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Who Will be Crowned The Ultimate JJP? | Also Scorbit Joins Us!
1k Plays1 day ago
With a month of bracket elimation, it comes down the final two, Harry Potter and Elton John! Who will be crowned the Ultimate JJP Game? Also Ron Richards with Scorbit joins us to talk about their platform and the future of connectivity
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Focus
00:00:07
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in to Loser Kid Pinball Podcast. I am Josh Rupp. With me, my co-captain. Scott Larson. And Scott, we are going to be talking about technology today. But before we start talking about technology and how you could put this out any game you want.
00:00:21
Speaker
where are you going to get those games from? so I'll call Zach and Nicole Mini at Flippin' Out Pinball. Definitely hook you up with all the new new games if you want used games too. They usually have good deals on that. And if you want accessories for your games, so if you want to bling it out or get that topper, because we know that I like toppers, except for the elusive Iron Maiden Egypt topper that I'm still trying to figure out where I can get that. But if you want everything else, go ahead ahead and reach out Zachary Coleman at Flippin' Out Pinball.
00:00:49
Speaker
And people, he is very picky. he keeps You guys keep sending me like aftermarket, he wants the real deal. He wants the Stern Egypt Topter. I think they made like 30 of them. I'm not kidding. I think they made like 30 of them. And the problem is I know I can buy the Aces High Topper, but it doesn't work with the Egypt theme. The the Egypt theme. There are no planes in Egypt. Come on.
00:01:14
Speaker
During World War II, there were. Okay, sure. But mean, come on. We're talking about Pharaoh.
Exploring Scorbit's Technology
00:01:18
Speaker
This is. Okay, we're we're getting off track now. Let's get back to our guest. we All right. Ron on from Scorbit. And I'm excited to talk about this technology because I know that like people have known that it integrated with GIGP at some point in time. And like you guys are pushing on a competitive edge on, well, just competitive pinball. And so I'm glad to get you on to talk more about this because I i feel like it's not as well known in the industry. So Ron, thank you for joining us today. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Big fan of the show. it was honored that you guys wanted to talk about, talk to, talk to Scorbit, talk to, talk to me. You know, it's great to come on the podcast. So thanks for having me.
00:01:56
Speaker
Definitely Ron for the average person. I want you to come up. So we're at the pinball expo. You come up. I want you to tell me about Scorbit and why this should be part of our pinball playing ah universe.
00:02:09
Speaker
Sure, absolutely. So Scorbit basically is connected pinball. um We were actually one of the first folks on the scene doing connected pinball. We came out back in 2020. So we predate Insider Connected, ah some of the other kind of apps and stuff like that that are out there.
00:02:26
Speaker
um and we actually, as great you know, Insider Connected is awesome. i love what Stern has done with it. um But it only works on 20 or so machines. Scorbit actually connects every... ah nearly every pinball machine dating back to 1977. we've, we've been working super, super hard to figure out how can we connect every solid state all the way up to modern machine that we possibly can, um to our platform so that you could easily extract scores from the machines, you know, ah
00:03:01
Speaker
power leaderboards, power scoreboards, save them to your profile on the scoreboard app. And then now with our new platform, enable ah competitions at your favorite pinball locations. And so that's what we've been working super hard on. And it's ah been going great. So.
00:03:19
Speaker
One thing too is like, I feel like you're associated with competitive pinball, but the app itself kind of gives you a little bit of like diversity. It's not necessarily about being competition, right? It's correct about just like connecting online with other people, right? Yeah. I mean, really it's, it's funny because you know, my, my, when we originally had the idea for score bit, uh, Believe it or not, it's going on more than 10 years now. um My original vision and or hope for Scorbit was the idea that Scorbit could be a companion app for anybody who loved pinball. And that's you know that continues to be kind of our North Star and where we want to take Scorbit in the future. um So if you open up the Scorbit app today, the first thing you see is where is pinball nearby, right? you know We're able to use the location, services on your phone whether you have an iphone or an android phone we know where you are and we immediately thanks to our friends at pinball map that we have a great partnership with we can say okay we know where you are here's where the nearest machines are in the nearest locations are
00:04:19
Speaker
go play pinball go play right and then if you go to those locations whether they have scorebi in the machines or not you can still go play pinball and you can take a picture your score and upload it to your, to your, and upload it to your profile and remember that great score you had, um, and keep track of all your scores in your profile and share with your community, share with your friends, um, be able to, you know, remember that great moment that you've had with pinball. The experience just gets better if you happen to play on a machine that's got a score, uh, uh, that's Scorbit enabled, whether it's got a piece of Scorbit hardware in the back box that's connecting that machine to the Scorbit platform, or you're playing um a more modern machine that has the Scorbit software installed on the machine itself to connect it to the Scorbit platform, that's when
00:05:06
Speaker
kind of what we like to say when the magic happens, where the score automatically saved to the Scorebit platform, you get a lot more dynamic things happening, um and then a lot more kind of cooler things happen where you could either ah use Scorebit to pay for your game, you can add credits to a machine, um you can ah participate in the in the tournaments that were recently launched. um If you're playing in a tournament at a location that has Scorbit enabled machines, we have an integration with the match play. So scores automatically get sucked into match play um and all that kind of cool stuff happens when the machines are Scorbit enabled. But um the whole idea is that, you know, Scorbit is this kind of connector between the player and the machine and the data that
Scorbit's Impact and Business Model
00:05:46
Speaker
comes through. And that data mostly is scores, right? And what you're able to do with it and how you want to share that with your friends. So if I'm an operator,
00:05:55
Speaker
and I have four games at my bowling alley, okay? So how do I actually get on the Scorebit platform? Like what what do I do? Do I buy something? Do I install it? Do I aftermarket it? How does this work?
00:06:09
Speaker
Yeah, so it's real, real simple. um the first The first thing, as an if you're an operator or a venue owner, ah the first step is get in touch with us. um On our website, ah we have a a page dedicated to venue owners and operators. There's a form there that that you can fill out um to give us your contact information. We'll get in touch with you. or you can just email us at contact.scorbit.io. Find me on social media. people like The ways people got in touch with us have been...
00:06:34
Speaker
many many different ways. People find me on Discord, but get in touch with us. um And we've got a great program for venue owners and operators where ah you know previously we we do offer the Scorbit hardware to home users. right So if you've got ah you guys have got your machines at home, if you wanted to outfit them with Scorbit, you can buy the Scorbit hardware to install them in your machines. um and And that's great. And that's awesome for home users. And we'll continue to do that for sure, because a lot of people want to have the leaderboards and scoreboards in their game rooms. and And that's really awesome. But for venue owners and operators, we recognize that, hey, you know being a small business person is hard, right? Not everybody has a ton of cash to invest in a new technology. you know We did a lot of research and a lot of the card systems and things like that are very expensive to you know to invest in. um you know if you wanted to if you wanted to open up an arcade and have that card system sometimes it's a you know a upfront cost of more than twenty thousand dollars just to get the kiosk and all the cards and all the stuff that you need for it um and we recognize that a lot of folks who do pinball are doing it out of you know out of passion um it might not be their full-time job it might be because You know, how many of us have bought so many pinball machines, we run out of room and then we we put them on location and now all of a sudden you're an operator. And so now now you've got a pinball business and you might not have the money to invest in it. So what we want to do, we want to make it really easy for operators and for venue owners to get on board with Scorbit. So we have a program where we just ah provide the Scorbit hardware at no cost upfront.
