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Ep 138: Behind Stern's Doors
132 Plays1 year ago
We just finished the tour and wanted to give a brief update about what Stern told us. We talk licensing, BoM, and hands on John Wick
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Transcript
Introduction & Sponsor Shoutout
00:00:07
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in to the Loser Kid Pimball Podcast.
00:00:09
Speaker
We're on episode 138.
00:00:11
Speaker
I am Josh Roop.
00:00:12
Speaker
With me, my co-captain as always.
00:00:14
Speaker
Live and in person, Scott Larson.
00:00:15
Speaker
You know it, man.
00:00:16
Speaker
And it's been kind of a crazy trip so far.
00:00:19
Speaker
But before we get into that, let's talk about our favorite sponsor, Flippin' Out Pinball.
Pinball Needs & John Wick Game
00:00:24
Speaker
Take it off for us, Scott.
00:00:25
Speaker
Yeah, Flippin' Out Pinball.
00:00:27
Speaker
Contact Zach or Nicole.
00:00:28
Speaker
And they will get you hooked up.
00:00:30
Speaker
And even with possibly the new John Wick, I know there's still some LEs out there available, and we are going to talk about that today.
00:00:37
Speaker
But if you don't want John Wick, there are plenty of other options they have.
00:00:41
Speaker
They can basically fill in anything you need.
00:00:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:00:44
Speaker
Before we get off on this episode, first off, I don't know how the quality of the audio is going to be.
00:00:48
Speaker
We're sitting in a hotel room outside of Stern.
00:00:52
Speaker
I'm doing this off my typical laptop, and I have my studio mic with me, but we don't have headphones.
00:00:59
Speaker
I've got like 40 minutes before I got to go start heading towards the airport.
00:01:03
Speaker
We're also in the same room, and so there could be some echoey.
00:01:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:06
Speaker
So just fair warning.
00:01:07
Speaker
I know there's a couple people out there, but
00:01:09
Speaker
Let's move
Stern's Factory Tour for Content Creators
00:01:10
Speaker
on.
00:01:10
Speaker
I know a lot of people are interested in what happened at Stern.
00:01:15
Speaker
Okay, so first we should actually say, so the background, Stern invited content creators out and they did pay for us to come out and visit.
00:01:25
Speaker
There were no guidelines of what we could talk about or anything like that, but it was basically a tour to see the factory, see the new game, talk about possible things that their strategies and
00:01:37
Speaker
really some constraints behind that.
00:01:39
Speaker
So that's, you know, full disclosure, this was a business trip that was funded by Stern and now we're reporting on it.
00:01:45
Speaker
Well, another thing I want to point out too is a lot of people are saying, well, this is just a knee jerk reaction to John Wick and maybe poor sales, which they haven't disclosed or undisclosed to us.
00:01:57
Speaker
But
00:01:58
Speaker
And really, Zach Sharp had told us that this has been something he's wanted to do way before the pandemic.
00:02:06
Speaker
So for a few years.
00:02:07
Speaker
And so, but it became a, well, the pandemic happened.
00:02:09
Speaker
Well, now we're going into a new factory.
00:02:13
Speaker
And he even talked about, he kind of wanted to do this with Jaws.
00:02:16
Speaker
but they had some constraints there and this was this John Wick opportunity was the best opportunity.
00:02:21
Speaker
So it was kind of a brewing of a perfect storm, right?
00:02:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:26
Speaker
And to be fair, I, I don't think it's a secret that John Wick sales have not been as robust as other releases.
00:02:32
Speaker
And so it does make sense for them to invite people out.
00:02:35
Speaker
And,
00:02:36
Speaker
To be fair, this is what this is what companies do to get the word out on their product.
00:02:42
Speaker
So it was a lot of things together.
00:02:43
Speaker
We feel we feel lucky that then to last that we were able to come out and be invited.
00:02:49
Speaker
But it was it really was a fun weekend.
00:02:52
Speaker
And in many ways, it it confirmed a lot of the stuff that I have been feeling about manufacturing and pinballs.
00:02:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:58
Speaker
and pinball machines and also some of the challenges that they see behind the scenes that we don't see as the end user, right?
00:03:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:09
Speaker
Well, let's start from the
Arrival and Event Gathering
00:03:10
Speaker
beginning of the trip.
00:03:10
Speaker
So they flew us out.
00:03:11
Speaker
I flew out of Vernal, my hometown, into Phoenix, then into Chicago.
00:03:17
Speaker
You had a direct flight from Salt Lake.
00:03:20
Speaker
They got us.
00:03:20
Speaker
There's literally a hotel across the street.
00:03:22
Speaker
It's the Holiday Inn.
00:03:24
Speaker
Seriously, you walk to the stoplight and walk across the street and you're at Stern.
00:03:29
Speaker
Hotel was nice.
00:03:31
Speaker
I did have a couple issues the first day checking in, but I'm really not going to get those right now.
00:03:35
Speaker
They fixed them.
00:03:35
Speaker
Yeah, they fixed them.
00:03:36
Speaker
So I'm not really going to harp on them for it.
00:03:39
Speaker
We got there about 12.
00:03:40
Speaker
So the meeting was at one.
00:03:42
Speaker
We got there at 1230 because I wanted to be early.
00:03:44
Speaker
I like to be ahead of the game, I guess.
00:03:46
Speaker
I don't know.
00:03:47
Speaker
And the content, we were the first ones in.
00:03:50
Speaker
And content creators kind of start trickling behind us.
00:03:53
Speaker
First one we got to meet was Arcade Matt.
00:03:55
Speaker
I'd never met this guy before.
00:03:57
Speaker
It's funny because we kind of complained about this.
00:03:58
Speaker
What was it, two episodes ago?
00:03:59
Speaker
Or maybe we pointed out.
00:04:00
Speaker
We didn't complain.
00:04:01
Speaker
We didn't complain.
00:04:03
Speaker
What we talked about is it makes sense to reach out and to talk to different venues.
00:04:09
Speaker
It was more of an analysis to say,
00:04:12
Speaker
It doesn't have to be an either or.
00:04:13
Speaker
It should be a reach out to these people to get the word out to different people.
00:04:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:18
Speaker
But it would also benefit any pinball company, not just Stern, to reach out to people who regularly talk about pinball because that is a target audience.
00:04:29
Speaker
So this seemed to be a little bit of a, you know, a realization.
00:04:34
Speaker
that they did miss an opportunity of getting content and information to us so we can talk about it on our show.
Diversity in Content Creation
00:04:41
Speaker
Yep.
00:04:41
Speaker
So they invited Arcade Matt.
00:04:43
Speaker
I don't know if you know this guy.
00:04:44
Speaker
Go check out his YouTube.
00:04:45
Speaker
It's pretty cool.
00:04:46
Speaker
He focuses mostly on the arcades, kind of claw machines, stuff like that.
00:04:50
Speaker
Okay, but claw machines like getting him out of a claw machine.
00:04:54
Speaker
Yeah, like a giant claw.
00:04:56
Speaker
Yeah, anywho.
00:04:57
Speaker
I mean, dude has 1.8 million subscribers and that's top videos, like 12 million views.
00:05:02
Speaker
So he's got some eyeballs on his channel so that, you know, that kind of addressed when we were talking about two episodes ago with, with Davey about maybe they should be reaching out to these kinds of people.
00:05:11
Speaker
Sure.
00:05:12
Speaker
And then it was kind of like a who's who of the content creation.
00:05:16
Speaker
It was certainly a critical, it was a selection, not necessarily.
00:05:20
Speaker
It was a, a good sampling of, of podcasters, streamers, um,
00:05:26
Speaker
other content
Tour Highlights & Production Processes
00:05:27
Speaker
like bloggers.
