Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Ep 127: Merry Christmas Crossover with Triple Drain
76 Plays2 years ago
Christmas has come early! We're hanging out with Triple Drain and shenanigans ensue!
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Crossover Collaboration
00:00:08
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in to the triple drain pinball podcast.
00:00:10
Speaker
This is episode number 46.
00:00:12
Speaker
I am Joel Engelberth with my co-captain as always.
00:00:15
Speaker
Scott Larson.
00:00:22
Speaker
Okay.
00:00:22
Speaker
Do our intro now.
00:00:26
Speaker
No.
00:00:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:00:27
Speaker
Oh, sorry.
00:00:28
Speaker
Sorry.
00:00:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:00:28
Speaker
Oh, uh,
00:00:33
Speaker
Tom, what do you have to say?
00:00:38
Speaker
I know there's always a screw up at the beginning.
00:00:41
Speaker
There's always a screw up and then Joel's like, never mind, I'm starting the show.
Mysterious Package and Podcasting Misconceptions
00:00:46
Speaker
We do have a big deal though.
00:00:49
Speaker
We have the last package.
00:00:51
Speaker
Oh, wow.
00:00:52
Speaker
We have the last package from Spooky.
00:00:55
Speaker
Big package.
00:00:56
Speaker
Big package.
00:00:58
Speaker
They sent us a package and it clearly stated, do not open it until after they release the game.
00:01:03
Speaker
So all the content creators got all these packages.
00:01:06
Speaker
We got ours too.
00:01:07
Speaker
We had to wait until the podcast, but we got it.
00:01:09
Speaker
I'm excited.
00:01:10
Speaker
I'm excited too.
00:01:12
Speaker
What do you guys think it is?
00:01:13
Speaker
It's the boss.
00:01:15
Speaker
Show the box.
00:01:16
Speaker
Show the box.
00:01:17
Speaker
Show the box.
00:01:20
Speaker
Oh, from spooky best wishes.
00:01:22
Speaker
It even says.
00:01:24
Speaker
With the hearts, yeah.
00:01:25
Speaker
Best wishes.
00:01:25
Speaker
Wow.
00:01:26
Speaker
Especially for you.
00:01:28
Speaker
That's so creepy.
00:01:29
Speaker
Especially if it's from like Texas Chainsaw.
00:01:31
Speaker
Yeah, I just get something from Texas Chainsaw.
00:01:32
Speaker
What's in the box?
00:01:36
Speaker
Wait, so when we talk about Spooky, are you saving it for then?
00:01:40
Speaker
No, we'll do it right after the intro.
00:01:42
Speaker
No, we're doing it right now.
00:01:43
Speaker
Oh, we're actually playing.
00:01:43
Speaker
I wasn't planning on playing the intro.
00:01:45
Speaker
I just thought, you know, out of respect.
00:01:47
Speaker
Oh, that's true.
00:01:48
Speaker
Because this is a crossover episode.
00:01:49
Speaker
It's a crossover episode.
00:01:50
Speaker
I'm telling you right now, I'm too lazy to mesh.
00:01:52
Speaker
So it's like multiverse.
00:01:53
Speaker
We're both on Triple Drain and Loser Kid at the same time.
00:01:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:57
Speaker
Crossovers don't work, Joel.
00:01:59
Speaker
Have you ever watched TV?
00:02:02
Speaker
It's just all that means Scott, Travis, Tom pinball.
00:02:05
Speaker
My whole effort guys has finally paid off the end of 2023.
00:02:10
Speaker
I've tried to get on loser kid now for like five years straight.
00:02:13
Speaker
And finally we're just meeting in the middle, you know, I'm like the little Ori.
00:02:18
Speaker
So you want me to open this now then?
00:02:19
Speaker
Well, here, so what I will say is for, this is a, this is how good we are at intros.
00:02:24
Speaker
If, if this is, if you're listening to this on the loser kid channel,
00:02:27
Speaker
Tom, Travis, and myself, we are Triple Drain.
00:02:30
Speaker
We're Triple Drain.
00:02:30
Speaker
You'll find us on TPN or vice versa.
00:02:32
Speaker
If you're hearing this on the Triple Drain podcast, Loser Kid is on.
00:02:36
Speaker
Scott and Josh with Loser Kid.
00:02:38
Speaker
Same episode, two places.
00:02:40
Speaker
If you really love us, feel free to listen to it in both spots.
00:02:45
Speaker
But welcome.
00:02:45
Speaker
Hopefully, it's a fun episode.
00:02:47
Speaker
We just wanted to team up and chat it up a little bit here at the end of the year, give everybody something fun to listen to over...
00:02:53
Speaker
holiday break so travis please open the box that's quick guesses what could be in the box uh i think it's the twirly chainsaw guy okay that's what i thought yeah leather face well it's not dripping so i'm not gonna say mystery meat yeah that'd be creepy okay we're gonna open it oh it's a piece of paper oh maybe like a design of the play field yeah maybe it's a treasure sketches
00:03:20
Speaker
I don't know.
00:03:21
Speaker
Okay.
00:03:22
Speaker
Is it a recipe?
00:03:23
Speaker
Is it a recipe?
00:03:27
Speaker
It's Michael Myers flipping off.
00:03:31
Speaker
It's Michael Myers flipping off.
00:03:34
Speaker
I thought we weren't talking about Halloween anymore.
00:03:36
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:03:38
Speaker
That is a solid bit entirely created by Travis Murray.
00:03:42
Speaker
The one, the only wearing the fake trees sweater.
00:03:46
Speaker
Nice.
00:03:47
Speaker
Yeah, man.
00:03:47
Speaker
Seriously.
00:03:49
Speaker
So what, fantastic.
00:03:52
Speaker
So there have, there's been a lot that's happened over the last few weeks.
00:03:54
Speaker
And, uh, one of the comments that I love reading is the fact that the majority of people that podcast only shill, we only speak positivity and we get money, we get money and we get a lot of cutbacks because clearly what we say impacts sales.