00:08:07
Speaker
what we do is we ah provide the hardware to get the machines connected. Um, and then we have a program, uh, where we're able to share revenue with those, um, operators to pay off the hardware over time, um, through the revenue that's, that's driven both either from coin drop, if they're using score, but to, um, to accept coin drop via credit card, which we offer for digital payments or, um, or through the score bit, uh, tournaments, uh, product, which is a, uh, asynchronous competition, ah product that we just rolled out recently, which allows people to compete using score it on the machines on location. um So imagine where you could walk into a location, put up a high score and participate in a tournament that is that is always on. So, you know, ah different from an in person tournament where, you know, 60 people gather on a Saturday and hang out for 14 hours and go through all the rounds and all that sort of stuff. Imagine competing on your own time.
00:09:05
Speaker
um And this is yet another way that we're providing operators to drive revenue on their machines because not every location might have enough machines to host in-person tournaments, right? You need a certain number of machines, yeah TGP and all that stuff that Josh Sharpe has come up with over at IFPA, right?
00:09:24
Speaker
if you're ah a small dive bar with two machines in the corner, you're not hosting a league, you're not hosting tournaments, right? But you plug Scorbit into your machines and you turn on Scorbit tournaments. Now anybody can come in and compete on a tournament on that machine um and able to compete and win real money.
00:09:42
Speaker
um And so we want to make it easy for operators to get on board with that. So by getting in touch with us, We chat with them, we send them the hardware, set it set it all up, get them connected to it, and then um and then basically you know profit, right? That's kind of how it works. So, you know, they provide, the operators provide the machines, the players provide the the games, we provide the technology, and hopefully everybody has fun in the process. so So you talked about you can win cash awards and stuff like that. Like, how does how does that work? Like, who's financing the the stuff for that?
00:10:13
Speaker
Yeah, so essentially um what happens is is that the ah the players pay an entry fee to get into the tournament. So just like if you were gonna go to an in-person tournament that was like a pump and dump tournament or something like that where you're buying entries to get into the tournament, same concept. So you purchase an entry fee, you pay the entry entry fee to get into the tournament,
00:10:33
Speaker
And then um a cut of that goes obviously to us because we've got to make money because we are a business, right? A cut of that can also go to the operator because they're also a business. But then a cut of the entry fee also goes back into the pot um for the states where it is legal to do so. it's not every state is it's legal to have a rising jackpot. But the states where rising jackpots are legal, um the more people that participate in the tournament, the bigger the jackpot can get.
00:11:00
Speaker
And so um it kind of gets really exciting when you have a tournament that's going over two week period and you kind of keep an eye, you know, let's say you put up a great score and you're in the top, you know, in the top four and you're you're poised to win um and you're watching more and more people enter and you're watching that jackpot get bigger every day. um And let's say you're also a really good player and you know that you can come in on the last day and snipe and grab the jackpot, right? You can see it go from, you know you know it's $100 on day two, and by the end of the tournament, it could be up to you know up over $250, and you can kind of come in and and ah take yeah and and put up a great score and take the jackpot. um So it is funded by the players entering into the tournament, no different than an in-person tournament that where the more people that participate, the bigger the jackpot gets.
00:11:52
Speaker
Yeah. if people are interested in this type of, I guess, tournament, where are the hot, where are the hot beds for this? Like where, where are they happening right now? So yeah, so right now, so we, we just started rolling out ah the tournaments literally like two weeks ago, right? Which is, so it's, it's kind of, you can tell I'm, I, if I sound tired, it's because we've been working nonstop on this, but um so we're ah we launched the tournaments at about 14 locations across the U.S., ah places like Lynn's Arcade in Seaside, California, Capital Pinball Parlor in Sacramento, Rulo's in Brooklyn, Quarter World in Spring Hill, Tennessee. um Yeah, there's a whole list of the locations that that we kind of that we launched. ah Minnesota Pinball um in Bucks Mill, Minnesota, Bucks Mill Brewing, I think, in Minnesota.
00:12:42
Speaker
um in detroit It's actually in Detroit Lakes. That's the town. um So yeah, so we've got a whole bunch of locations where we ah where we launched the tournaments at. um And on the Scorbit website, there's a list of all the locations that are Scorbit enabled.
00:12:56
Speaker
um And pretty much any Scorbit enabled location ah will be running tournaments. um And we're lighting up new locations literally every day. So for example, the Flipper Room in Concord, California just went live a couple of days ago with a whole bunch machines at their location and their locations. connecting even more pretty much every day as fast as they can get the machines connected, they're doing it.
00:13:19
Speaker
um And so Atomic Pinball in Wood River, Illinois, just has connected a whole bunch of machines at at their location. So you know we're ah we're on a mission to try to get as many locations ah connected to the platform as possible, um because to give people more opportunity around the country to go try you know try a SCORBIT Connected experience and participate in these tournaments and just participate in the whole connected pinball ah thing you know that's slightly different than Insider Connected, right? So Insider Connected, we've all gotten used to you know kind of scanning your QR code and it's saving your score and you know the whole achievements and unlocking badges and things like that.
00:13:59
Speaker
With SCORBIT, it's a slightly different experience. um You can tap into the machine So similar to the way that when you pay for your, you know if you go to the grocery store and you pay for your groceries by tapping the the payment kiosk and at the at the groceries tab with ah ah NFC on your phone, um you tap into the machine for Scorbit. That's how you tell the machine who you who you are.
00:14:22
Speaker
um You're able to fund your account on the Scorbit app with a credit card. um If you're at a location that's on CoinDrop, you can pay for credits that way, um which is really great. So no more having to carry quarters or anything like that. You can always just you know pay for a game just but you know with your credit card. um And then participating in the tournament is ah is another great way to experience score, but by being able to just, you know, it adds a level of excitement to the game. um When you scan into the into the game on the score, but app, you of have a little trophy next to your name and your name is kind of like highlighted in yellow. And it it it just feels a little different. It feels a little more electric. um And you can see the leaderboard and you see ah where you land against everybody else.
00:15:03
Speaker
um We were at TPF and we had a tournament going on in our booth. um And we had a line out of the booth as people were trying to compete ah for the jackpot that was available there because the competition was just kind of so heated over the weekend. And we're getting actually getting ready. um ah ah Pinfest in Allentown is going to be this weekend. And we're talking to an operator who's going to have a machine there that's going running a scoreboard tournament. And we just had a call earlier tonight about setting that up with the hopes that a lot of people will be participating there. and competing on on a game and having fun. and you know the whole idea of it, the whole motivation for this was that we built Scorebit to kind of give back to pinball and give something new and different. And with this new iteration within Scorebit, it kind of taps into our love of locations and our love of competition. And how can we use Scorebit to kind of promote competition at locations? And that's really what we're aiming to do.
00:15:57
Speaker
Okay, so you mentioned that this actually goes back a little farther than Insider Connected. and We all are used to the modern games with Insider Connected, but you're saying that you can do this with older games.
00:16:10
Speaker
Yes, we can. So how does that how does that actually work with older games? Yeah. So, so actually score bits origins lie within older games. Um, because like I said, we came up with this, you know about 10 years ago. So this is, you know, we predate, I think we predate spike two, to be honest. I think spike two was out when we came up with it. And, um, the whole score its whole origin was, you know, me and, um, my co-founders, Brian O'Neill and Jay Allison were walking around California extreme, which is a great show in San Jose in California.
00:16:41
Speaker
If anybody ever gets a chance to attend, it's a great arcade and pinball show. um And we just kind of asked ourselves, we're like, oh, wow, I wonder if you could ever ah connect a pinball machine to the internet and like extract data from it.