00:05:28
Speaker
So it was a big nudge magazine.
00:05:31
Speaker
That's a magazine.
00:05:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:32
Speaker
And then, so it was almost selected as if kind of the best people in their lane.
00:05:37
Speaker
And so what I want to say, you know what I'm saying?
00:05:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:39
Speaker
Or someone who's, I guess, yeah, you're right.
00:05:42
Speaker
That's a good way to know.
00:05:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:44
Speaker
So we all got in there.
00:05:45
Speaker
There was probably about 15 to 20 of us in the content creation.
00:05:49
Speaker
And the first thing they did is they showed off the factory.
00:05:51
Speaker
There may have been like another 10.
00:05:53
Speaker
There could have been like 30 something.
00:05:55
Speaker
There was a lot.
00:05:56
Speaker
So, but we were greeted first by, well, Zach Sharp.
00:05:59
Speaker
Zach came out.
00:06:00
Speaker
He's the one that originally asked us all to be out here.
00:06:03
Speaker
Gary Stern, Seth Davis, George Gomez, Tim Sexton was initially there.
00:06:10
Speaker
And they were very upfront with saying, okay,
00:06:13
Speaker
we're going to tell you when you can take photos and then there's going to be areas you cannot take photos.
00:06:18
Speaker
And so we started the tour.
00:06:20
Speaker
If you've never been to the Stern factory, uh, you got an open for a small open for you walk into it with the front desk to lovely women that are sitting there that will guide you through the process of getting, uh, checked in their badge enforcers.
00:06:32
Speaker
Yes.
00:06:33
Speaker
You're not getting past those doors without those badge enforcers.
00:06:37
Speaker
And so you actually have to have someone that has invited you to Stern.
00:06:40
Speaker
Right.
00:06:41
Speaker
Um,
00:06:42
Speaker
And then they let you in.
00:06:43
Speaker
And if you were there at Expo in October, it was a giant cubicle farm.
00:06:48
Speaker
They've cut out half those cubicles.
00:06:49
Speaker
And they had 20 John Wick set up?
00:06:53
Speaker
12, 15?
00:06:53
Speaker
Somewhere around there.
00:06:54
Speaker
Yeah, there were 15.
00:06:55
Speaker
And there were also three others.
00:06:56
Speaker
There was a Bond 60.
00:06:59
Speaker
There was an Elvira.
00:07:00
Speaker
It was a Jurassic Park 30.
00:07:02
Speaker
Yep.
00:07:03
Speaker
And so we kind of looked at those games a little bit.
00:07:05
Speaker
We didn't get our hands on just yet.
00:07:07
Speaker
They kind of ran us through.
00:07:08
Speaker
They gave us protective eyewear for the factory.
00:07:12
Speaker
And we started doing the factory tour.
00:07:14
Speaker
So if you've been through Expo, you've been through this tour.
00:07:17
Speaker
They did take us into the receiving section, which they did not do at Expo, but where they receive all their materials, all that stuff.
00:07:24
Speaker
And then the line where they put the boards and stuff, this is something you can see on Factory Friday.
00:07:30
Speaker
So I'm not going to really touch on this because if you're really interested in this, go to Stern's website and check it there.
00:07:35
Speaker
There was a couple funny instances, though, I want to bring up.
00:07:38
Speaker
So Dwight Sullivan was the gentleman that was over our tour.
00:07:40
Speaker
And if you don't know Dwight, he's awesome.
00:07:43
Speaker
He's a very positive dude.
00:07:44
Speaker
And he's got a lot of words, but sometimes... He's enthusiastic.
00:07:48
Speaker
Yeah, he's enthusiastic.
00:07:49
Speaker
But there was a part where...
00:07:51
Speaker
if you've ever bought a new in box stern, there's like these little foam inserts that go in the box to hold the game into place.
00:07:58
Speaker
So it doesn't get damaged in shipping.
00:08:00
Speaker
And they actually make those in house.
00:08:01
Speaker
It's a foam.
00:08:02
Speaker
It's a foam product.
00:08:03
Speaker
They, they mix a chemical sent through these plastic bags in it.
00:08:07
Speaker
And then they put them in molds and build these.
00:08:09
Speaker
And he had to have a stack that was as tall as him as he's talking.
00:08:13
Speaker
And he turns around and he accidentally knocks over the stack.
00:08:15
Speaker
And he's like, Oh, I'm so sorry.
00:08:17
Speaker
He's like, try to pick up these.
00:08:18
Speaker
And he picked it up and knocked over another stack.
00:08:20
Speaker
And he's just – the guy that's making this, he's like, just go.
00:08:26
Speaker
But it was cool.
00:08:27
Speaker
So we got to see the test.
00:08:28
Speaker
I mean it was from start to finish how they make a game outside of the actual building a game, the early process.
00:08:38
Speaker
But they also led us into the machine shop.
00:08:39
Speaker
So if you've ever watched – Jack Danger did a video on –
00:08:43
Speaker
after he became a designer, he talks about mechanics and like, there's this room where essentially if you have an idea or a concept for a pinball machine, you leave the idea in this room and it's like magic.
00:08:54
Speaker
And the next morning it's sitting there on the table for you.
00:08:56
Speaker
It's basically a machine shop.
00:08:58
Speaker
If you've, if you've seen any manufacturing facilities, you know, there's a, there's a lay, there's a press, there's a bender, you know, welder.
00:09:06
Speaker
so by this time we finished the tour, we get into the conference room.
00:09:09
Speaker
They set us all down and this was very much no pictures.
00:09:13
Speaker
Um, and we, we, he said we could talk about some of the stuff.
00:09:17
Speaker
And so we're very respectful to Stern.
00:09:20
Speaker
We're the stuff that we've been asked not to discuss is more personal stories with, uh, different stuff behind the scenes.
00:09:27
Speaker
Just channel.
00:09:28
Speaker
Okay.
00:09:28
Speaker
I will say it's, it wasn't the stuff that they just said.
00:09:31
Speaker
Yeah, don't, don't, uh, this is, this is just
Challenges in Pinball Production
00:09:34
Speaker
for us.
00:09:34
Speaker
This was more of like,
00:09:36
Speaker
historical interactions that they've had with, uh, with different products.
00:09:40
Speaker
And I think it was just more of a, let's just be respectful to the product.
00:09:43
Speaker
So we don't damage things in the future, which we're totally on board with.
00:09:47
Speaker
So the first thing they talked about to, uh, with us, we kind of took notes, right?
00:09:52
Speaker
I did.
00:09:53
Speaker
Okay.
00:09:53
Speaker
But let's, you're, you're jumping ahead.
00:09:55
Speaker
So let's talk about the tour.
00:09:56
Speaker
What jumped out on the, on the assembly line tour and anything that, anything that stood out.
00:10:04
Speaker
I wanna say the biggest thing that's, it's so well done, right?
00:10:09
Speaker
Like it is a well oiled machine from start to finish.
00:10:14
Speaker
the way that they store products to how they handle it and how they assemble it.
00:10:19
Speaker
It's amazing.
00:10:19
Speaker
It's, it's a very well-oiled machine.
00:10:22
Speaker
You start off with the cables.
00:10:24
Speaker
So that's the first stop where they're wiring all these harnesses and they check them all.
00:10:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:28
Speaker
And then they, so then they go on to where play field, they're assembling all the play field parts and, you know, putting everything in.
00:10:36
Speaker
And usually like the wiring is the first thing that goes down into a machine.
00:10:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:41
Speaker
And it, it, it heads down the line and then they put all the, you know, all the inserts, all the bowl, all that kind of stuff.