00:04:09
Speaker
So if we help sell games, then, you know, clearly we're all getting checks.
00:04:14
Speaker
I'm quitting my job next week.
00:04:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:17
Speaker
Tom and I are out of medicine.
00:04:18
Speaker
We're done.
00:04:20
Speaker
So, you know, it was comical, at least in the conversation in the background, because we're like, what are you talking about?
00:04:26
Speaker
Like, we don't.
00:04:27
Speaker
Halloween is a perfect example of a game that I'm pretty confident all five of us said our opinions on and they weren't particularly positive.
00:04:38
Speaker
Oh, you remember multimorphic gate?
00:04:40
Speaker
Oh, like two years ago now.
00:04:43
Speaker
Talking about that, American Pinball has kind of been GTF.
00:04:46
Speaker
We were all hyped on GTF.
00:04:48
Speaker
And now we're kind of... Well, when we talked about Texas afterwards, Texas, we're like, hey, how was that tank?
00:04:54
Speaker
How was that tank on everybody?
00:04:56
Speaker
Well, not only that, look at Expo.
00:04:58
Speaker
Like Expo, we walked away from that.
00:05:00
Speaker
I haven't heard a positive thing about Turner Pinball or about Pinball Adventures.
00:05:06
Speaker
I don't know how we're shilling for them.
00:05:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:09
Speaker
It's the eye of the beholder.
00:05:11
Speaker
What about Stern?
00:05:12
Speaker
The messaging that goes out.
00:05:14
Speaker
I haven't said very positive things about Venom.
00:05:17
Speaker
Oh, I heard Venom is just flying off the shelves thanks to us pinball podcasters.
Technical Issues and Community Dynamics
00:05:22
Speaker
Okay, so that's why we haven't got our checks.
00:05:24
Speaker
Because Venom hasn't sold.
00:05:27
Speaker
You four bozos need to help me sell more Venoms.
00:05:29
Speaker
That's what it is.
00:05:31
Speaker
I mean, I'm such a shill that they took clips of my stream.
00:05:34
Speaker
Stern took clips of my stream and used it as marketing material.
00:05:38
Speaker
Did I get a check?
00:05:40
Speaker
No.
00:05:40
Speaker
I'm not.
00:05:41
Speaker
i don't get anything hey travis's translate wasn't even signed oh yeah oh we're already going there well so for the listeners i don't know if you guys remember this on all access for stern this happened like two and a half years ago march of 2021 they put it out the iron maiden pro translate signed by i guess elwynn and the team right scott yeah so i'm not
00:06:03
Speaker
memory holding this like no no no and i still have it on unopened so i was surprised when i heard that travis opened his and found nothing i was like it's just a translate i'm looking i'm like where the f is like it was just michael myers flipping you off that's really okay it was keith elwin it was keith elwin with an iron maiden hat flipping you off oh my god yeah so i paid over
00:06:28
Speaker
God knows how much that was at the time, a hundred plus dollars.
00:06:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:32
Speaker
It wasn't too crazy, but it was, it was supposed to be for the game room.
00:06:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:35
Speaker
So I've had it in this, in the tube for two and a half years.
00:06:39
Speaker
I was waiting until I got settled in.
00:06:41
Speaker
I was going to put it up.
00:06:42
Speaker
I was all excited and,
00:06:44
Speaker
It's not there.
00:06:45
Speaker
I'm just like, what has happened here?
00:06:47
Speaker
We should probably try to see if Josh and Scott can get it signed by Keith.
00:06:51
Speaker
Because I'm pretty confident after our last episode, Keith might just be done.
00:06:54
Speaker
He might be done with us.
00:06:56
Speaker
He might be done with Triple Drain in general.
00:06:58
Speaker
I know you guys are listening.
00:07:00
Speaker
Please help me get my translate signed by the team.
00:07:03
Speaker
I paid for it.
00:07:04
Speaker
That's actually why we're doing a double crossover.
00:07:06
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:07:06
Speaker
We're like, we really, you know what, Travis, I will sign your Iron Maiden.
00:07:10
Speaker
Thank you.
00:07:11
Speaker
I appreciate it.
00:07:13
Speaker
No, another random side note here.
00:07:15
Speaker
Last week or last episode of Triple Drain was a malfunctioning mess in regards to Travis, which is a normal episode, but it was extremely, it was a whole nother level.
00:07:28
Speaker
And honestly, you know, the silver lining of that is Tom shined.
00:07:32
Speaker
Tom Graff was on his A-plus game.
00:07:35
Speaker
He crushed it.
00:07:36
Speaker
Him and Keith could have just, they were just hitting it off.
00:07:40
Speaker
What people don't realize, Joel, because I didn't realize none of my video came through at the end, that I was sitting there, the whole entire backside of the episode.
00:07:49
Speaker
Like, no, I was on the screen with them.
00:07:52
Speaker
They just couldn't hear me because I was so delayed.
00:07:54
Speaker
But I was there.
00:07:55
Speaker
And so instead, it's just a static image.
00:07:58
Speaker
It's perfect.
00:07:59
Speaker
It was a good.
00:08:00
Speaker
Hey, Joel, I did everything I could.
00:08:01
Speaker
The bus was just you waving to us.
00:08:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:04
Speaker
So he was on the roof.
00:08:05
Speaker
I went down the street.
00:08:07
Speaker
I went to the garage.
00:08:08
Speaker
I went to the porch.
00:08:10
Speaker
The only thing Travis saw was at the end of the porthole, them looking down saying it rubs the lotion on the skin.
00:08:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:17
Speaker
I say the reason your guys' numbers are so high, it's because Travis has become a betting game.
00:08:21
Speaker
I don't know if you know this in the background.
00:08:22
Speaker
We've got a pool going.
00:08:23
Speaker
So the people at five minutes or less with El Gato No Signal, you're already out.
00:08:28
Speaker
That's a pretty big chunk of people leaving or getting knocked out in the first five minutes.
00:08:32
Speaker
Ten minutes is coming up.
00:08:33
Speaker
So, you know, we'll see what happens.