00:16:55
Speaker
and what you know, wonder, you know, it became like a technical challenge. Right. And so we started talking to like ah old techs and folks, we tracked down people who worked at Bally Williams and those old gray beard techs that, you know, that have been working on pinball machines back to EMs and ask them the same question. And they all kind of looked at us really kind of funny and they all gave the same face. They kind of furrowed their brow and they're like,
00:17:20
Speaker
they're like, well, I guess you could, but it'd be really hard. and And we were thinking like like Attack from Mars and Medieval Madness, like how could you get into the memory of those machines and extract the the scores from the from the games?
00:17:32
Speaker
And they're all like, yeah, you could, but it'd be really hard. Why would you want to do that? And that just, that just motivated us even more to like, to tell us that it was possible, but it was really hard, was like a challenge, right? So we we just hacked away on it for about five or six years of trying to figure out how to extract the memory of the old Bally Williams games.
00:17:51
Speaker
And we hacked away on a theater of magic and we hacked away on a Meteor and a Future Spa and some other old machines as we were just like analyzing the data coming out of those machines and trying to figure out how to tap into them and then convert them into modern data that could then be manipulated in an app, in a mobile app, purely with the goal of how do you, how can you create a profile and save scores and save it automatically? And so our origins were in the older games originally. And so then at that point it was, right, well, how do we do this across every game? And then basically we got a list of every MPU that was out there and every type of game system. And it's become a kind of game of whack-a-mole is like, okay, well, how do we tackle System 7? How we tackle System 11? How do we tackle WPC 89? How do we tackle WPC 95? And how we tackle Stern Sam? how do we tackle Spike 1? Right?
00:18:52
Speaker
right because every different type of pinball
Technical Challenges and Developments
00:18:56
Speaker
machine is different. And even you know even whether it's Gottlieb or Bally Williams or Stern, even their different iterations within their own companies, the engineers who worked on them always modified them a little bit from version to version, right? So there's never enough consistency that you find the exact same method within it to tap into.
00:19:18
Speaker
right So for um for our engineers, it became like a challenge ah for us. How do we unlock this type of of of pinball machine? um And so we've been working hard on it. It's at the point now where we're at ah we we estimate we're about 92% of all pinball machines that have ever been manufactured, we can extract the data from.
00:19:37
Speaker
um And so that leaves you know things like Hankin, ah those Australian pinball machines, just because they're not on location. like I think I've only ever seen like two Hankins on location. They've only been on like Pinball Expo um and and actually Atomic Pinball in Illinois. They have an Empire Strikes Back, which is a Hankin, which now makes me want to make Hankin work so that we can work at that location, but still.
00:20:00
Speaker
um ah and Like the Zacharias, which as much as I love those Zachariah games, they're just, you don't see them at arcades. So like we we really had to make the business decision, yeah is it worth our time to try to get them to these obscure games to work when they're not going to be on a location where we can actually make money with them.
00:20:17
Speaker
um So there's those. And then um the more modern games, you know like Spooky and Barrels of Fun and you know um you know other yeah Turner, other manufacturers like that now, um who...
00:20:32
Speaker
As opposed to building a piece of hardware that can go in those machines, we'd rather take the route of um applying code that can go into those machines and do it without hardware.
00:20:42
Speaker
um So for example, ah Pulp Fiction by Play Mechanics, manufactured by CGC, their next code update is going to include score bit code in the code. um We've been working very closely with them. ah um It's in the final stages of testing. So when that code does get released, which knock on wood is going to be very, very, very, very very soon, um people will be able to um do the code update and they've got Scorebit in the machine the same way Insider Connected is in a Spike 2 machine, right? Or a Spike 3 machine. So they'll be able to connect ah their Pulp Fiction to the Scorebit network. and be able to have Scorbit enabled on the on the machine without any hardware at all needed.
00:21:19
Speaker
um And so that's the route we'd rather go with more the more modern machines. So it's just a matter of talking to those manufacturers and building a partnership and going that route, which takes time and negotiations and all the things like that. But um on the older side of things, pretty much the majority of the solid states and the alphanumerics and the DMDs, we figured out how to make them work and we've got them functioning in arcades across the country. um And it's amazing when you see a, you know, a old solid state machine and we're able to press, you know, In the Scorbit app, there's a big button that says start game and you can press start game and the game starts, the pinball machine starts without pressing the start button on the machine.
00:22:01
Speaker
And it's just like magical, right? It's so cool. You can see you press add credit from the Scorbit app and the credits increment on the machine without putting a quarter into it. It's like really, really cool. And then you see, you start the game, you start playing and you see the scores coming through on the app automatically or you see mode information come through on the app. um And it's just, it's so cool to see happen on it. Like a game that was built in the eighties.
00:22:24
Speaker
um And it's so done through like a ton of hard work and like, you know, ah reverse engineering ah these old machines and and and looking at schematics and all that fun stuff. But and that was part of the fun of this project. And that's why, you know, it's the love of pinball that made us want to do it.
00:22:40
Speaker
the One question that's popped in my mind while you've been talking about all this is when you're talking to operators and stuff that are trying, like getting ready to take the plunge on this, um can you actually give like some numbers to us of what you see maybe ROI? And because I mean, we're mostly like a cashless society for the most part. I mean, some people carry cash, but the incentive of something as simple as score bit after it's installed, be able to just take, you know, tap from the phone, how much more of an increase does operator see versus cash drop or coin drop?
00:23:12
Speaker
Yeah. And that's, and that's really what we're figuring out right now. We're, we're, it's early in our deployment where I don't have the exact kind of numbers to share um because we're, we're still measuring and we're still seeing what the impact is. The hope and the plan is that not only by providing the coin drop ah functionality to those locations, we can increase plays because you're taking away the the need for to carry cash or the need to to make change. One of the reasons why I've always wanted to do a digital payment system for pinball was like, for example, when i lived in San Francisco, ah ah there was a ball bar called Gestalt that I used to go play pinball at.
00:23:52
Speaker
and they were notorious for being awful about change. ah The person who owned the bar told the bartenders they weren't allowed to give the pinpe pinball people change from the bar. um They had a change machine on the walls, one of those wall mounted ones. And it was it was one of the small ones. It would always run out of change.
00:24:10
Speaker
And the operator refused to put dollar mechs in the pinball machine, so you needed quarters. So I would sit there with a beer and watch people walk up to the pinball machine, realize it didn't take dollars, go to the change machine, realize the change machine didn't have change, go to the bartender, be told that the bartender wouldn't give them change, and then watch them leave leave the bar.
00:24:31
Speaker
And i was like, there's gotta be a better solution here, right? So that's why digital payments is such a, I think a necessity for the modern operator. You gotta be able to take credit cards, right? And even the purist, the arcade purist who wants a world of quarters, it can still work with quarters, right? Especially Scorbit with our digital payment system, it still works alongside CoinMax. It can still work alongside DollarMax. It's not all or nothing, but give people the choice to pay the credit cards, right? So the hope is that you get people playing more.
00:25:01
Speaker
But the also the hope with what we're doing at Scorebit is that the tournament's product brings people in to play the games on location more often and increases whatever coin drop that is happening at those at those locations. um So that it's giving people a reason to go to the to location more often. They're competing in the tournament. they're theyre They're playing more games than they would have. And while they are there, maybe they're playing the other games more.
00:25:28
Speaker
Or maybe they're drinking at the bar more, or maybe they're ordering food from the kitchen more. And the hope is that we're we're a factor that is increasing overall revenue for the location. you know Rising tide raises all boats. We're adding another factor to bring people to the location. um Maybe you know you have league nights on Tuesday nights and you do tournaments on Saturdays and Sundays. Maybe you know Mondays and Thursdays are dead. So maybe Scorbit can be a way to get people coming in on Mondays and Thursdays a little more often and increase the amount of coin drop that's happening, increase the amount of business at the bar. And that's what we're measuring now with with our first wave of venues and operators that we're working with to hope that we can prove that out.
