as one of those games that you're buying.
00:51:28
Speaker
Obviously, someone's going to mod out their game, but you're buying a brand new in-box classic, let's say, Whitewater.
00:51:35
Speaker
I mean, heck, I don't know why, but Creature from the Black Lagoon has shot through the roof.
00:51:39
Speaker
for $5,500 to $6,000.
00:51:41
Speaker
I mean, if they remake those games, they'll easily make their money back on them because you're looking at it as, well, here's the base model, which is essentially the exact same game you bought 20 years or 30 years ago.
00:51:53
Speaker
And then we have the tiers up from there.
00:51:56
Speaker
So I think Chicago games have a lot more under their belt than a lot of people think.
00:52:02
Speaker
Well, I think they do.
00:52:04
Speaker
I mean, for me, I am the guy who would rather have
00:52:09
Speaker
the medieval madness remake over the original because the one that I bought is new as opposed to a 30 to 40 year old game.
00:52:17
Speaker
And unless I'm going to get HEP to rebuild it and spend $10,000 for it, mine's going to be a lot cleaner than that one is.
00:52:26
Speaker
Yep.
00:52:27
Speaker
Well, we've been running almost an hour.
00:52:29
Speaker
Let's wrap this up.
Gratitude and Community Acknowledgment
00:52:30
Speaker
Okay.
00:52:30
Speaker
I wanted to give a couple quick shout outs.
00:52:32
Speaker
You know, I am very, very humbled by the community this week.
00:52:36
Speaker
What started out as something that I was just going to test the waters with.
00:52:39
Speaker
I did not expect this kind of response.
00:52:41
Speaker
Thank you to Head to Head Pinball.
00:52:44
Speaker
Thank you to This Week in Pinball, Zach Minnie.
00:52:47
Speaker
When I record that introduction, that's all it seriously was, was an introduction.
00:52:50
Speaker
And I sent it off to Zach.
00:52:53
Speaker
I feel like one of the most professional podcasts is This Week in Pinball, Head to Head.
00:53:00
Speaker
a special one lit, I'd sent it off to a couple of those guys, said, what are your thoughts?
00:53:03
Speaker
Like, I'm so nervous, I don't think this is gonna work.
00:53:06
Speaker
And they all said, do you know what?
00:53:08
Speaker
That sounds fantastic, the sound sounds great, put it out there.
00:53:11
Speaker
And so I did, and between the shout outs, like I said, shout outs from Head to Head, shout outs from This Week in Pinball, even Dead Flip, I mean, Jack Danger on his stream yesterday, it blew me away.
00:53:23
Speaker
The one that really floored me was Kaneda actually left a comment on the SoundCloud saying, welcome to the party.
00:53:30
Speaker
I was not expecting Canada to even say hello, but I mean, that's, it just goes to show that the pinball community is a very tight knit community.
00:53:40
Speaker
And at the end of the day, like we might fight about the dumbest things, but we're going to support each other.
00:53:45
Speaker
And I think that's awesome.
00:53:47
Speaker
I think it's crazy that other podcasts shout out other podcasts and seriously.
00:53:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:51
Speaker
It's, it seems humbling.
00:53:53
Speaker
I actually found a,
00:53:55
Speaker
a random Canada video that talked about him replacing his bedroom in his New York City apartment as to like a retro gaming den.
00:54:04
Speaker
So I'll send you that link.
00:54:06
Speaker
It's pretty interesting.
00:54:08
Speaker
Sounds good.
00:54:08
Speaker
I'll check that out.
00:54:09
Speaker
I'll give a shout out to actually Jeff Rivera, a local guy who's part of the Pinball Podcast.
00:54:16
Speaker
He's one of the guys that I just reached out to.
00:54:19
Speaker
I had no idea where he was recording from.
00:54:21
Speaker
And when he was going to do the
00:54:23
Speaker
uh pick up his ghostbusters i thought it sounds like he's driving around where i live so i contacted him and he's been a good friend ever since so i would say that i probably wouldn't be as deep into pinball if it weren't for jeff and the salt lake uh salt lake area pinball um
00:54:42
Speaker
slap whatever we stand for anyway yes salt lake area pinball well no i totally agree with you jeff has been fantastic to me too and i mean if it wasn't for him like it was kind of funny going to the first tournament and jeff was there i was like oh dude i'm with pinball celebrity man yeah like i didn't know and so um
00:54:59
Speaker
It was so funny because like Jeff doesn't like to talk about it.
00:55:02
Speaker
Like he doesn't like to talk about it.
00:55:03
Speaker
He's part of the pinball podcast.
00:55:05
Speaker
He's proud of his product, but he's not one to brag.
00:55:08
Speaker
And so it took me a while to find out that, like you said, that he was even from the Salt Lake area.
00:55:14
Speaker
And someone had said, he's our Batman.
00:55:17
Speaker
You know, he goes out there, he does his stuff and then he just kind of keeps it quiet to himself.
00:55:23
Speaker
He's behind the scenes, yeah.
00:55:25
Speaker
No, man, I totally agree.
00:55:26
Speaker
But thanks for joining.
00:55:28
Speaker
I'm really excited for this.
00:55:29
Speaker
I'm really excited to get this up.
00:55:31
Speaker
And I've known you for years now, but we'll get into that next episode.
00:55:37
Speaker
But yeah, I was stoked when you said you wanted to do this.
00:55:39
Speaker
So let's make this a thing.
00:55:41
Speaker
All right, well, we'll catch you later.
00:55:42
Speaker
All right, later, Scott.