00:08:35
Speaker
He said he might have finally installed the utility he needs.
00:08:40
Speaker
I think I did it correct.
00:08:41
Speaker
So we will know.
00:08:42
Speaker
We will know in the next 20 minutes.
00:08:44
Speaker
It's 30 minutes.
00:08:45
Speaker
Right at 30 minutes is when it shuts out.
00:08:47
Speaker
It's so...
00:08:48
Speaker
But hey, okay, well, enough of the backstory of this mess.
Twippies Awards and Community Impact
00:08:52
Speaker
Yeah, topics.
00:08:53
Speaker
Let's talk about another mess.
00:08:55
Speaker
Another mess.
00:08:56
Speaker
Good transition, Travis.
00:08:56
Speaker
Nice transition.
00:08:57
Speaker
Look at that.
00:08:58
Speaker
Twippies, Twippies.
00:08:59
Speaker
We were recording this on Friday morning.
00:09:02
Speaker
Will with the Twippies just put out a statement that essentially there will not be a live show on
00:09:08
Speaker
at tpf so there is no live show sarah live ceremony for twippies at tpf um i think the plan is they're still gonna do it it's still gonna be online voting i think that voting opens next week there's still online voting now how they're gonna share those results whether or not it's a film segment or maybe a live uh table read stream kind of like what zach and greg did the first two years of the twippies
00:09:33
Speaker
Don't know.
00:09:34
Speaker
We'll have to wait and see on that.
00:09:36
Speaker
And then, well, we'll just start with that.
00:09:38
Speaker
So thoughts.
00:09:41
Speaker
I wanted to give a quick thought on this because I want to preface this too.
00:09:44
Speaker
I don't know why this really hasn't been discussed.
00:09:46
Speaker
I did get permission to talk about this.
00:09:48
Speaker
And you guys know about this in the background.
00:09:51
Speaker
So originally, before everything was shut down, I think this is what fed into the decision as well.
00:09:58
Speaker
There was a private message sent to the TWIP committee
00:10:01
Speaker
or Twippy, because Twip and Twippy are very much separate reading this thing.
00:10:06
Speaker
But there was a message from a private chat about a plan to have Chris win the award, like they were going to strive to have Chris, we're talking about Canadian's Pinball Podcast, Chris to win the award and make sure that Colin handed him the award, kind of as like, I'm rubbing it in your face.
00:10:24
Speaker
And then one of his followers had said, Be careful.
00:10:27
Speaker
I know.
00:10:28
Speaker
Had just said, just stab him when he does give you the award.
00:10:31
Speaker
And so I think that played into this.
00:10:34
Speaker
I think that's another reason to like when them when like it all got shut down, like when the content creator stuff, it got pushed to the side.
00:10:40
Speaker
I actually didn't hear this from the community.
00:10:42
Speaker
I had heard from other sources, too.
00:10:43
Speaker
There was then a plan to to hurt Colin coming up.
00:10:48
Speaker
And so I think this was part of the reason where they're like, you know what?
00:10:51
Speaker
We're just not going to do a live show and we're just going to record this because.
00:10:56
Speaker
It just it's getting out of control.
00:10:59
Speaker
And that's personally me.
00:11:01
Speaker
If you haven't listened to the Eclectic Glamour podcast, their last episode, it perfectly articulated all of this.
00:11:08
Speaker
I know that they knew about this in the background.
00:11:10
Speaker
They were trying to dance around it without releasing this information.
00:11:12
Speaker
But like I said, I did.
00:11:13
Speaker
I did get permission to talk about this.
00:11:15
Speaker
And so I don't know.
00:11:17
Speaker
I think I think this is why.
00:11:20
Speaker
This is why we're pulling the plug.
00:11:21
Speaker
It's not because of a particular podcaster or whatnot.
00:11:24
Speaker
It's because there's some crazies out there.
00:11:25
Speaker
And I have kids.
00:11:29
Speaker
I wouldn't want to go to one of these award shows and not come home to my kids.
00:11:34
Speaker
Yeah, it's well, people are just getting riled up.
00:11:38
Speaker
They obviously have nothing better to do at this point.
00:11:41
Speaker
It's just, yeah, it's too much toxicity around it.
00:11:44
Speaker
And I mean, everybody knows how I feel about award shows for us.
00:11:48
Speaker
Like, I think all of us content creators are knuckleheads, except for Tom.
00:11:51
Speaker
Tom's a beauty, but the rest of us.
00:11:53
Speaker
Yeah, it's like, I don't know.
00:11:55
Speaker
I've never understood award shows for us.
00:11:56
Speaker
And it's always been odd to me that we're attached to the same thing that manufacturers that are multimillion dollar companies,
00:12:03
Speaker
are attached to the same exact award show but you know like i told you guys before too like i try to see it from both ways as well why people are fully into this and that's perfectly fine for a lot of people this could be their world championship you know and that's that's perfectly fine too but yeah there's definitely a line that gets crossed when you start threatening that type of stuff that's fully crossing a line and you got to take every every threat seriously like you just you have to and that's just sadly that's the way the world works today
00:12:34
Speaker
Yeah, no, I think the last thing that TPF wants, the Twippies want, really anybody in pinball wants is an award show where you're trying to celebrate the good or the exciting, the great in pinball, the best of the best in pinball that somehow results in violence or aggression or, you know,
00:12:58
Speaker
some sort of protest or whatever.
00:13:01
Speaker
Like, it's just not even that it's, it's on top of that.
00:13:04
Speaker
It's that the drama outside of it exceeds like the actual, uh,
00:13:09
Speaker
award show.
00:13:10
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:13:10
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:13:11
Speaker
It's so niched down too.
00:13:13
Speaker
There's, there's only a small percentage of us that are even aware of the show.
00:13:17
Speaker
There's even a smaller percentage of us that even care about the show.
00:13:21
Speaker
They even want to go, you know what I mean?
00:13:22
Speaker
It's niched down so much.
00:13:23
Speaker
So it's like, why go through that headache?