00:26:11
Speaker
So I just got back from Europe. I did not get any cash the entire time I was there. Wow. i actually just used my phone. So is this a way of, i this may be a pipe dream, but is there a way for people to go up to a score bit enabled machine and just pay with her phone?
00:26:32
Speaker
Yes. Okay, like with Apple, arc ah sorry, with ah Apple Pay? Apple pay will Pay, credit card, debit card, whatever you want. Essentially the way it works is you set up your account on Scorebit and then you are able to ah identify your funding source, whether you want to load a credit card or debit card or pay with Apple Pay or Google Pay. And then similar to the way you know kind of ah the way Venmo works, um where what you can do is you can add funds to your Scorebit wallet.
00:27:03
Speaker
So you can say, I want to put $10, I want to put $20, I want to put $50 on my Scorabit wallet. and you pull that from your credit card, put it into your Scorabit wallet, and now you've got a balance on Scorabit that you can go use wherever you want to go play.
00:27:16
Speaker
And so when you're standing in front of that pinball machine, you see you've got a little wallet icon on the app, and that tells you how much money you have. You see, you know I've got Jaws behind me. I see that Jaws cost a dollar to play. i can say, add one credit cost $1. I say, add one credit, press the button.
00:27:33
Speaker
Jaws lights up, credit has been added, a dollar gets deducted from your scoreboard balance, and you're ready to play pinball. You don't have to... It all happens magically, so... Okay, but but say I don't have the scoreboard app, can you go up and just... So, yeah, so it it does require having the scoreboard app and does require being registered on
Engaging the Pinball Community
00:27:52
Speaker
scoreboard. Yeah, it's not like a You know, just using Apple. It's not like the subway. Like the subway, like it was like, hey, I just need my Apple phone. So yeah you're saying, okay, yes, you need need to do it. But the barrier is you still need to install the app and use the app. Correct.
00:28:07
Speaker
Okay. Correct. okay And part of that is because we're trying to, we we want to promote the the community. We want to promote you keeping track of your scores and participating tournaments. That's all tied to your user profile and and that sort of thing. And so we didn't we didn't set out to just be a payments company. right We didn't set out to just be you know a pay range or an IACs other companies that are just creating vending machine payments services, because that's kind of boring, to be honest. right We wanted to build a a pinball kind of experience kind of thing. And so, yeah, so you do need to install the app, but we're hoping that we're giving you, the player, more reasons than just to pay for pinball. you know like There's more things to do with Scorbit than just you know using it to pay for games.
00:28:51
Speaker
So is there some kind of signage you send too? Because like I assume there's a lot of casuals that go into play pinball. And how like how do you get them to convince them to download the app? Well, mean, that's the trick and that's the challenge. And that's what we're everyday learning and everyday trying to figure out. um We do have a product called Scorbit Vision. um We do love our our names at Scorbit, by the way. um but So Scorbit Vision is our ah our leaderboard and scoreboard product, which really has evolved and kind of become...
00:29:21
Speaker
a digital signage product for venues. um So if ah you know a lot of you know a lot of modern arcades and bars all have TVs and they're all able to display stuff and you know obviously like Insider Connected has you know the the leaderboards and we're used to seeing that. um So with Scorba Vision, we enable um venues ah to put up dynamic leaderboards and scoreboards and ah also screens related to the tournaments that are happening in score, but to show how big the jackpot is. But they also can integrate ah messaging in in rotation with those leaderboards. So in addition, to you know you can show the latest leaderboard for each game and kind of cycle through like a slideshow, but you can also insert a design screen to promote an upcoming in-person tournament
00:30:12
Speaker
or promote you know a a special at the bar or promote trivia night. But also we have pre-designed you know graphics to promote Scorebit and with the QR code to download the app to explain, you know you know pay for your pinball game with Scorebit, here's how, and kind of instructional graphics to tell the newbies how to do it.
00:30:33
Speaker
um So that's kind of where we're starting. um And then we're working with the venues to better understand what is the way to educate their customers. Because the one thing that I've found out now with talking to so many venue owners and so many operators across the country is that no location and no city and no arcade is like the the previous one I just spoke to. They're all unique. They're all different. right And so they've all got different types of customers, all different types of crowds, all different types of communities. So what might work in one isn't going to work in another. And so a lot of it is working with the venue owners and understanding what works for them and helping cater messaging and cater banners or cater signage that works for them. um and then remembering that and keeping track of that playbook and understanding
00:31:19
Speaker
keeping that in mind when you talk to another venue owner and saying, okay, I see a similarity here. This worked over here. It might work for you, but also being prepared to identify when that isn't going to work for them and come up with a different strategy to help them promote. So, but it's all about promoting to the, to the casual player because that's really where we see the growth. Um, You know, so many, so many people like us who love pinball, we're already converted, right? The hope is, is that folks like us are going to play it and play as much pinball as possible. But if we want to continue to see pinball reach the masses, and that's one thing that we're hoping to score, we can do is that, you know, get introduced to new players and give them a new reason to engage with this hobby that we love. um And so part of it is figuring out how to bring them onto the platform and show how to use it.
00:32:03
Speaker
I'm actually hosting a women's tournament on Saturday. Now, obviously i have 10 machines in my basement, but I don't really have them Scorbit enabled.
00:32:13
Speaker
Like what options are there for home users like me to use Scorbit? So yeah, so like I mentioned, yeah for a home user, we sell the Scorbitron, which is the device that connects machines to the Scorbit platform um in our store. So you can go to the Scorbit website and and click the shop button. You're able to purchase the Scorbitron and install it in your machines at home. And if you have a TV in your in your game room or basement or wherever, where they might be,
00:32:41
Speaker
That's where you can host score revision in your basement and have your leaderboards and scoreboards for your machines there and pull live data as well. um You can have everybody who comes over tap in and be able to keep track of their own scores. If you're hosting a tournament that's using match play,
00:33:01
Speaker
ah We have a great integration with Match Play so that any machine that's got Scorebit enabled, it pulls in all the data from the machine into Match Play. And so, you know, no more having to type in the scores directly into Match Play. It pulls them in automatically. And there's also all this cool visualization stuff where you get kind of like score history throughout the round,
00:33:20
Speaker
or you get a lot of um player data to see how they did on previous games and all this kind of cool stuff. We haven't really announced the match play thing as of yet. So folks who are listening to this is kind of who might not be aware of it. This might be news to them.
00:33:33
Speaker
um But ah folks who have been playing in tournaments on score bit enabled machines with match play, when they see it, it's kind of like their heads explode because it's like, whoa, how does it do that? And it's kind of like this kind of game changing element for tournament players. um We're super excited about it. We're doing a lot more with match play about how we can get scoreboard working with match play to make tournaments even better.
00:33:53
Speaker
So those are great options for people for folks, ah home users. We're excited for you, Ron. Thanks. This product's pretty awesome. I can't wait to get my hands on it. Some more um probably expos. Well, you said that Pintastics this weekend? Well, yeah. Pinfest in Allentown is this weekend. So, um so, uh, Scorber won't be there officially. I know we're, we're sponsoring the live stream on the tournament. Um, a couple of our, uh, folks from our team will be there hanging out. Um, but, uh, I'm pretty sure there'll be a legends of Valhalla,
00:34:26
Speaker
in a booth um that will be connected to Scorbit and there might be a tournament running on that. So if folks want to check that out, um if all ah fingers crossed, if all things go as planned, that should be Scorbit enabled and you can go check out the tournament on that. I know we're working hard to make that happen. And then um we will we'll definitely be at Expo later this year in October. I'm already talking to Rob about our presence at Expo. We had a great time last year. we were just at TPF this past March.