00:10:49
Speaker
Uh, they also, any mechs, like any, uh, any things they put on there.
00:10:55
Speaker
And then it goes over to a rotisserie that they, the, they can check top and bottom.
00:11:00
Speaker
Then they put it in a machine while they also have a separate line for the cabinets.
00:11:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:05
Speaker
So they actually have the cabinets.
00:11:07
Speaker
They use kind of a, it seems like a wet sticker thing.
00:11:10
Speaker
So it's like they spray it and they take a sticker and then they lay it on, put it on.
00:11:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:14
Speaker
So the thought behind that process is, is you're putting on the sticker wet.
00:11:18
Speaker
So you can actually slide the sticker into place.
00:11:21
Speaker
And once it's in place, you take a squeegee, you get all the bubbles out.
00:11:25
Speaker
So you have that.
00:11:25
Speaker
And then those things get married at the end.
00:11:29
Speaker
And the play field gets put in.
00:11:31
Speaker
And then they've already tested the play field.
00:11:34
Speaker
But even after putting it into the cabinet, they test again because things can get dislodged.
00:11:41
Speaker
And, you know, so then there's that final thing.
00:11:44
Speaker
There's the final assembly.
00:11:45
Speaker
Then they box them.
00:11:46
Speaker
So that's basically the ins and outs of how a machine gets made.
00:11:51
Speaker
And so it's a really cool process.
00:11:53
Speaker
If you honestly, if you've never seen this, you're planning on coming to expo.
00:11:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:58
Speaker
I highly recommend go to tour, go to the tour.
00:12:00
Speaker
Let's go.
00:12:00
Speaker
It's definitely going to be awesome.
00:12:02
Speaker
Um, so the first thing they sat us down, they talked to us about, I've gone, my notes was licensing.
00:12:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:07
Speaker
And Kay, that seemed to be the driving force.
00:12:10
Speaker
And we have,
00:12:12
Speaker
it basically confirmed what we've talked about before is usually the behind the scenes as a, an end product.
00:12:20
Speaker
When you buy the, buy the machine you put in your house and your question is, well, why didn't they do this?
00:12:26
Speaker
And why didn't they, they do that?
00:12:29
Speaker
They've actually asked the same questions.
00:12:32
Speaker
And he did emphasize that they, the people who are, who are designing and building the machines, they're enthusiasts themselves.
00:12:39
Speaker
So they, they want the best product.
00:12:41
Speaker
And a lot of times,
00:12:42
Speaker
They have had the same questions you do.
00:12:44
Speaker
However, the take-home message that I got was licensing gets final approval on everything.
00:12:53
Speaker
And each license is different.
00:12:55
Speaker
And there's license upon license.
00:12:57
Speaker
So one of the examples that George had brought up was the Aston Martin car on bond.
00:13:03
Speaker
So Aston Martin obviously owns the rights to their car, right?
00:13:06
Speaker
So he had to do everything to appease Aston Martin.
00:13:10
Speaker
And he gave us very specific details that we're not going to go into.
00:13:13
Speaker
But once that was done,
00:13:15
Speaker
Then they had to give it to the bond people to approve the bond.
00:13:18
Speaker
They asked him Martin that asked him Martin approved.
00:13:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:21
Speaker
And it was just, it was stuff like that.
00:13:23
Speaker
And they said one of the hurdles that they run into a lot is there can be turnover rates in licensing.
00:13:29
Speaker
So they'll get halfway through a project and the teams might shift on them.
00:13:33
Speaker
And all of a sudden they've gotten all new people that they have to bring up to speed.
00:13:37
Speaker
It just, just funny stuff of like, I never noticed this, but they pointed it out and it's, it's as clear as day once you see it, but on the, on the bond,
00:13:44
Speaker
You only live twice.
00:13:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:46
Speaker
He's wearing ninja booties.
00:13:47
Speaker
Ninja booties.
00:13:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:48
Speaker
I, I love, basically I'm going to call everything ninja booties from now on.
00:13:51
Speaker
But the funny part is, is, is originally the licensor said that's not bond asking.
00:13:55
Speaker
He's like, it's on that actually.
00:13:58
Speaker
So it's in the poster.
00:13:59
Speaker
This is interesting that you, okay.
00:14:01
Speaker
This makes sense though, from like a chronological standpoint, the people who made the movie,
00:14:07
Speaker
They're, they're no longer around now.
00:14:09
Speaker
And so there, there is a little historical context that is, you know, is lost sometimes when you move from the people who are controlling the license.
00:14:19
Speaker
And I'm sure they're quite familiar with the license and the way they want their product presented.
00:14:26
Speaker
However, there are aspects that they may not be familiar with themselves because I did not know about the Ninja booties.
00:14:34
Speaker
until George Gomez pointed that out.
00:14:37
Speaker
Yeah, there's, there's some
00:14:40
Speaker
there are some, some elements that even the, the licensor was less familiar with.
00:14:45
Speaker
So I guess it just goes to show too, there, there's stuff that like, even in the artwork that we don't realize.
00:14:51
Speaker
Right.
00:14:53
Speaker
But I think the biggest takeaway was there's a lot of hands in the pot, right?
00:14:57
Speaker
Like there's a lot of fingers in the pie.
00:15:00
Speaker
I don't know how to see what it is.
00:15:01
Speaker
Okay.
00:15:01
Speaker
I would say it's not like there's one chef cooking the meal and everybody else is the, are the,
00:15:08
Speaker
you know, the, the workers who do do it, there is a chief, uh, there's a, uh, a project manager, so to speak.
00:15:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:17
Speaker
But I would argue it's kind of like building a house where you have all these sub assembly lines that are going to be involved.
00:15:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:24
Speaker
And, uh, these sub approvals that you have to work on.
00:15:29
Speaker
And it's a lot more challenging than you would anticipate.
00:15:33
Speaker
in a in a pinball machine, because it's not it's not like a lunchbox.
00:15:38
Speaker
Yeah, like a lunchbox, you can you can put a decal on and they can look at it and say, Yeah, that's good.
00:15:43
Speaker
Go ahead and sell it.
00:15:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:45
Speaker
And you're looking at incorporating not only art,
00:15:51
Speaker
but you're looking at incorporating, um, storyline.
00:15:54
Speaker
Yep.
00:15:54
Speaker
You're looking at incorporating, uh, call outs.
00:15:57
Speaker
You're looking at incorporating, um, incorporating the, the LCD you're looking at clips.
00:16:05
Speaker
So, so everything goes together to tell the story of a pinball machine, which can be quite challenging.
00:16:11
Speaker
Very.
00:16:12
Speaker
So they, they kind of drove that fact home with licensing.
00:16:17
Speaker
Right.
00:16:17
Speaker
And they said another hard part too is, um,
00:16:22
Speaker
you're dealing with people that might not necessarily what your product is, even though they're like, they're trying to give you a license to product.
00:16:28
Speaker
Uh, one of the stories was, and this is a really old story.
00:16:31
Speaker
You know, Gary showed up in New York and a high rise skyscraper.
00:16:35
Speaker
And the licensor guy is like, who is this guy?
00:16:39
Speaker
Cause he had, he had a play field.
00:16:41
Speaker
He had half a play field.
00:16:43
Speaker
And he's like, who is this guy in my office with this piece of wood?
00:16:46
Speaker
You know, and Gary's trying to explain what a pinball machine is to this guy.
00:16:50
Speaker
It's just, it's,
00:16:52
Speaker
It's a very complex product.
00:16:55
Speaker
And so after we talked about licensing, the other thing they really wanted to talk about was bill of materials because they see a lot of this going on in the community.
00:17:03
Speaker
The community makes speculation and bill of materials.