00:13:26
Speaker
Because it's not easy putting on the shows either.
00:13:29
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:13:30
Speaker
It takes a lot of effort to do that.
00:13:32
Speaker
So it's kind of just weighing your return.
00:13:35
Speaker
Well, the nice part is like turn on your time.
00:13:37
Speaker
Twippy's actually like posted all their results for years now and they switched from actually how many votes were being published to a percentage thing.
00:13:43
Speaker
But the last time they published votes,
00:13:45
Speaker
There was a total of 2,800 votes for the biggest category.
00:13:48
Speaker
And that's total.
00:13:49
Speaker
I mean, that's small in pinball.
00:13:53
Speaker
Just giving you a snapshot onto sales, the vast majority of people who buy pinball machines or play pinball machines have no idea that this niche content creator stuff is even possible.
00:14:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:12
Speaker
And so like they don't know a lot of them just buy stuff.
00:14:15
Speaker
And OK, just think about this way.
00:14:17
Speaker
How many of you?
00:14:18
Speaker
I'll just pick out a random random man.
00:14:20
Speaker
How many of you know Def Leppard or know their songs?
00:14:23
Speaker
OK.
00:14:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:24
Speaker
Everybody.
00:14:25
Speaker
Right.
00:14:25
Speaker
OK.
00:14:26
Speaker
How many of you are members of their fan club and get emails and updates about what the band's doing right now?
00:14:34
Speaker
Very small, right?
00:14:35
Speaker
And so just think about that in percentage of how many people actually are playing pinball or associated with pinball versus even invested in.
00:14:45
Speaker
I don't want to undermine because I think it is valuable to say, hey, we recognize in this niche that there is a winner and there's someone who is putting out stuff that is helping the industry or helping our entertainment value.
00:15:01
Speaker
But you need to take that with perspective.
00:15:05
Speaker
Well, and just put it into perspective, too.
00:15:07
Speaker
We were talking about this behind the scenes.
00:15:09
Speaker
The active the active IFPA players right now.
00:15:13
Speaker
So this is if you've played one tournament in the last three years is forty two thousand five hundred.
00:15:19
Speaker
That's just tournament players.
00:15:20
Speaker
And if you if you take combined Stern, American Pinball, Spooky Pinball, CGC, all their followers, they have over a million followers combined to
00:15:31
Speaker
So really 2,800 votes is kind of a drop in the bucket.
00:15:35
Speaker
It's kind of, it's hard to put best content creator label on it when you're getting such a small snapshot of who's actually voting.
00:15:46
Speaker
Well, that's true.
00:15:47
Speaker
I'm just, I don't want to undermine the award either because I just think it needs to be taken.
00:15:53
Speaker
Like underplay it or minimize it.
00:15:55
Speaker
It doesn't matter at all because it obviously matters to some and some more than others.
00:16:01
Speaker
However, to just keep it in...
00:16:04
Speaker
I said this before in the background, you know, that pickup basketball game where a few people are way more aggressive than they probably should be.
00:16:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:13
Speaker
And where there's a broken nose or an elbow or threats of burning their house down or, you know, just whatever.
00:16:20
Speaker
That's why I put Travis on our team when we do those games.
00:16:22
Speaker
Right, right.
00:16:24
Speaker
No, but it's, you just need to remember what this is, why it's there and also social limits on people.
00:16:34
Speaker
There's a reason, like Josh says and Travis says, there's a reason why people threat online and whether or not that is intentional, you have no context.
00:16:46
Speaker
You have no information on how sincere this person is, if they are joking, if they are bonkers.
00:16:53
Speaker
And so you have to realize we need to be at least aware that this is going on.
00:16:57
Speaker
And if you don't think that that actually plays into the psyche of the organizers and the peace of mind and the entertainment value, then you're crazy.
00:17:07
Speaker
Well, I mean, let's go to the most sane person here.
00:17:10
Speaker
Tom, can you wrap this up?
00:17:15
Speaker
Overall thoughts?
00:17:16
Speaker
I mean, you're ranked real high on the IFPA.
00:17:18
Speaker
I mean, if you want to speak for all of them.
00:17:20
Speaker
This doesn't have anything to do with the IFPA.
00:17:23
Speaker
Yeah, this is not tournament.
00:17:25
Speaker
Twippy is not tournament pinball.
00:17:27
Speaker
And Travis is ranked higher than me anyways.
00:17:30
Speaker
But honestly, I...
00:17:35
Speaker
I honestly don't think it was a good idea that they got rid of the nominations.
00:17:44
Speaker
Okay.
00:17:45
Speaker
I mean, me personally.
00:17:46
Speaker
Sorry, my eyes are on my dog right now.
00:17:51
Speaker
But I...
00:17:54
Speaker
Obviously, it's caused a lot of drama in the hobby, and it's escalating, and now the Twippies are gone from TPF.
00:18:05
Speaker
So now you're going to watch a show that's not live.
00:18:09
Speaker
So unfortunately, some people are really concerned about a plastic trophy.
00:18:18
Speaker
I mean, and let's be honest, it's a plastic trophy.
00:18:24
Speaker
The same people have won it for the last, like, what, seven years?
00:18:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:29
Speaker
Let's move on.
00:18:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:31
Speaker
Six, whatever it is.
00:18:33
Speaker
These are important, Tom.
00:18:35
Speaker
What are you hugging, Travis?
00:18:36
Speaker
His degenerate trophy.
00:18:38
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:18:39
Speaker
This means more to me than anything else.
00:18:41
Speaker
Yeah, you're double zero.
00:18:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:43
Speaker
No, I...
00:18:44
Speaker
I totally get it.
00:18:46
Speaker
And the reality is, I mean, I just don't see the point of... Unfortunately, the media awards became a competition.
00:18:55
Speaker
And I don't see the point of that.
00:18:57
Speaker
I mean, none of us started podcasting to compete or claim that we're the best.
00:19:02
Speaker
I mean, honestly, we're doing a joint episode right now.
00:19:05
Speaker
And I hope the numbers come out equal.