00:34:53
Speaker
um I don't know if we have any other shows lined up, but um but we're around and follow on social media. um And yeah, and please, you know, like we, we're super excited about what we're doing, but so much of what we're doing is for the community. And part of that is the feedback loop that we get from the community. um So much of the ah some of the stuff that we're doing has been informed by ah comments, criticisms, suggestions, stuff from actual people you know playing on locations, um from operators, from venue owners, from you know
00:35:30
Speaker
Tournament directors, all kinds. So if you you know if you've had a chance to check out ScoreBit, if you have an opinion, please get in touch. We want to hear from you because we want to get as much feedback as possible to what we're doing because we're moving very quickly and we iterate pretty fast.
00:35:43
Speaker
um And we just love getting as much feedback as possible because... we're doing this for the pinball community. So we don't want to do it in a vacuum. So by all means, you know, we're, ah you know, join our discord, um shoot us an email, DM us on Instagram, however you want to get in touch. But the more feedback we can get, the better, because we want to make sure that we're doing right by the pinball world. So.
00:36:05
Speaker
Well, perfect. I usually ask how to get ahold of you, but it sounds like you've covered it Yeah, there it is. Well, awesome. Thanks, Ron. We appreciate you joining us, joining us. And it's, it's been great to have you here. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.
00:36:16
Speaker
You're welcome. Once again, that was Ron Richards with Scorbit. It was great having him on, Scott. That was ah very informative. You know, it's actually... kay I'm actually surprised. I'm surprised that you can actually integrate older games.
00:36:32
Speaker
And yeah, it it does take a little bit of upfront, but that's pretty amazing because a lot of things turn out to be like, you know, the the joke is the sternament, right? yeah is like Everything is like stern, because obviously stern is the gorilla in the market. guilla is ah They're the ones who actually produce the highest volume of games, and you're going to see those mostly, but The nice thing is being able to integrate other games into your tournament and have it seamlessly seems like it ah quite an quite a desirable thing for people on location. And especially if you can pay with your phone. That seems like an amazing option for me.
00:37:12
Speaker
Yeah, well, I'm excited because we're you and I are both going to get the tap pads, which is crazy to me. Like it was funny because we were going through the the shop and we're like, how do you do this on on Spike 2? And he's like, it's literally just the tap. But the thing's only 50 bucks.
00:37:26
Speaker
And if you have a so ah spike to you slide it out, he said you just install the code, which if you've down if you've done stern code through a u USB stick, it's a piece of cake. And then the tap pad just slides under the glass.
00:37:38
Speaker
I'm excited to try this out. I think we'll do a video on this or we'll least we'll update, update y'all. We know that you, I don't know if you're excited about this, but I'm excited for, okay. I'm excited for the ability to do different things. And that's always the challenge is,
00:37:53
Speaker
I, again, Stern is the gorilla in the room because they do 85% of the business, but being able to integrate more things into pinball is a huge thing. And just as shown as like Beetlejuice being a huge seller and, you know the Jersey Jack games, ah integrating Harry Potter into the
Podcast Reflections and Merchandise
00:38:12
Speaker
mix. There's a lot of options out there, not just Stern, which makes it a very desirable option, especially for location, because especially when you're doing tournaments too, because you don't want to have
00:38:24
Speaker
just a ah modern lineup. you People love having those older games and the ability to do things. so Totally agree. so I'm excited for this. I can't wait to get it in the house and ah you and I will yeah yeah we' go to shop yeah give it a shot. ah One thing I'm excited about has been over a year The shoes are finally back. So we found out last year we left them on the site and then Neil who runs silver ball swag is like, we got a problem. I think what's the problem?
00:38:53
Speaker
People were getting their shoes and then the shipping company were freezing to give them their shoes. Less they paid like extra $65 something like that. wow it was This is the challenge. This is the challenge with any sort of modern ah trade issue. is that There's always going to be issues about crossing borders. And as we know, there's always going to be a lot of fluctuation in trade policy. So we do appreciate that we've been able to get those back on the website. And Trust me, I'm actually going to get another set. I have three sets. I have the Vans.
00:39:24
Speaker
I have the, um i don't know what you would call them, did the the low back with the laces and then the high the old the Chuck ah Webster's style. yeah yeah the old ah yeah Yeah, the old Chuck Taylors. yeah Sorry, Chuck Taylor, Chuck Webster. I love my Chuck Taylors and I have some of the, the, the ankle high laces well. Yeah. And, oh, and if you get the, ah is it, is it the bread laces, which are kind of the flexi laces that you can slide them in and off a style. Yep. So that's okay. We are super excited about having those back on. And so please, you know, go get some more shoes. Really? We do this for fun. Yes.
00:40:05
Speaker
It's not like we are definitely not making a killing on this. We get a few bucks and it all goes back toward producing great content for you guys. so we we appreciate that. But we actually, i just smile when I go around a show and I see people with our shoes or with their hats. And it just it just makes me feel like we are enjoying pinball together.
00:40:25
Speaker
Well, and the other cool part too is like Brad Albright had reached out yesterday when we started posting this. And, you know, he's the one that did the art for this. And now he's went on and down Winchester. He did Portal. yeah I mean, it's kind of cool because I remember when we first had him on seven years ago, six years ago. It's been a while. Yeah. It's been a while when he had just done the art for the Led Zeppelin homebrew.
00:40:46
Speaker
ah for David Peck out of Australia. And it's cool to see how far he has come with all of that, right? Yep. And you know what? When we were at Expo, my son picked up a few ah Brad Albright 3D things. So it's it's fun. We got a portal thing and we got a Mario thing. And man, I'll have to go into his room and see what the other one he selected. But it's been really fun to see, you know, Josh, we're we're long in the tooth.
00:41:13
Speaker
We're one of the old dogs out there. Yeah. i yeah love that way It still feels like I can't. It's like so long ago. It just feels like Josh texted me. He's like, Hey, do you want to a podcast? I'm like, sure. Why not? Zach Manning told me I needed a co-host cause I sucked by myself. Oh, okay. That's not true. That's not true. But it's certainly, do like the dynamic that it's okay. You and I talk,
00:41:36
Speaker
regularly yes yeah if if not daily at least weekly and yeah we have ah group chats with uh with the triple drain guys and that is a super active chat by the way check out triple triple drain pinball podcast they are if you haven't subscribed make to subscribe they're trying to get to a thousand right now yep um But yeah, this has been this has been great because this is this is really how we interact. like and People are wondering how we how we do a show. I'm like, this is kind of our conversations that we have on the phone.
00:42:07
Speaker
Yeah. like Like when we call. it so It's been a lot of fun. And we do we are planning to do another conversation. uh, Patreon, like call in show. And again, if you want to be part of the show, this is pretty much what we do. We, we, we call and we talk to like, what do you guys want to talk about? What are the themes that you guys are thinking about?
00:42:26
Speaker
And also like, what are the issues in pinball that you want to discuss? Yeah. Yep. So ah one other thing I wanted to discuss before we get to the bracket that we've been doing for almost a month now. ah Spooky, i guess, has in their code, people are getting their Beetlejuices and finding the Goonies. dun dun Do you think this is just a troll? Do you think...
00:42:49
Speaker
Why the heck would you be finding Goonies in Beetlejuice code? Okay. As we have seen in pinball, there are certain themes that bubble to the top with dream themes, right?
00:43:00
Speaker
Yes. And so Goonies is definitely one of those where people of my generation, this is the show that we grew up with. This is the show. And you talked to Zach Minnie. This is like one of his dream themes. Now I am in the minority in that I saw Goonies once, I think.