00:17:06
Speaker
They didn't give us fixed numbers.
00:17:08
Speaker
No.
00:17:08
Speaker
But I want you to imagine.
00:17:09
Speaker
They didn't give us a timeline, though.
00:17:11
Speaker
They did.
00:17:11
Speaker
So the timeline from start to finish is roughly two years.
00:17:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:15
Speaker
That's from acquiring license all the way up to the final product.
00:17:19
Speaker
And there was stops in there that, you know, basically initial approval, which level of code.
00:17:28
Speaker
And obviously these are guidelines.
00:17:30
Speaker
Yeah, it's very fluid as they put it.
00:17:32
Speaker
But there were 111 checkpoints.
00:17:35
Speaker
Is that what it was? 111.
00:17:37
Speaker
And it was for an upcoming project.
00:17:39
Speaker
So I think most of us were like, where's the name?
00:17:41
Speaker
Where's the name?
00:17:43
Speaker
And Gomez was scrolling so fast and everything.
00:17:45
Speaker
I didn't catch it.
00:17:46
Speaker
I did look.
00:17:46
Speaker
There wasn't anything.
00:17:47
Speaker
But this is probably a template, though.
00:17:49
Speaker
This is probably a template that they use for every game.
00:17:52
Speaker
Yeah, that's what they said.
00:17:54
Speaker
Gomez said this is like the standard form for a game being created.
00:17:58
Speaker
Because it makes sense.
00:18:00
Speaker
If you're going to be assembling a car or some complex thing, you're going to have to have
00:18:06
Speaker
uh, some sort of guidelines to get you from start to finish.
00:18:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:10
Speaker
So they talked about building materials and, and I think the problem is, is when we talk build materials, we've always seen it as the pinball machine itself, right?
00:18:17
Speaker
Like you look at it and you lump all this stuff together, but they said it's more like a pie chart.
00:18:22
Speaker
And I didn't write down all the pies, the pie slices in the pie chart, but they did licensing as one of the pies, the actual physical cost of the pinball machine, the wood, the screws.
00:18:33
Speaker
And so they talked about how these numbers – you get a general idea of what the final number is.
00:18:40
Speaker
But then there's other varying factors.
00:18:42
Speaker
So they brought up Beatles.
00:18:43
Speaker
There's only 1,964 as requested by the Beatles.
00:18:48
Speaker
And so all of a sudden that cost becomes different because you're not selling as great a potential as it could get, right?
00:18:57
Speaker
If you sold 10,000 of a game.
00:18:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:59
Speaker
So the way I look at it is –
00:19:02
Speaker
there is, I mean, it's a, it's a very old analogy that we learned in engineering.
00:19:06
Speaker
Like how much does it cost to build one stealth flight fighter?
00:19:10
Speaker
Okay.
00:19:11
Speaker
And the answer is like a billion dollars.
00:19:13
Speaker
It's a crazy mountain.
00:19:14
Speaker
The question is, okay, how much does it require to build two stealth fighters?
00:19:19
Speaker
It's like,
00:19:21
Speaker
1.1 billion.
00:19:22
Speaker
And so like, obviously each subsequent thing that comes off, your initial investment is going to be divided over multiple things and including the license.
00:19:33
Speaker
Now, obviously they're not going to tell us more about how the licenses work, but my take, but tell me if you think this is wrong, there seems to be like a minimum amount that they have to meet
00:19:46
Speaker
to get a license.
00:19:47
Speaker
And so, okay, this isn't a made up number here, but let's just say it's a million dollars.
00:19:51
Speaker
Like regardless if they sell one machine, if they sell a thousand machines, they're still going to at least pay the initial million dollars.
00:19:59
Speaker
And then each machine that goes out also has a licensing tag to it.
00:20:05
Speaker
So each machine, you're still going to be paying the licensing fee with every machine, but that initial startup cost probably gets divided over more machines if you have a higher volume.
00:20:16
Speaker
Is that how you took it?
00:20:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:17
Speaker
And it reminds me of, so I used to book concerts and as a, as a, uh, a producer or the promoter, uh, we had to guarantee the band a certain amount of money.
00:20:27
Speaker
Yep.
00:20:28
Speaker
And then once you hit a certain threshold, I think it was like, uh, like a 50, 50 or whatever.
00:20:33
Speaker
Once you got over that 50%, then you owe them a certain percentage of each ticket sold after that.
00:20:38
Speaker
Right.
00:20:38
Speaker
So it's kind of same concept.
00:20:41
Speaker
The other intro, the one that I really had never thought of tooling.
00:20:45
Speaker
So tooling is the process of when they, you know, like Mechagodzilla, you it's making a specific mold for the game.
00:20:54
Speaker
that uh i it's it's own cost right tooling itself because they they have to make the mold then they ship it off to they have two different companies so that way if if something's catastrophic happens with one of the companies they can still get parts so there's always two companies for every one product they make and the interesting part gomez had brought up too he's like
00:21:16
Speaker
There's certain things like the Star Trek insignia.
00:21:19
Speaker
I can't use that on anything else besides Star Trek.
00:21:21
Speaker
It's basically game-specific tooling.
00:21:25
Speaker
But he talked about, I want to say it was the kickback on Foo Fighters that Jack Danger did.
00:21:30
Speaker
It was like a star thing.
00:21:31
Speaker
I don't know if it was the kickback or if it was just...
00:21:35
Speaker
some sort of, it was basically a pattern.
00:21:38
Speaker
Just think of it as like a, you know, if you're making cookies and you have a pattern that you can cut out different things, if you're making one that's round,
00:21:47
Speaker
you can use that for multiple different cookies.
00:21:50
Speaker
If you're making one that looks like Santa Claus, you can only use it for Christmas.
00:21:53
Speaker
Exactly.
00:21:54
Speaker
Perfect.
00:21:54
Speaker
Perfect example.
00:21:56
Speaker
And so the cost ends up being a little bit different on those because if it's game specific, they have to include it in Star Trek.
00:22:02
Speaker
There's no ifs, ands, or buts.
00:22:03
Speaker
But if you can use it across multiple games, Stern can kind of absorb that cost because it's like, well, this is an investment into the future, right?
00:22:11
Speaker
So your response, again, this is us just breaking it down.
00:22:15
Speaker
You're responsible for 25% of this.
00:22:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:17
Speaker
You know, just something that can be used for other things.
00:22:20
Speaker
Okay.
00:22:20
Speaker
The Black Knight mech, you can only use that in the Black Knight.
00:22:24
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:22:25
Speaker
So you're going to spend a lot more on that versus, you know, a pop bumper, a cap or something like that.
00:22:33
Speaker
So that was very eyeopening and different.
00:22:37
Speaker
They didn't give us a ton of specifics on that.
00:22:39
Speaker
Then we talked about insider connected.
Insider Connected & Future Features
00:22:42
Speaker
They threw out some really cool numbers there.
00:22:44
Speaker
Um, just,
00:22:46
Speaker
Insider Connected is about community growth.
00:22:48
Speaker
22, they didn't give us a specific number, but they said it was half, about 23 million users.
00:22:56
Speaker
Or no, sorry, half of 36 million.
00:22:59
Speaker
And then 23, it was 36 million, 24, 50 million.
00:23:03
Speaker
They hope to be, this is, that was how many plays were done, recorded through Insider Connected.
00:23:10
Speaker
Insider Connected.
00:23:11
Speaker
And they're aiming for over 100 million plays.
00:23:14
Speaker
Was it this year or next year?
00:23:16
Speaker
Well, I think in the future.
00:23:17
Speaker
But if you looked at, because they broke it down by month.
00:23:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:21
Speaker
And you looked at the size of the stack.