00:19:07
Speaker
I mean, there's no... Triple Jane's not better than Loser Kid.
00:19:12
Speaker
I don't care.
00:19:13
Speaker
It's just...
00:19:14
Speaker
We just want to make sure... For the record, Loser Kid is better.
00:19:16
Speaker
For the record, Triple Train is better.
00:19:19
Speaker
I know, Travis, you really want to be a part of them, but it's just... I mean, but I can't speak for Josh or Scott, but I know I could speak for Joel and Travis.
00:19:28
Speaker
We don't do this for Trophy.
00:19:30
Speaker
We do this because it's something we like to do and it's fun.
00:19:34
Speaker
And we actually have slightly... Well, we... Okay, we have different focuses on each of our shows.
00:19:40
Speaker
And you have...
00:19:41
Speaker
two, okay.
00:19:43
Speaker
Of the three of you, you have two top level players, and then you also have Travis.
00:19:49
Speaker
Oh, got it.
00:19:55
Speaker
Okay.
00:19:56
Speaker
But Josh and I, we tend to be more of the fan side.
00:20:00
Speaker
We tend to get interviews.
00:20:01
Speaker
We tend to talk about things that are not the, the weekly things going on in pinball.
00:20:06
Speaker
We try to take a topic and talk about it.
00:20:08
Speaker
And so we have different approaches, but
00:20:11
Speaker
We legitimately, I think we probably have one of the most active text threads that I'm, that I'm associated with because we are talking all the time because we're friends.
00:20:21
Speaker
The five of us.
00:20:21
Speaker
Yes.
00:20:22
Speaker
Yes.
00:20:22
Speaker
And that's that.
00:20:23
Speaker
I don't know.
00:20:23
Speaker
That's my whole thing is honestly, what I would say is if you're a listener, thank you.
00:20:28
Speaker
Thank you.
00:20:29
Speaker
First and foremost for being a listener.
00:20:30
Speaker
But if you feel like, hey, you know, these these awards are important.
00:20:34
Speaker
These people need to be recognized for their work.
00:20:37
Speaker
You know, honestly, the best thing you can do is shoot us an email or message us on Facebook or Instagram.
00:20:44
Speaker
you know, share an episode like, Hey, I love this.
00:20:47
Speaker
Like that's the, like, that's, that's plenty.
00:20:50
Speaker
That's plenty of, of, of an award.
00:20:52
Speaker
If you think we need any sort of recognition recognition, because I know at least the five of us, we go to shows like to have people come up to us at shows and say, you know, they enjoy the podcast or, you know, thanks for doing it because you make car rides.
00:21:04
Speaker
a little shorter, you know, like that's what it's all about.
00:21:06
Speaker
And, and sure.
00:21:07
Speaker
I would love all five of us to have a trophy this year for whatever, but that's not the best team up, but we don't, we don't need it.
00:21:14
Speaker
I mean, um, I don't know.
00:21:16
Speaker
I just, it's weird.
00:21:17
Speaker
It's just a shame that the last two weeks have gone the way they have.
00:21:22
Speaker
I feel bad for literally everybody involved.
00:21:25
Speaker
You know, you had people like Lucas and Emoto that were pumped, ready to go, ready to present that live show is now done.
00:21:33
Speaker
Will's obviously making decisions that he thinks are the best for the community.
00:21:38
Speaker
Nobody's wanting to just tear this down.
00:21:40
Speaker
Same with Colin.
00:21:41
Speaker
I mean, and I understand Chris, Kaneda, he's upset.
00:21:44
Speaker
But when you share that frustration, when you share that anger to the public, hoping that they support you in that anger...
00:21:53
Speaker
you know, it's, you just, it festers and grows.
00:21:56
Speaker
And then all of a sudden that anger can become bigger than you ever thought it would be.
00:22:00
Speaker
And then people will get scared or hurt or intimate.
00:22:02
Speaker
Like, and I mean, we don't, I will, I will say I get it from the standpoint of the content creators that do care about an award.
00:22:11
Speaker
Like I get it because you look behind me.
00:22:13
Speaker
I care about competitive pinball.
00:22:15
Speaker
I play, I work hard at it to try to compete.
00:22:17
Speaker
I travel for it.
00:22:18
Speaker
So I get that.
00:22:20
Speaker
Hey, by the way, for people who aren't videoing, the humble brag is Travis just reached over to his gigantic award.
00:22:25
Speaker
He's got a lot of trophies.
00:22:27
Speaker
But the point being is that.
00:22:31
Speaker
There's plenty of people that play in pinball leagues, right?
00:22:34
Speaker
That have a ranking that don't care.
00:22:36
Speaker
Like they don't, they just want to drink beer.
00:22:38
Speaker
They just want to come have fun.
00:22:40
Speaker
And that's essentially what we are to the content creation world.
00:22:44
Speaker
And there's other people that want to try to be the high level player that want to try to win everything.
00:22:50
Speaker
And the Twippies is literally their world championship.
00:22:53
Speaker
That is.
00:22:54
Speaker
That's the way that I can make an equivalent of it.
00:22:57
Speaker
So yeah, it's a couple of things that go against each other, essentially, right?
00:23:01
Speaker
I mean, it's just like last year.
00:23:03
Speaker
I completely forgot we were even nominated.
00:23:05
Speaker
And then Joel, you had to come to the tournament room to remind me we were even presenting.
00:23:09
Speaker
Yeah, and you weren't there.
00:23:11
Speaker
Well, yeah, exactly.
00:23:12
Speaker
It's like, cause he was competing for another, right?
00:23:15
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:23:17
Speaker
Which he thought he could win that one.
00:23:20
Speaker
And Carl messed it up for me.
00:23:22
Speaker
Okay.
00:23:22
Speaker
Thanks Carl.
00:23:24
Speaker
But yeah, that's the point though.
00:23:25
Speaker
We, we all enjoy what we enjoy and we enjoy it for the reasons that we do.
00:23:30
Speaker
So I definitely don't want to take that away just because some of us here, maybe all of us don't give a shit really about something else.