00:43:19
Speaker
But I know that there's a lot of people who it is like one of their all time dream themes. And again, if you are going to make a pinball machine that can incorporate dream themes with the the right demographic of people willing to buy $10,000 machine and put it in their basement. This is a perfect Venn diagram of overlapping and saying, there's a need, there's a want,
00:43:43
Speaker
And Spooky definitely has their little market base of saying, hey, we are Spooky fanboys. We want to support the company. they how How long did it take for them to to sell out of Beetlejuice, Josh?
00:43:57
Speaker
ah I think it was sold out before it even showed. Right. And Zach Mays claiming that the list is already full for the next booty Spooky title, too. So I don't know.
00:44:07
Speaker
Good. i don't know. This is the best part about having a small company with a dedicated fan base is that you are going to develop a need. And now, Josh, I'm going to, I'm going to ask you the devil's advocate.
00:44:23
Speaker
Is there any reason if you're, if I'm going to pitch Beetlejuice to you, why are you going to tell me Beetlejuice is a bad idea? As far as like theme for a pinball machine? Yeah. or yeah I'm going to make a pinball machine. I want it to be Beetlejuice. Why is this a bad idea? Go.
00:44:43
Speaker
ah Depending on the size of your company, it might be a little too niche of a theme to be profitable for you. I'm spooky. I'm looking to sell 1,000 1,500. Well, they sold out 888 than 24 hours. well they sold out eight hundred and eighty eight less than twenty four hours Yeah, exactly. I called Bug at noon on, so would' have been it would have been one o'clock his time, just because my cousin had called and said, hey, I really, really want one of these. i said, well, I know Bug, so I'll give him a call. And he's like, dude, I wish I could, but he's like, we sold out like two hours ago. Okay, perfect. and this is yeah okay This is what I'm saying. You are finding a hard time to tell me not to buy this game.
00:45:22
Speaker
Yeah. Like not to, not to make this game. This is a perfect, a perfect fusion of the right boutique company with the right boutique theme.
00:45:34
Speaker
Yeah. Like i I could totally argue if I were a Stern and I'm looking to sell 5,000 to 10,000 games Is there enough demand for a Beetlejuice? Is there enough demand for a Goonies?
00:45:46
Speaker
I could argue you may not be able to find that many, that many buyers for that, but for a small focused company like Spooky, this is going to be a home run.
00:45:58
Speaker
Well, and I would argue also that you're going for an experience. The thing with Stern is they are now going for titles that have brought a pill that can fit into different locations even the locations where they say it's like 30 70 right now they're going for maximum penetration yes that's what they're trying to do they're trying to find themes and that will work for the broadest possible audience now as a boutique company that is not your focus yeah your focus is to cater to you are your super fanboys
00:46:31
Speaker
And I blame it all on Evil Dead, man. That game is so good. So good. So great. And again, this is something that for me, it's not my demographic, but I tell them that this is a this was a home run in finding the the passionate people who are willing to pay money for this. And you know what?
00:46:51
Speaker
I would argue Evil Dead was springboarded by Texas Chainsaw Massacre. If you had told me, yeah hey, i'm ah I'm a pinball company. I want to make Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I would have thought you were crazy.
00:47:03
Speaker
Yeah. Because it is, one, it's super gory. Two, it's super old school and super fanboy. Everybody knows it though. And so they were able to make it work.
00:47:14
Speaker
Yep. ah Let's move on to let's talk about the bracket. So about three weeks ago started up the ultimate JJP
Pinball Game Discussions and Rumors
00:47:24
Speaker
game. they you know so The rumored Sonic the Hedgehog should be coming anytime soon. and I figured what not a better time to see if we can crown a champion.
00:47:33
Speaker
The way that I did this is I took all the ratings from pin side and then seeded the games based on their rating. So first place is obviously Harry Potter, second Selton John, third Pirates of the Caribbean, fourth Willy Wonka, fifth Guns N' Roses, sixth Avatar, seventh Wizard of oz eighth Hobbit, ninth Dialed In, tenth Toy Story 4, and eleventh Godfather. I do find it interesting how far Dialed In is down because personally me, I think that is a
00:48:06
Speaker
one of the better rule-based games that they have. It is the, man, the Achilles heel for that is the SIM card shop. Yeah. The theme. The theme is the Achilles heel. Yeah, yeah and and I totally get the people saying the the art is is probably too retro. It's probably in that weird spot where it's it's retro but not like,
00:48:30
Speaker
cool retro well it was john and john yousey was the one that did the art on that and he was the one that was doing on the original ballet williams stuff back in the day and i do feel bad because i remember that you and i were on with uh head to head when that game released and i did give john i'm like maybe it's time to hang up the reins and i do feel bad but like yeah but it it it felt like it was it was close yeah but it okay i know what they were going for They were going for the everyman. This is the hero's journey that happens in so many games so or in so many genres, right? You have Luke Skywalker. You have Harry Potter. You have all these things where you have this this nobody, this casual person who gets thrown into a situation where they have to convert to the hero and they are thrust into it. you know The Matrix does the same thing where neo's a a average guy who basically is thrown into this so i i kind of wish that it was a little better implemented because i think it would have connected a little more with people but you know what kay that being said it's still a great game it's still a fun theme i wish the sim card shop were more accessible
00:49:50
Speaker
Yep. Well, that's the hard part too. It's not a bad shot if there isn't a cliffy on it, but it gets pretty bad if you don't have cliffy it. If you're a home game owner, seriously, just take the cliffy off. You are not going to beat up that shot enough to warrant having the cliffy on there.
00:50:06
Speaker
Alrighty. So the first round was the bottom, uh, six games because the way with 11, the play in tournament. Yeah. yeah play tourment Yeah. So first round, Scott, I'm going to read these off to you, ah per matchup.
00:50:20
Speaker
Okay. I want you to decide who, who you think should win it. And I'll tell you who actually won it. Ready for this? Okay, first round was Avatar at Seed 6 versus Godfather at Seed 11.
00:50:30
Speaker
I'll take Avatar. Yeah, Avatar all all day, right? Yeah. yeah now get okay Godfather, is a it's a great game. it doesn't have the eye candy that Avatar does. Yeah. It does.
00:50:41
Speaker
Avatar did win that matchup, by the way. Shocker. Okay, Wizard of Oz versus Toy Story 4. You know, I'm going to take Wizard of Oz just because it is way more packed and it is the game that put Jersey Jack on the map.
00:50:58
Speaker
um Wizard of Oz was seed seven, by the way, into story four was ten and 10. And I was torn on this one because the gameplay is actually pretty good on Toy Story 4. Okay, I agree. I agree. with When you look at Wizard of Oz, and I've got Wizard of Oz over my over my yeah my shoulder there. Okay, you have two upper playfields.
00:51:17
Speaker
that are packed you also have the sculpts that are everywhere and you look at this and you would be hard pressed to remember that this game came out over 15 years ago yeah like this looks like a a it still looks like an advanced game now and it's it's 15 years old yep i know i totally agree So in that case, Wizard of Oz did win.
00:51:44
Speaker
um I want to say it was pretty close. It was pretty close. let' me hurry and see if I can scroll down. Toy Story is a good game. kate I really am on record. Toy Story is a good game.
00:51:55
Speaker
It is a good game. um while I'm still scrolling down, I do apologize. ah It was 56% to 44%. Definitely closer. but so closer It's a closer It was definitely not the blowout of 80% to 20% with Godfather and Avatar. All right, moving on.