00:23:22
Speaker
So they stacked them up next to each other.
00:23:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:25
Speaker
And it did show that they're, okay, we all know that Stern's games are going to be played more than other games.
00:23:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:32
Speaker
Right?
00:23:33
Speaker
And even though when we interviewed George Gomez, he talked about having like the biggest footprint in arcades.
00:23:40
Speaker
To be fair, I'm not exactly sure how you would know that because each arcade is a little different.
00:23:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:45
Speaker
But it makes sense that you're going to be using something that can have more and more of a footprint with each game that comes out.
00:23:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:55
Speaker
And he even talked about just for operators out there, like some big requests that he gets.
00:24:01
Speaker
They get to talk about home leaderboards.
00:24:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:04
Speaker
Okay.
00:24:04
Speaker
And they did talk about using AWS, that's Amazon's cloud processing stuff.
00:24:12
Speaker
And he talked about the cost associated with, there's obviously you're paying a volume thing.
00:24:19
Speaker
So you have the locations which are X amount, but if you home locations are
00:24:25
Speaker
significantly more locations than game locations.
00:24:28
Speaker
And so in order to include that, they would, they would have to spend a lot more money on Amazon.
00:24:35
Speaker
Now, this is something he was talking about, like in conceptual stuff.
00:24:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:40
Speaker
But there is a possibility that that will cost more over time.
00:24:44
Speaker
And so perhaps that could be an add on component that you could
00:24:49
Speaker
purchase or invest on your own.
00:24:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:52
Speaker
But they, he said it wouldn't be cost effective for them to store all the leaderboards for every single location, like every home location.
00:25:00
Speaker
Well, and Gary made it very clear too, that when we talk about, cause they, they said, so they said,
00:25:07
Speaker
Insider Connected the way it exists right now will always be free.
00:25:11
Speaker
Everything you have right now at this moment will be what's included with your game.
00:25:15
Speaker
But they talked about later on, like the services you're talking about could be an added expense.
00:25:21
Speaker
And it's not just, he talked about like, cause we're like, well, it's just server space.
00:25:24
Speaker
And Gary's like, it's a little more complex than that because it's not just like we can create a server room in the back room and put some fans on and call it good.
Company Culture & John Wick Review
00:25:31
Speaker
No, there's privacy problems.
00:25:32
Speaker
There's licensing problems.
00:25:33
Speaker
They did bring up the privacy thing, which I thought was interesting, that they had to do everything to comply with laws to make sure there were some privacy concerns.
00:25:42
Speaker
Oh, yeah, they did talk about the FCC and stuff like that.
00:25:45
Speaker
It's not just like starting something up in your backyard and calling it good.
00:25:48
Speaker
It's not like starting Facebook 15 years ago where you invest all your personal information into some random algorithm.
00:25:56
Speaker
So they talked about that.
00:25:59
Speaker
They talked about the teams that they pick, right?
00:26:02
Speaker
And they said that the biggest thing...
00:26:04
Speaker
I don't know how they haven't turned this into like peds.
00:26:07
Speaker
Maybe it sounds terrible, but passion, experience, discipline, and sweat.
00:26:12
Speaker
That's what they use to create these teams.
00:26:15
Speaker
And Gomez had brought up the fact that, you know, he cut his teeth at Williams, right?
00:26:19
Speaker
And very much it was like gangs there.
00:26:21
Speaker
It was team against team.
00:26:22
Speaker
Where in Stern, they wanted to get rid of that.
00:26:24
Speaker
It's cooperative.
00:26:25
Speaker
It's very cooperative.
00:26:26
Speaker
Everyone plays each other's games.
00:26:28
Speaker
They all give each other advice.
00:26:30
Speaker
It's very much hands-on.
00:26:31
Speaker
with everyone that's on deck.
00:26:32
Speaker
Right.
00:26:33
Speaker
He said, dump the bat, dump the bad stuff that happened at Williams.
00:26:36
Speaker
Keep the good stuff.
00:26:37
Speaker
Yep.
00:26:37
Speaker
And it, it did actually seem like people were very cooperative in their approach to games.
00:26:43
Speaker
Yes.
00:26:44
Speaker
Every, he said, everybody plays each other's games, which I think the not so subtle message is at Williams, they were secretive.
00:26:52
Speaker
Yes.
00:26:52
Speaker
So that's not what's happening here.
00:26:55
Speaker
So, and I think this brings up a really interesting point of the fact that, uh,
00:27:01
Speaker
Most jobs, it's essentially you apply for the job, right?
00:27:03
Speaker
They give them the resume.
00:27:04
Speaker
You're qualified.
00:27:05
Speaker
You go in.
00:27:06
Speaker
You're good to go, right?
00:27:08
Speaker
At Stern, they're building a team.
00:27:10
Speaker
It's literally like a baseball team, right?
00:27:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:13
Speaker
You always hear about there's the one dude in the locker room that's creating a bad presence.
00:27:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:17
Speaker
They're looking for good.
00:27:18
Speaker
good people that are working together for the better of the team.
00:27:23
Speaker
And so I think that's where Stern has an advantage because this community is so filled with people that are passionate about this product.
00:27:30
Speaker
And so they get to kind of handpick those that they feel like would good for their team.
00:27:33
Speaker
And we just saw it with Derek that came from new England.
00:27:36
Speaker
Uh, he was over a Pintastic there on the East coast.
00:27:39
Speaker
It was great to see him there.
00:27:42
Speaker
There was a gentleman, I can't remember his name, but they said that he shot his shot back at Expo.
00:27:47
Speaker
He brought in his resume and gave it to the team there.
00:27:50
Speaker
He just got hired four days ago.
00:27:52
Speaker
Yeah, he said, I'm graduating and I want to work.
00:27:54
Speaker
Yep.
00:27:55
Speaker
And so it's cool that they are constantly, they have an open mind to people that are willing to put themselves out in the community and show that they exist and their special skill sets, right?
00:28:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:06
Speaker
So they did talk about that.
00:28:06
Speaker
So if you're looking for a job with Stern,
00:28:09
Speaker
We might know a couple people, right?
00:28:13
Speaker
It's just some other little tidbits.
00:28:15
Speaker
They did 93 code updates last year, which was impressive.
00:28:20
Speaker
Gary Stern says one of the biggest mottos that have ever stuck is his dad, so we called him Papa Stern.
00:28:26
Speaker
Papa Stern, yeah.
00:28:28
Speaker
Every game finds its home.
00:28:30
Speaker
That's kind of a philosophy that they deal with these licenses and whatnot.
00:28:32
Speaker
Which actually makes sense when you think about, we've talked before about the advantages of having different products.
00:28:39
Speaker
So if people just want an entry-level pro game, they can get that and they can put it in.
00:28:45
Speaker
But you can also spend two, two and a half times at what a pro is and get a very customized and fancy version of the same game.
00:28:57
Speaker
And there are different markets for each one.
00:29:00
Speaker
So we finished up the conference, right?
00:29:05
Speaker
We went to go play John Wick.
00:29:07
Speaker
The interesting part at this point, besides seeing John Wick on the line, we really needed to talk about John Wick up to this point.
00:29:13
Speaker
There was no, like, this is how you're going to sell it.
00:29:16
Speaker
Like, this is, you know what I'm saying?
00:29:17
Speaker
There was this perception of, they're bringing us in here to tell us how to talk about this game.
00:29:23
Speaker
And that wasn't the case at all.
00:29:24
Speaker
But it...
00:29:26
Speaker
Okay.
00:29:27
Speaker
We have suspected that the reason why they did this is because John Wick sales haven't been what they want to be.
00:29:33
Speaker
So in many ways, they start with a overarching view of what the pinball marketing manufacturing is.