00:23:37
Speaker
Somebody else may.
00:23:38
Speaker
So I get that part.
00:23:40
Speaker
It's just, to me, there's just better ways to go about it.
00:23:44
Speaker
And I think what's come out is that a lot of people are, they, they,
00:23:47
Speaker
They basically make it to where it's about celebrating the hobby, right?
00:23:52
Speaker
It's about celebrating the content creator.
00:23:54
Speaker
So if you're going to do that, I think that the way that they're doing it now is probably the best way to go about it.
00:23:59
Speaker
The only other way you could possibly do it when it comes to nominees and everything is make it a peer nomination.
00:24:06
Speaker
Only your peers that are within that category can nominate like the top five and then let the fans vote or something like that or let the public vote.
00:24:14
Speaker
I think that that's an easier way to do it because then you...
00:24:17
Speaker
you end up making it to where it doesn't just come down to popularity.
00:24:21
Speaker
You know, and that's, I mean, it is what a fan vote is, but let's face facts.
00:24:25
Speaker
It's so niche that if you're playing the infinite game and content creation, you've been around for eight to 10 years, you should be winning everything over somebody else that doesn't have the same resources.
00:24:36
Speaker
Or if somebody decides to spend five to $10,000 on marketing, you should win the little plastic trophy, even if you've only been around for six months.
00:24:45
Speaker
Like, that's just the reality of it.
00:24:46
Speaker
It's about how you mobilize people.
00:24:48
Speaker
Well, and to bring that to a point, too, is like even a couple years back when Super Awesome Pinball Show started to start marketing, they, you know, they use their sponsorships, start sending out emails to say, hey, vote for us and stuff like that.
00:25:00
Speaker
People shouted it down because they felt like it wasn't truly winning the award.
00:25:03
Speaker
You were using resources.
00:25:04
Speaker
So what there's been invisible barriers and lines put up around this.
00:25:07
Speaker
Like, it's just it's a very dramatic thing.
00:25:09
Speaker
And it's just kind of stupid.
00:25:11
Speaker
And it does come down to what you're all saying.
00:25:13
Speaker
What are you in?
00:25:14
Speaker
content creation for?
00:25:15
Speaker
What is, are you in it for a trophy?
00:25:17
Speaker
Are you in it to, to further in the industry?
00:25:20
Speaker
Are you at just so your voice can be heard?
00:25:22
Speaker
What, what are, why are you doing this?
00:25:25
Speaker
I will give a little plug though.
00:25:26
Speaker
At the end of the day, we do support what Colin and Will are doing because there are, there are more positives than negatives.
00:25:34
Speaker
And we would encourage you to go and vote and vote your opinion when voting opens on, I think the 16th, right?
00:25:42
Speaker
18th, Monday.
00:25:43
Speaker
18th, so Monday.
00:25:45
Speaker
Yeah, and there is a new category.
00:25:48
Speaker
It is the favorite content creator.
00:25:50
Speaker
So they just kind of wrapped it all up into one.
00:25:52
Speaker
And then the caveat to that.
00:25:55
Speaker
Travis, how do you say the word?
00:25:57
Speaker
Because it's going to be wrong.
00:25:58
Speaker
Caveat.
00:25:59
Speaker
There, sure.
00:25:59
Speaker
Okay, so... Caveat.
00:26:01
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:26:04
Speaker
So the favorite content creator, what they're saying is if you've won an award in the past, you're not eligible.
00:26:11
Speaker
So Straight Down the Middle can't win.
00:26:13
Speaker
TNT Amusements can't win.
00:26:15
Speaker
Kaneda can't win.
00:26:17
Speaker
Nap Arcade can't win.
00:26:19
Speaker
Um, so what, what will be interesting there is, you know, some of those people do crossovers and so, or they do other things.
00:26:28
Speaker
So they may do a podcast, but then they also do a stream.
00:26:30
Speaker
So is the stream eligible, but the podcast isn't Joel's talking about himself.
00:26:35
Speaker
Well, so Kaneda.
00:26:36
Speaker
Kaneda does Facebook Lives.
00:26:37
Speaker
I think it's fair.
00:26:38
Speaker
Could his live win?
00:26:41
Speaker
Let the categories be their own thing.
00:26:42
Speaker
Like if you do a different show, that's a different show.
00:26:44
Speaker
Yeah, the pinball show.
00:26:45
Speaker
Could he win?
00:26:47
Speaker
So I'm very curious to see how that pans out.
00:26:49
Speaker
But there is something there.
00:26:51
Speaker
So if you do have a media...
00:26:53
Speaker
uh, a creator, whatever it is that you, um, you want to vote for, uh, graph is spelled G R A F. So Tom T O M G R A F. I don't know if it's right in, just find the dropdown and, um,
00:27:06
Speaker
Yeah, we'll make it happen.
00:27:07
Speaker
Uh-oh.
00:27:08
Speaker
Tom's chugging.
00:27:09
Speaker
Tom's already hitting it.
00:27:10
Speaker
It's eight in the morning.
00:27:12
Speaker
It's nine in the morning, Tom.
00:27:13
Speaker
Let's go, Tom.
00:27:14
Speaker
Okay.
00:27:15
Speaker
For him, it's 10.
00:27:16
Speaker
He's closer to lunch than we are.
00:27:17
Speaker
It's Mountain Dew for those who want
Spooky Pinball's New Releases and Design Comparisons
00:27:18
Speaker
to watch.
00:27:18
Speaker
That means he's ready to talk about Spooky.
00:27:20
Speaker
Yeah, I think we're good.
00:27:21
Speaker
Spooky.
00:27:21
Speaker
I think we're good on that.
00:27:22
Speaker
We'll wrap up.
00:27:23
Speaker
We'll tie up the bow on Twippy.
00:27:24
Speaker
So, yeah, voting starts Monday.
00:27:26
Speaker
Let's see how that goes.
00:27:28
Speaker
Spooky Pinball.
00:27:30
Speaker
Let's actually... I'm going to let Josh and Scott introduce this because you guys just recently interviewed them.