00:52:14
Speaker
ah So Waz won that round, moved on. ah Dialed in at seed nine versus Hobbit at seed eight. Ooh. Okay. Okay.
00:52:26
Speaker
i I really want to love The Hobbit. I really do. i am a huge Lord of the Rings fan. My kid has actually just signed up for a Lord of the Rings class in school next year.
00:52:41
Speaker
and And so The Hobbit, it's It's an amazing experience. It is beautiful. i can't tell you one mode from another.
00:52:52
Speaker
And for some reason, those axe things are so loud in playing the game. yeah So I am going to take Dialed In over Hobbit. okay But I will say that you could argue with Hobbit. You could.
00:53:08
Speaker
So this is the one that shocked me because I felt like I'm kind on the same page with you. I think Dialed In is a really good game when it comes to the gameplay. The the thing that it lacks the most is the theme, right? like get The theme immersion. Hobbit, it came down to 5347 and it was Hobbit that one.
00:53:23
Speaker
How many times have we said theme immersion is so key to marketability of a game? Yep. and the hobbit has theme immersion in spades the only game that probably takes it over theme immersion would be guns and roses yeah speaking which so moving on to the next round and so that that wrapped out wrapped up round one we got to round two so the first matchup we had was willy wonka at seed four versus guns and roses at seed five speaking of your theme immersion
00:53:59
Speaker
What do you think? So I will say that I think Wonka is a better shooter. Okay. I do think it's a better shooter game. ah Guns N' Roses, it is ah it is over the top. like It it is is probably the most Guns N' Roses game that you could possibly think of. i mean Even if you think about the Guns N' Roses music,
00:54:23
Speaker
It borders on excess, right? And if you look at the game, the way that Eric and Slash co-designed this thing, it feels excessive in that you are baptized in a Guns N' Roses concert.
00:54:38
Speaker
I still think Wonka is a better shooter, but I am betting that Guns N' Roses is going to win because it sold way more games. And you would be wrong. Wonka won 70 to 30%. Wow. Okay. Yeah. it It kicked its butt, man. Okay. That, okay.
00:54:55
Speaker
But I, I will say if you're looking from a pure shooter, i think Wonka is a, is a better, more streamlined. The, the Guns N' Roses ah machine, i think it suffers from excess. It's a wide body. It has so many shots. Yeah.
00:55:15
Speaker
it but it's a little harder to streamline the play is what are your thoughts i maybe i should ask you what you think you think about the ah guns and roses versus wonka that's my take i think the other hard part too is ah got the one big complaint about guns and roses it's very multi-ball heavy yeah it's very much like you get into the song and then you're playing the song forever and which then involves multi-balls and I think that's where it is definitely an experience you're playing, but I think it is hindered by the actual code itself.
00:55:48
Speaker
it It doesn't feel like in Guns N' Roses that you're in jeopardy. Yeah. Like yeah like in in most pinball machines, you are you feel like a penalty when you drain. Yeah. It feels like Guns N' Roses is you just drained. Now here's three more balls.
00:56:06
Speaker
Yeah. Where Willy Wonka was not that way. No, no. All right. So moving on to the next matchup, Avatar at C6, which came, you know, beat Godfather to move on to go on to take Pirates of the Caribbean.
00:56:23
Speaker
Avatar versus Pirates. Okay. i will say that... Pirates is going to win this. However, i don't think it's fair.
00:56:34
Speaker
um I like Pirates. I do. It's a fun game. It is probably the most ambitious first design attempt by any designer in history yeah with so many things.
00:56:50
Speaker
There are a lot of things in there that were planned, including the triple spinning disc and the opening and closing of the chest. but that that they ultimately decided not to do okay um so i would say avatar is probably a slightly better shooting game um because it's a little more complete i love the ambition of pirates of the caribbean yeah um I would probably just lean a little bit toward Avatar on this one, but i it could be a coin flip. I'm betting this one was close.
00:57:27
Speaker
It was 60-40 with Pirates of the Caribbean. It wasn't a terribly big wide gap, but it's still. but okay I think I agree with you. I think there's almost a legendary status to Pirates of the Caribbean, so it it creates more clout for it, right? it does and it's it's the It's the game that they made less than a thousand of.
00:57:47
Speaker
Yeah. Like, and so you're going to get a rarity. If people want to get a pirates of the Caribbean, it is, it's over $20,000, but I would argue is does it doesn't feel like an over $20,000 shooter game.
00:58:01
Speaker
No, I don't think it does. i like it. You know, I do like the, I like the rocking upper ship. I think that's a very cool, unique idea, but yeah I think that is probably part of the problem is like, how much of it are you,
00:58:11
Speaker
paying because of its rarity versus what the actual game is. Yeah. And you could argue the same thing about the original cactus Canyon. Like I would take the remake 20 times over the original cactus Canyon, even though the original cactus Canyon was super rare and at its peak was commanding $18,000.
00:58:31
Speaker
right, moving on to the next one. Wizard of Oz at seven versus Elton John at two. Okay. um ah this is This is a little bit more of that ah over-the-top excess immersion on Wizard of Oz that is kind of like Guns N' Roses where it it has so much stuff going on.
00:58:54
Speaker
That being said, Elton John is a much more streamlined game and it is Steve Ritchie's third version of the layout. And you you have Spider-Man, you have Star Trek, and by the way, both are good games.
00:59:09
Speaker
I would argue it's even further back. You could see remnants of that fla layout in Star Trek Next Generation. Yeah. So this is almost like Steve Ritchie saying, okay, this is the best version of the layout. um You add in Elton John's music, you add in, ah yeah it it is probably, okay, it's arguably the best shooting Jersey Jack game so far.
00:59:36
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. ah It was When it was released, I'll put it that way. Okay. 72-28, Elton John spanked Wizard of Oz. Yeah, I think so. And then the last one, I don't even know if I, do I even need to ask you this? It's Harry Potter versus Hobbit.
00:59:52
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. Both win on theme immersion. Yeah. Harry Potter wins on fun. Yep. In 90-10. Like not even close. harry potter Harry Potter slapped around a Hobbit. Like just just owned it. all right, which brings us to the round we're voting on right now. So this is like the semifinals. Semifinals? Yeah. And then and then the the two that come out of this will go on to the the Super Bowl, right? The ultimate JJP. So we've got ah so Wonka versus Harry Potter.
01:00:29
Speaker
Yeah. Wonka versus Harry Potter. What do you, what do you think that one's doing? You know, I, I'm just going to put Harry Potter, right? Really? i can call it. So this poll lasts for like another day, right? At the time of this recording, by the time we put this up, it might need already be done, but I can guarantee that Harry, it's 97 to 3%, Scott.
01:00:50
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. But that's, I mean, what you're saying is Harry Potter is such a great game. yeah That it's ah you know it's kind of hard. it's you know In some ways, it's a little unfair because you're saying like you have the Beatles' White Album versus, i don't know, ah rubber you know Soul. or or ah you know It's not like an Abbey Road comparison, right?
01:01:18
Speaker
you You have like one of the the best arguably best games of... of uh jersey jack's history against anything yeah and and you have a combination of the best theme immersion and you have eric who really found his his shots in harry potter like that it's it almost seems unfair yeah i agree so you i mean obviously harry potter wins that one and then the last one is
01:01:55
Speaker
uh elton john versus pirates of the caribbean yeah and again that's the uh elton john is such a great shooting game it'd be pretty hard to beat that with pirates of the caribbean pirates are green probably wins on ambition yeah but if you're looking at the best shooting game and if you're a tournament player you're gonna take elton john yeah Honestly, it's it's almost 70 to 30 Elton John versus pirates. Elton John with the lead. I really do see Elton John taking this, which would then mean that like it's Harry Potter versus Elton John.