00:29:44
Speaker
And then it seemed like the second phase was, okay, now let's introduce you to John Wick because the only thing that most of us had had exposure to was the
00:29:55
Speaker
pictures, maybe some video, maybe some online play.
00:29:58
Speaker
And if you have played the game, it was more likely the pro.
00:30:01
Speaker
And when they had those games all set up, they were all premiums.
00:30:03
Speaker
They were all premiums.
00:30:04
Speaker
We did get to see one LE.
00:30:05
Speaker
So at this time, you know, they were trying to rush us in to play the game.
00:30:09
Speaker
And the funny part is Gary's like, whoa, hold on.
00:30:11
Speaker
We've been going at this.
00:30:12
Speaker
It was like three plus hours at this point.
00:30:14
Speaker
The bathroom's over there.
00:30:15
Speaker
The bathrooms are right there.
00:30:16
Speaker
Let's take a 10-minute break.
00:30:17
Speaker
And so then they shuffled half of us in the back with Tim Sexton and Ellie Eisman, the designer and the lead coder on this game.
00:30:24
Speaker
They had us all stand around in LE.
00:30:27
Speaker
And, and Tim told us about the code and the excitement for where they're going with it.
00:30:31
Speaker
Um, and so that was cool.
00:30:33
Speaker
We weren't in the first group.
00:30:34
Speaker
Uh, we ended up hanging back.
00:30:36
Speaker
I had some, uh, some personal stuff that had to be resolved.
00:30:40
Speaker
Nothing stupid, but it was, I exchanged a shirt.
00:30:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:44
Speaker
Not to make this sound all dramatic.
00:30:45
Speaker
Right.
00:30:46
Speaker
Uh, but, uh, they were very nice on helping with that.
00:30:49
Speaker
And, uh, we sat back and we played John wick.
00:30:52
Speaker
Uh, what quick thoughts?
00:30:54
Speaker
What'd you think of the game?
00:30:56
Speaker
Okay.
00:30:58
Speaker
It was much better than I thought it was going to be.
00:31:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:01
Speaker
The pictures.
00:31:03
Speaker
we all kind of default to the same thing.
00:31:05
Speaker
Okay.
00:31:06
Speaker
It's a fan layout.
00:31:07
Speaker
Uh, and I know we claimed it'd be, I know Dennis will say it's all family else.
00:31:11
Speaker
It's not, uh, but, uh, they, there are only certain shots that you can hit from two flippers.
00:31:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:17
Speaker
Okay.
00:31:17
Speaker
And so, but the degree at which the ball interacts and the way it moved, I thought that center shot was going to be a lot harder.
00:31:25
Speaker
It's still a hard shot.
00:31:27
Speaker
Oh, it's a hard shot.
00:31:27
Speaker
It's skinny.
00:31:28
Speaker
It's skinny.
00:31:29
Speaker
Um,
00:31:31
Speaker
But feed it more of that Chicago deep dish pizza.
00:31:33
Speaker
Widen, widen that shot.
00:31:35
Speaker
Okay.
00:31:37
Speaker
But I, it was a, it was a lot faster, but fair.
00:31:43
Speaker
Yes.
00:31:43
Speaker
Then I thought it was going to be.
00:31:45
Speaker
And it was, it was really entertaining that the ball path movements, all the little things you could do.
00:31:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:51
Speaker
And seeing the difference between the pro and the premium,
00:31:55
Speaker
Really, if you would be happy with buying any version of this game.
00:32:00
Speaker
There's not a version that's like, oh, go ahead and avoid.
00:32:05
Speaker
I would really lean toward if you're thinking about it.
00:32:09
Speaker
I actually was not thinking about this game.
00:32:11
Speaker
Yeah, me either.
00:32:12
Speaker
At all.
00:32:12
Speaker
It just wasn't thinking about it.
00:32:14
Speaker
However, the Pro was really fun.
00:32:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:18
Speaker
And the premium has a very similar.
00:32:20
Speaker
I described it like Metallica.
00:32:25
Speaker
where a Pro and a Premium Metallica have a very similar feel.
00:32:30
Speaker
And there's a few more bells and whistles in the Premium, but you will not feel like you've missed the boat if you just go with a Pro.
00:32:40
Speaker
You know, it's not like Godzilla where the building goes up and down.
00:32:46
Speaker
That would be a big part of the game.
00:32:48
Speaker
This felt like the shot selection was very similar.
00:32:51
Speaker
And the vibe of the game was really good.
00:32:53
Speaker
Yeah, it really is.
00:32:55
Speaker
And I think really, if you are in the market for a John Wick, play both versions.
Upgrades & Economic Logic in Design
00:33:01
Speaker
I feel like the briefcase...
00:33:04
Speaker
you're either going to love it or you're going to hate it.
00:33:06
Speaker
Right.
00:33:06
Speaker
I mean, it pushes the shot into the play field by like what, two and a half, three inches.
00:33:10
Speaker
It's a pretty big shot.
00:33:11
Speaker
It contracts it, but it, it opens and shuts a lot.
00:33:14
Speaker
True.
00:33:16
Speaker
Yeah, and so it's weird, though, because it was like, if you are going to the right out lane, it's almost like no saving it because the briefcase is kind of blocking.
00:33:25
Speaker
It's weird.
00:33:26
Speaker
I don't know, but overall, it's a good game.
00:33:27
Speaker
It didn't feel like a drain.
00:33:28
Speaker
I actually didn't feel like it was a drain monster.
00:33:31
Speaker
I felt the left out lane was kind of gone.
00:33:33
Speaker
Okay, the left out lane, we lost a lot of balls through that.
00:33:35
Speaker
So...
00:33:36
Speaker
But I think if you really get out and play this game, seriously, like it's not what I first expected it to be.
00:33:44
Speaker
Don't judge it on the code because the codes.
00:33:46
Speaker
It's too early.
00:33:46
Speaker
It's too early.
00:33:47
Speaker
Okay.
00:33:47
Speaker
This is another funny part too.
00:33:48
Speaker
I got to hurry and toss this in there.
00:33:50
Speaker
So Dwight's giving us the tour, right?
00:33:52
Speaker
Gary's standing there and Dwight's like, you know, there's things that make me nervous.
00:33:56
Speaker
And one of the things that makes me nervous is when we go to launch the code and they ask me where it's at.
00:34:02
Speaker
And I tell him 0.8, even though in my heart of hearts, I know it's 0.7.
00:34:06
Speaker
Okay.
00:34:06
Speaker
And then Gary's like, well, honestly, though, code's all subjective.
00:34:09
Speaker
So, like, really, the number is kind of a placeholder.
00:34:13
Speaker
They're going to tinker with the code.
00:34:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:15
Speaker
So this is at 0.8, 0.81.
00:34:17
Speaker
It felt a little earlier.
00:34:20
Speaker
It felt a little earlier.
00:34:21
Speaker
I can see where they're heading, and I like it.
00:34:25
Speaker
No, it's good.
00:34:26
Speaker
And the...
00:34:28
Speaker
really the vibe of playing it, even from the Pro to the premium to the LE, the speaker lights and the expression lighting, that was really immersive.
00:34:40
Speaker
If you felt that, if that's your thing, and okay, a big pro that they talked about is the expression lightings and the speaker lights are going to be available for upgrades, even for the Pro version, which they haven't done before.
00:34:56
Speaker
My speculation is that
00:34:58
Speaker
They buy in bulk and they get a discount for buying in bulk and they are using the same template for pro premium and LE cabinets.
00:35:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:07
Speaker
It makes a lot more sense not to be pigeonholed into two cabinet designs.
00:35:14
Speaker
Yep.