00:27:34
Speaker
So...
00:27:36
Speaker
yeah we released this not even 24 hours ago about 24 hours to the point like to the mark uh bug and spooky luke came on the show to talk about their new releases they released tandem games they're the same layout but entirely different codes and rules and all that stuff the texas chainsaw massacre and looney tunes which is a pretty opposite end of the spectrum when it comes to licensing yeah um
00:28:00
Speaker
Besides, you know, they're both violent, I guess.
00:28:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:03
Speaker
Warner Warner Brothers has always been on the cartoon comic violence size.
00:28:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:08
Speaker
And yeah.
00:28:09
Speaker
And going from our interview, we kind of tried to hit all aspects.
00:28:12
Speaker
We talked about quality control.
00:28:14
Speaker
We talked about the play field layout.
00:28:16
Speaker
We talked about art and the artists that came forward with it.
00:28:20
Speaker
So if you haven't listened to that one, we give you recommended and
00:28:22
Speaker
You know, it's one 26 is our episode.
00:28:24
Speaker
So give that a listen.
00:28:25
Speaker
But yeah, spooky released two new games.
00:28:27
Speaker
And honestly, I like the looks of the layout.
00:28:30
Speaker
I think this is probably their best shooting layout they've made so far.
00:28:33
Speaker
Yeah, the layout looks very.
00:28:36
Speaker
It's a it's a callback to a 90s layout.
00:28:40
Speaker
you know, 90s Bally Williams layout.
00:28:43
Speaker
And so if that's what your thing is, I would give it a flip.
00:28:47
Speaker
I'm always concerned about small companies and reliability because I am not a, I'm not a mechanic.
00:28:55
Speaker
I don't have the kind of time to work on my games.
00:28:57
Speaker
And so that's my only concern.
00:29:00
Speaker
However, it looks good.
00:29:02
Speaker
It looks fun.
00:29:03
Speaker
And I give it an optimistic review without having played it yet.
00:29:08
Speaker
Remember, we're shilling, Scott.
00:29:09
Speaker
You've got to pump these numbers up so we can get a check from Spooky.
00:29:13
Speaker
Come on now.
00:29:14
Speaker
Let's go to the neutral person here.
00:29:16
Speaker
Tom, you don't show.
00:29:18
Speaker
We know that.
00:29:19
Speaker
Tom is pure.
00:29:20
Speaker
I have no sponsorships.
00:29:23
Speaker
Tom, throw theme out the window.
00:29:24
Speaker
Throw theme out the window.
00:29:25
Speaker
You're looking at the shots layout.
00:29:27
Speaker
What were your thoughts on toys, Max, all that?
00:29:31
Speaker
Throw theme out.
00:29:32
Speaker
Throwing theme out, I thought the shots and Max looked very interesting.
00:29:39
Speaker
I liked them.
00:29:40
Speaker
I liked
00:29:42
Speaker
I like what was presented.
00:29:47
Speaker
Three ramps.
00:29:48
Speaker
Four.
00:29:49
Speaker
Four ramps.
00:29:50
Speaker
Four ramps.
00:29:51
Speaker
Well, I guess I should look at these stuff before I talk.
00:29:55
Speaker
Isn't it four ramps?
00:29:55
Speaker
Four horsemen.
00:29:58
Speaker
How many ramps do you think it is, Joel?
00:29:59
Speaker
I thought it was four.
00:30:00
Speaker
I know there's four wire forms, four flippers.
00:30:04
Speaker
I will be the voice of reason.
00:30:05
Speaker
It's four.
00:30:05
Speaker
Go ahead, Tom.
00:30:06
Speaker
Okay.
00:30:06
Speaker
We're in trouble.
00:30:07
Speaker
Sorry, Spooky.
00:30:08
Speaker
Thank you, referee.
00:30:09
Speaker
Thank you.
00:30:10
Speaker
I have a lot going on in my life right now.
00:30:12
Speaker
Sorry.
00:30:13
Speaker
Uh, so, so many women, so many, so little time.
00:30:19
Speaker
Uh, no.
00:30:24
Speaker
Uh, yeah, I, I like how they incorporated some things like the, uh, the drop targets, the subway behind it, uh, the scoop behind the drop targets, uh,
00:30:38
Speaker
What I didn't like was the shot goes right into it from what I saw from the stream.
00:30:44
Speaker
So I thought that was kind of weird.
00:30:47
Speaker
But other than that, the layout looks interesting.
00:30:52
Speaker
I got to play it, though, to really get a feel for it.
00:30:58
Speaker
I did not buy one, Joel, because I know you're going to ask me.
00:31:02
Speaker
No, I wasn't.
00:31:04
Speaker
No, I will agree with a lot of that.
00:31:07
Speaker
I would say when we saw Halloween and you see the elevators, it's like, okay, what's that going to be about?
00:31:13
Speaker
You see that, how's that going to feel?
00:31:15
Speaker
Or you see Spooky, you see that huge upper play field, you're like...
00:31:19
Speaker
Okay, that could be the same with the bookcase kind of flipper.
00:31:21
Speaker
It's like, that could be really cool or it could suck.
00:31:23
Speaker
Like, you know, there was these big question marks.
00:31:26
Speaker
Watching this reveal, I didn't have that.
00:31:28
Speaker
It's like, okay, there's no mech here that I see concerning.
00:31:32
Speaker
It's more of a, I'm excited to give this a shot.
00:31:34
Speaker
Tom has another thought.
00:31:35
Speaker
I can see it.
00:31:36
Speaker
Let's do a comparison.
00:31:38
Speaker
Let's compare this layout to Venom.
00:31:41
Speaker
What are your thoughts?
00:31:44
Speaker
There's more.
00:31:46
Speaker
There's a lot more.
00:31:47
Speaker
Well, Travis needs to sell Venom.
00:31:51
Speaker
So, Travis, you go first.
00:31:53
Speaker
You compare the two.
00:31:54
Speaker
Sorry.