01:02:33
Speaker
Me personally, i think Harry Potter wins. I think it's got the better theme, but then again, What do I know? What I find interesting about this this bracket that we've done so far, based on all the seed positions, every higher seed has won its its matchup.
01:02:53
Speaker
Which find interesting. Which tells me that it's they're rated appropriately. Yeah. like and and it okay Every time a game comes out, the the yeah The fanboys, the fangirls all come out and they rank it as like, hey, I just bought this game. I paid $10,000 to $13,000 on this game. I'm going to justify my purchase by saying it's the best game of all time.
01:03:16
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. Now, you could I will point out that Harry Potter took my hands down as the number one game last year. I still stand by that. i still stand it Even when I play it now. so does 110,000 people.
01:03:32
Speaker
Yeah, that that clip went crazy, dude. Yeah. Okay. But, okay. But you have the ideal theme. mean, this is the dream theme of all time, right?
01:03:45
Speaker
ah For most people. Okay. Pokemon is like some weird outlier out there, but for, if you're looking at the best theme of all time, and then you have Eric who took an amazing design with the, with the staircase, which I would they say has one of the best upper play fields with the Quidditch thing. Yeah. think yeah and And so you have that and it's like, it really is justifiably, it should be the best selling game of all time in JJP's catalog.
01:04:17
Speaker
Yeah. Well, they can't even keep up. I mean, they're still building them like crazy. they They said that they wanted to release a game every nine months. Harry Potter released in May of last year and Friday is May.
01:04:29
Speaker
Yeah. so and And are they ready to release their next one? I i don't think they are. I think they could hold off even until Expo. I actually think they should.
01:04:39
Speaker
think they should build through the summer, keep building Harry Potter because it is still a hot seller. It has not suffered the it's not suffered the the hit that most games, especially high volume games,
01:04:55
Speaker
hit hit after about a year and a half. and We saw this with Guns N' Roses, right? yeah Like Guns N' Roses, you can buy Guns N' Roses for a very reasonable price now, but it's suffering from, they sold 5,000 of these, right?
01:05:10
Speaker
Well, and they've always capped the CE at 500, and we had someone reach out last month or the month before and tell us they just got theirs, their CE, and they're at 1725. Right. So obviously, i mean, they've done more than triple what they usually do on the seas for these and it's not it's not suffering from the standard FOMO which i is so smart with them because okay I i bought across from me is ah is uh is Metallica right and they kept that when o they they probably could have sold 2,000 of those l les
01:05:48
Speaker
yeah And in in in being able to do that. And and i I am a big fan of this, especially for Harry Potter that has the widest appeal to for everybody to get the version they want.
01:06:01
Speaker
And by the way, I would totally argue that you could get either a version and be totally happy. And you can even get the, excuse me the arcade version and be totally happy. Well, and seriously though, like the arcade version, I, this is what's funny. Like people have like, we just did Yukon Yeti and some of the comments were like, well, if he did an arcade tradition, I'd be entirely in, but the reality of the situation is though, like look at spooky.
01:06:29
Speaker
They stopped doing the other two tiers cause they weren't selling them. Well, like, okay. How, how, how often have we said the most limited guns and roses is the standard edition.
01:06:41
Speaker
Yep. Because they made, a like, what was it? What did Jack tell us? It was like 140 of them. Something like that. Like, it was a crazy small amount of them. Supposedly, there's only 182, anywhere from editions out in the wild, compared to this over you're going to buy it for the arcade for a location,
01:07:07
Speaker
Get it. Get the arcade. Yeah, that makes sense. 100%. It's the most straightforward, hey, we're just we are making this to sell to sell and get on location. And the play field is the same.
01:07:21
Speaker
You're getting bells and whistles. Guns N' Roses standard edition. Ready for this, Scott? yeah Yeah. 130 produced. Why even offer at that point? it's It's not worth your time as a manufacturer.
01:07:34
Speaker
Well, and your margins are so much smaller on those units. They probably lost money on that. Yeah, it was a loss leader. Yeah. i Okay, but okay Josh, if you think about it, you have a golden ticket for one game from JJP.
01:07:53
Speaker
okay And let's not talk about resell value because otherwise you'd get Pirates of the Caribbean because you can sell that. But which one, if you had to own and never sell, which one are you going to take? Oh, right now I'd be a CE Harry Potter. Yeah, absolutely. That's what I would get too.
01:08:09
Speaker
Yeah. and just it It's a great game. like i i I really am. I'm crossing my fingers just getting some more space in my house because that is the one I'm going to get.
01:08:21
Speaker
Yeah. I don't blame you. it's I feel like it's the way to go. It really is. If you like that that artwork. It's the artwork of the book versus the artwork of the movie. Which one do you want? Now, I do have a friend who did point out, he said, i don't know if I can get the wizard edition because the art, every single one is pointing wand, which I'm like, huh, I never really thought about that. but a
01:08:52
Speaker
people will find things that they gravitate toward on the different art packages. nop no I agree. There's there's certain people, ah it's funny because we like we had this whole explosion over John Wick not having any guns on there, but I know people that didn't buy Cactus Canyon because it had guns right on the slings. Hey, you do you. There's nothing wrong with whatever however you feel about whatever you know. But um it's just funny what different things people say, hey, this is what's preventing me from buying this. um you You know, just going back also to that like would you forget Josh, I'm just curious, your personal thought.
01:09:26
Speaker
would you Do you have more of a connection for the CE artwork or the um wizard artwork?
01:09:35
Speaker
I want to say it's the CE because I originally read the books before I watched the movies kind of thing. so um From a sales standpoint, speaking of like your arcade edition and stuff like that, yeah ah in the HVAC industry, the which I don't know if it applies directly, i highly doubt it, but when we were doing selling classes, they talked about the good, better, best. right like that's That's a model a lot of people know.
01:10:00
Speaker
And when it came to percentages, 20 went the very base, 70 went to the middle and 10% went to the top. Yeah. And so I can see if your margins are really tight and terrible, why you would, I mean, it is 20% of cells. so Is it worth it? Is it not? that's what i might it's It's worth it to get it in arcades because that was the biggest hit or the biggest criticism with a lot of Jersey Jack games to say, yeah I can't play this on location.
01:10:32
Speaker
and And so being able to have a model that you can actually get into um into the arcades is a big deal, even though location is only 30% of their business.
Episode Conclusion and Listener Engagement
01:10:43
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I think that wraps it up for us, Scott. It has been a minute since we've been yeah ben on. I'm glad that we were able to to line this all up. ah I'm really glad we had Scorbit on. um you know that was Really nice to it. That was a lot of fun, mainly because I didn't know a few things about Scorbit.
01:11:02
Speaker
cake The fact that you can pay an older game with your phone That's actually a big deal. Yeah. Cause there are a lot of games I have not played because I have not had access to quarters.
01:11:15
Speaker
Yep. Same. I guess we're going to wrap this up. Yeah. If you want to get ahold of us, we're loser kid pinball podcast at gmail.com. You can find us on all the socials, you know, YouTube, all that stuff. Follow us, like subscribe, yada, yada, yada. Silver ball swag. Go get them shoes.
01:11:32
Speaker
ah If you're part of our page, you're on, you know, there's a secret discount code in my Patreon. member Yeah. So it's worth, it's worth trying out. It's worth joining the Patreon just to get the discount code. You know it. So ah ah other than that, Scott, give us our last words. You know, I just want people to go get shoes. I have both the high top, the low top and the Vans. And I will say every time I'm wearing them, people walk up and say, those are cool shoes. I'm like, yeah, yeah, they are.
01:12:05
Speaker
you