00:35:14
Speaker
So having the option there.
00:35:15
Speaker
And if you're going to get another $800 from someone who wants the speaker light upgrade, and I don't really know what the expression lights are going to be costing, but
00:35:26
Speaker
you know, 500 to $800 to upgrade that.
00:35:29
Speaker
And you can put a top around too.
00:35:31
Speaker
So they're not pigeonholing you to prevent you from putting more money into your game if you get the pro.
00:35:38
Speaker
So after we do our whole John Wick thing, they give us a swag bag, a shirt, jacket, fanny pack full of
Stern's Hospitality & Operations Insight
00:35:46
Speaker
$10 a quarters.
00:35:47
Speaker
They're telling us after dinner.
00:35:49
Speaker
And translate.
00:35:50
Speaker
They did do a signed translate.
00:35:52
Speaker
A signed translate.
00:35:53
Speaker
And this really cool room that they set up, it's called their showroom.
00:35:56
Speaker
It's where they're going to be streaming from.
00:35:58
Speaker
It's essentially like a marriage between like a swag shop.
00:36:01
Speaker
a pinball alley, a bar and your living room.
00:36:05
Speaker
Like it's just, it was, it was a really cool hangout.
00:36:08
Speaker
Yes.
00:36:08
Speaker
It'd be like the ultimate, like, like hang cave, like a pinball cave would be great.
00:36:14
Speaker
I actually took pictures cause I'm looking at doing some stuff in my basement soon.
00:36:19
Speaker
So, um,
00:36:22
Speaker
Moving on.
00:36:23
Speaker
So we get to play the game.
00:36:24
Speaker
They get us dinner.
00:36:25
Speaker
It was very nice.
00:36:26
Speaker
Deep dish pizza and portellos, whatever, you know.
00:36:29
Speaker
And then they took us to Logan Arcade.
00:36:31
Speaker
They're by party bus.
00:36:34
Speaker
And we got there, played more games out there, just chilled, had fun, rubbed shoulders all night with the stern executives.
00:36:42
Speaker
And then at 10 o'clock, the bus was coming back.
00:36:45
Speaker
If you had a ride, you could stay.
00:36:47
Speaker
But if you wanted to go back, you could hop on the bus.
00:36:49
Speaker
I was tired.
00:36:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:50
Speaker
Yeah, we were both tired.
00:36:51
Speaker
And then it's funny because it gets back to Stern.
00:36:53
Speaker
It's like 11 o'clock at night.
00:36:56
Speaker
And for some odd reason, we go back into Stern.
00:36:58
Speaker
Some people left their stuff.
00:36:59
Speaker
Oh, people left stuff in Stern.
00:37:00
Speaker
And we all kind of walked in and we're like, let's play some more.
00:37:03
Speaker
So we stayed for until midnight till finally the cleaning lady's like, you've got to go.
00:37:07
Speaker
Like, it's time.
00:37:09
Speaker
So we left.
00:37:11
Speaker
And that was kind of the wrap up.
00:37:12
Speaker
I mean, you can kind of see the aftermath on Don's pinball podcast.
00:37:16
Speaker
He did a late show last night.
00:37:19
Speaker
it, it was, it was an amazing, almost 12 hours of just being, as Gomez put it, invited into his home and they were very hospitable.
00:37:29
Speaker
They were, you know, great hosts.
00:37:32
Speaker
I guess my takeaway from all of this is,
00:37:36
Speaker
I feel like I have a better understanding of how things work at Stern.
00:37:39
Speaker
I feel like I got to really scratch the surface and be let in, maybe not 100%, right?
00:37:47
Speaker
There were still walls up because there's obviously stuff they don't want us to know.
00:37:49
Speaker
There's stuff that is still in development.
00:37:51
Speaker
But it was very much like...
00:37:54
Speaker
being honest and upfront with us and they didn't turn down from any of our questions that we asked.
00:37:59
Speaker
Uh, it was, it was very good overall.
00:38:01
Speaker
Um, I guess one question I did ask, uh, was Dwight when, um, I said, so how do you guys produce?
00:38:08
Speaker
Cause you know, one of the biggest things is leaks and my, my, my mind goes straight to, well, who makes the prototype games?
00:38:14
Speaker
Because if you're trying to avoid leaks, uh,
00:38:17
Speaker
you wouldn't want to do in this factory where everyone's building them.
00:38:19
Speaker
Cause they're out in the open.
00:38:19
Speaker
Essentially.
00:38:20
Speaker
They don't make them there.
00:38:21
Speaker
They like, they assemble them in a small room somewhere else.
00:38:24
Speaker
So he said that actually they do use the floor there, but they pretty much locked down the factory.
00:38:28
Speaker
Like no one in.
00:38:29
Speaker
Well, I mean, obviously people go home, but like, there's no tours.
00:38:32
Speaker
There's no.
00:38:34
Speaker
And so that was interesting to me.
00:38:37
Speaker
Overall.
00:38:37
Speaker
I just, I felt like it was a really good trip.
00:38:39
Speaker
And like, and I appreciate Stern bringing us out and everything they've done for us on this.
00:38:45
Speaker
It was, it was,
00:38:46
Speaker
really guys, you should be giving them the benefit of the doubt.
00:38:49
Speaker
And the reason I say that's because, and I would argue the same thing with all manufacturers.
00:38:53
Speaker
Yes.
00:38:54
Speaker
Like not all manufacturers are created equal, not all, not all.
00:38:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:00
Speaker
They're, they all have different hangups and they're in the level that you're expecting from Stern.
00:39:06
Speaker
You know, the, the second, so Stern is the top.
00:39:11
Speaker
We know that just volume wise and just the organization,
00:39:14
Speaker
You know, you then you then you get into other other things that are producing great products and they're they're on that that second level.
00:39:22
Speaker
And then you're getting a little more into the hobbyist types.
00:39:26
Speaker
So they all have different things that are working on.
00:39:28
Speaker
But I would say the approach is going to be very similar from manufacturer to manufacturer.
00:39:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:33
Speaker
And some weather the storm better than others.
00:39:36
Speaker
And I think the other thing too is I'm realizing this more after the last four weeks between us sitting down with Davey, talking first impressions with John Wick, sitting down with Gomez and talking with him and then having this conference with Seth Davis, Gary Stern, George Gomez.
00:39:51
Speaker
They're all in this room or locked in a room with them for like an hour and a half.
00:39:56
Speaker
The more I'm realizing is I think the problem is, is there's a perception that Stern is a very big company because they're dealing with these licenses are on a massive scale.
00:40:04
Speaker
Right.
00:40:06
Speaker
But I'm realizing more and more, it's still kind of mom and pop.
00:40:11
Speaker
It's, it's a higher level, but it's still, you know, these are enthusiasts.
00:40:15
Speaker
They're just as excited about the product as we are.
Stern's Innovation & Workforce Dynamics
00:40:19
Speaker
And they're still trying to figure this out.
00:40:21
Speaker
I mean, really think about it.
00:40:22
Speaker
When we're talking about Gomez with Gomez, he said he wasn't brought on full time till like ACDC come out.
00:40:28
Speaker
Gary was still doing this kind of subcontracting out and it wasn't till things started to really pick up at the beginning in 2010s.
00:40:35
Speaker
And so it's made me realize like,
00:40:38
Speaker
this is all brand new regardless for this last 15 years is something that hasn't been done in pinball before because of the home market well to this level to this level to this level because you know you're gonna get the you know the gollies from the past you're gonna get harry williams you're gonna get all that kind of you know when they were making you know 50 000 games but they were very basic game then you this the hoops they have to jump through for these games yeah
00:41:03
Speaker
it's not even compared to what they went through for Humpty Dumpty.
00:41:06
Speaker
They didn't have to go to the licensor of Humpty Dumpty and make sure he sat on the wall.
00:41:11
Speaker
But I think the process, the thing that you need to take away from this is they're just as excited about this as we are, but it's, it's kind of uncharted territory.
00:41:19
Speaker
They're still waiting through to figure a lot of this out.
00:41:23
Speaker
And so there's from what can be from a community standpoint of like obvious answers and a lot of keyboard warriors saying, Hey, this is how it should be.
00:41:31
Speaker
because I work in marketing or I do this and that, you know, there's just not, some of it feels like there's straight answers.
00:41:38
Speaker
Like, no, this is just like cut and dry.
00:41:40
Speaker
But after hearing yesterday, there's a lot of gray area in a lot of this where it's like, well, you know, you guys are doing the best that you can.
00:41:48
Speaker
And a lot of the aspects may not all of it.
00:41:50
Speaker
Like I will definitely agree with that.
00:41:52
Speaker
but there's just no weird conspiracy of like life brand style equals world domination.
00:42:00
Speaker
Like I've, I've literally heard that over the last four weeks of like, yeah.
00:42:05
Speaker
Anyhow.
00:42:06
Speaker
Okay.
00:42:06
Speaker
Here's the bottom line.
00:42:08
Speaker
They are a company and their job is to sell pinball machines.
00:42:13
Speaker
Yep.
00:42:14
Speaker
And so it, it makes sense for them to try to reach,
00:42:19
Speaker
all audiences and not to stratify based on political ideologies because that that's not their business.
00:42:27
Speaker
Just a couple of things.
00:42:28
Speaker
There's, they said there was a 500 direct employees and 12,000 indirects when you add in all the subcontractors and the licensing and everything like that.
00:42:40
Speaker
So it does have, it is highly interconnected and you're,
00:42:46
Speaker
you're not going to get 12,000 people who agree on anything.
00:42:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:51
Speaker
But you can get 12,000 people to agree that they want to make a product and they want to sell it and they want to make some money.
00:42:56
Speaker
Yep.
00:42:58
Speaker
So I think overall, I think your bottom line hits it spot on.
Reflections & Gratitude
00:43:02
Speaker
Um,
00:43:03
Speaker
I got to wrap this up.
00:43:04
Speaker
I got honestly, we're actually jetting to the airport.
00:43:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:06
Speaker
So, um, I just want to do a quick shout out.
00:43:08
Speaker
It was great meeting all the content creators in person.
00:43:11
Speaker
Arcade Matt, if you're listening, dude, it was awesome to meet you.
00:43:14
Speaker
We had a great time talking with him.
00:43:15
Speaker
Um, electric bat was there, Kale and Rachel.
00:43:20
Speaker
I'm sorry.
00:43:20
Speaker
There was a Rachel, there was a Becca and there was a Rebecca.
00:43:23
Speaker
So I, I kind of got confused there for a second.
00:43:26
Speaker
Ian with Nudge Magazine.
00:43:28
Speaker
We had Don from Don's Pinball Podcast.
00:43:31
Speaker
Triple Rain guys.
00:43:32
Speaker
Triple Rain guys.
00:43:33
Speaker
Jeff Teolis.
00:43:34
Speaker
Jason Knapp.
00:43:35
Speaker
Dude, it was great to sit down and talk with you, dude.
00:43:39
Speaker
Awesome.
00:43:39
Speaker
And Colin.
00:43:40
Speaker
Colin from Kinesis slash This Week in Pinball.
00:43:42
Speaker
We've met before, dude.
00:43:44
Speaker
awesome guy.
00:43:44
Speaker
Like I know that sometimes he gets a short end of the stick in, in the media circle of things, but he's really, really good to sit down and talk with also Roper.
00:43:54
Speaker
Thank you for dealing with us all day.
00:43:55
Speaker
This is, this is a gentleman that works there at Stern and he was just awesome.
00:44:01
Speaker
Uh, one more shout out to the, the, I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name.
00:44:04
Speaker
It was a Ben.
00:44:05
Speaker
Something like the guy that makes the badges.
00:44:07
Speaker
So for your insider connected, you know those sweet badges that you're getting?
00:44:11
Speaker
He was the one that drew Gomez.
00:44:14
Speaker
So like when you got your Gomez badge.
00:44:15
Speaker
You talked to him.
00:44:16
Speaker
I didn't talk to him.
00:44:17
Speaker
Really, really nice dude.
00:44:19
Speaker
And he was just, he's so enthusiastic.
00:44:22
Speaker
This is what I love about Stern.
00:44:24
Speaker
And I would say this is probably with every pinball company.
00:44:27
Speaker
The enthusiasm level is through the roof with these employees.
00:44:31
Speaker
That's something I wish I had in my industry.
00:44:33
Speaker
When I work with my company, if I could find people that are, it's hard to get excited about heating and air conditioning, right?
00:44:39
Speaker
But that's the advantage that Stern has and all these manufacturers have.
00:44:42
Speaker
You get people that love, love pinball and it, it bleeds through in their personality and what they're saying.
00:44:50
Speaker
And it just, it's awesome.
00:44:52
Speaker
And so, uh, any other thoughts before I wrap this up and close this computer?
00:44:57
Speaker
No, I thought I, okay, the bottom line is they're trying to put forth the, the product that's going to sell to the most people.
00:45:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:05
Speaker
And they are dealing with constraints just like,
00:45:09
Speaker
any company is going to do, especially when you're dealing with the licensors that have a very jealous hold on the way their products is presented.
00:45:17
Speaker
Yep.
00:45:17
Speaker
Rightfully so.
00:45:18
Speaker
Or may not know exactly how their product has been presented in the past.
00:45:21
Speaker
We've learned that too.
00:45:24
Speaker
So if you're listening, still listening at this point, thanks for sticking around.
00:45:28
Speaker
And we will do another recap because we do want to talk about our feelings on John Wick.
00:45:34
Speaker
A quick summary.
00:45:35
Speaker
I'd say a thumbs up.
00:45:36
Speaker
Yeah, thumbs up.
00:45:36
Speaker
It's definitely it's it has a lot of potential and thumbs up for whatever level you want.
00:45:42
Speaker
There wasn't a level that I thought that you would.
00:45:45
Speaker
not like if you're on the fence a pro is a great option because you can buy that try it out and you could sell it on i really think personally speaking from a person within the community that that is very price conscious i think you're very very happy with the pro if this is a game that you are on the fence with right so go out and get it um
00:46:06
Speaker
If you want to get ahold of us, we're loser kid pinball podcast at gmail.com on all the socials.
00:46:11
Speaker
It's at loser kid pinball.
00:46:13
Speaker
Remember that's go on YouTube, like subscribe, all that jazz.
00:46:17
Speaker
Um,
00:46:20
Speaker
Oh, you know what?
00:46:20
Speaker
I keep forgetting to plug Silver Ball Swag slash Loser Kid.
00:46:24
Speaker
Playing a product there if you haven't got sweet shoes.
00:46:26
Speaker
And we wore our shoes today.
00:46:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:28
Speaker
Or yesterday.
00:46:28
Speaker
We wore them out.
00:46:29
Speaker
So hope to see you guys soon and hope to hear your feedback as well.
00:46:34
Speaker
Okay.
00:46:35
Speaker
And if you play John Wick, let us know.
00:46:37
Speaker
And if you have a different, I want to see how the tape changed between when you initially thought about it and then when you played it.
00:46:44
Speaker
Exactly.
00:46:45
Speaker
All right, man.
00:46:45
Speaker
See you soon.
00:46:46
Speaker
See you soon.
00:47:20
Speaker
you