00:31:54
Speaker
Remember, I don't have any sponsor.
00:31:56
Speaker
You want me to compare the two?
00:31:57
Speaker
So, I will say this.
00:31:59
Speaker
If I was looking, like, just to answer how Tom got the answer, if I was looking at this as a Whitewood, I would be excited to flip it.
00:32:07
Speaker
And I think that's why I told you guys too, like this is a dynamic layout that looks interesting.
00:32:13
Speaker
It looks so much better than what they put out before, because you see, it's almost like you took Twilight Zone, you took Shadow, you took a little bit of Elwyn and you just put it all together.
00:32:25
Speaker
You know, you definitely see elements of all three of those games in this.
00:32:29
Speaker
So it's just, I think it just further shows that these are just the more interesting layouts.
00:32:35
Speaker
But at the same time, we do have to accept that when you get more mechs and you make things a little bit more intricate, it does cause issues potentially in the future.
00:32:45
Speaker
So that'll be interesting to see how the games hold up, especially on location or anywhere else.
00:32:51
Speaker
But I like where this is going.
00:32:54
Speaker
It looks interesting.
00:32:55
Speaker
And I'll say straight up, this play field and this design looks way more interesting than what Venom is.
00:33:01
Speaker
And that's just because to me, when I look at this play field, I don't think the game's going to play easy at all.
00:33:08
Speaker
Like I'm excited as somebody that wants a challenge.
00:33:11
Speaker
I'm excited to play the game for that reason.
00:33:14
Speaker
With Venom, you, you know, you get a fan layout.
00:33:17
Speaker
Fan layouts are not difficult to play.
00:33:19
Speaker
They're just, they're just not.
00:33:20
Speaker
They're very casual friendly.
00:33:22
Speaker
You get the, it's very much flow based.
00:33:24
Speaker
I mean, we all, that's an overused term in pinball at this point, but the shots are just easy.
00:33:29
Speaker
It's where you expect them to be.
00:33:31
Speaker
So something like this, it's a little bit more dynamic that you got the left ramp closer.
00:33:34
Speaker
You got a two right ramps that are, you know, a little bit further back.
00:33:38
Speaker
You got shots in the back.
00:33:39
Speaker
You have a loop up top, you know, and that's not going to be easy just to do all the time.
00:33:45
Speaker
I mean, sure.
00:33:46
Speaker
In promo videos and stuff like that, you see it going over and over again, but a lot of that depends on the player.
00:33:51
Speaker
It depends on the setup.
00:33:53
Speaker
It depends on a lot of things.
00:33:55
Speaker
So yeah, when I see this, I don't see an easy playing pen.
00:33:58
Speaker
And I think,
00:34:00
Speaker
That's you can kind of tell with the code too, with the way it was, I was kind of lost on the rules.
00:34:06
Speaker
Like it's like they went fairly deep, but you could tell that they had ball saves in very certain areas out of the scoop, out of the captive ball and out of the door, those three things.
00:34:17
Speaker
So they've somehow acknowledged that, Hey, the ball could become chaotic and drain.
00:34:23
Speaker
They don't want you to end up, you know, losing your ball quickly either.
00:34:27
Speaker
So yeah.
00:34:28
Speaker
I don't know.
00:34:29
Speaker
I'm interested to see it.
00:34:30
Speaker
It's almost like, I wonder if... So I told you guys before, like, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, it doesn't do anything for me for a theme.
00:34:39
Speaker
Looney Tunes, I think that's a much better theme to go.
00:34:42
Speaker
And it's interesting how spooky is either a horror theme or they're cartoons.
00:34:47
Speaker
Like, there's no in between anymore.
00:34:48
Speaker
That's what they are at this point.
00:34:51
Speaker
And it's clear that...
00:34:52
Speaker
I don't know.
00:34:53
Speaker
I think the cartoon way to go, it's just much better overall, in my opinion.
00:34:58
Speaker
Like I get why they do the horror thing.
00:35:00
Speaker
They got to stick with spooky, but I don't know.
00:35:03
Speaker
It's just niching down so much.
00:35:05
Speaker
It can still be done well.
00:35:07
Speaker
But I'm also curious how this type of layout under Looney Tunes, like how are families going to adjust to that?
00:35:13
Speaker
Because I don't think Little Billy is not getting on this pin and ripping shots.
00:35:19
Speaker
It's not going to happen.
00:35:20
Speaker
It's not as easy as Scooby-Doo, right?
00:35:22
Speaker
No, there's no way.
00:35:24
Speaker
I guarantee this is probably their most difficult playing pin.
00:35:29
Speaker
since TNA.
00:35:30
Speaker
Like I look at this, I think it'll be more difficult than even Rick and Morty.
00:35:33
Speaker
Cause I mean, the game's designed for you to go horizontal a lot.
00:35:38
Speaker
I mean, and that's what happens if you go horizontal, you're out of control.
00:35:41
Speaker
Yep.
00:35:43
Speaker
Difficult.
00:35:43
Speaker
Difficult.
00:35:45
Speaker
I had was, you know, when you have a, when you have a layout, when you have a theme, like, like Looney Tunes, you would want it to be kid friendly.
00:35:52
Speaker
And that's turtles.
00:35:53
Speaker
Turtles got ripped to shreds for that, that it's like you, you took a kid's theme and you made a brutal pin.
00:35:58
Speaker
You made the walking dead.
00:36:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:01
Speaker
So that's fine.
00:36:02
Speaker
But I think it was one of us that interviewed Keith.
00:36:05
Speaker
And Keith was talking about his frustration with safe shots, his frustration that there's this need for all games have to be coded for this crazy depth.
00:36:15
Speaker
So if a game's crazy deep, then the layout has to be safe enough
00:36:19
Speaker
for you to be able to experience that depth.
00:36:22
Speaker
If you make a brutal pin, people are pissed.
00:36:24
Speaker
And so a lot of that involves shots that return to the flippers in some sort of safe manner.
00:36:29
Speaker
And that's the one thing that stood out to me on this game is there's four flippers, but every ramp
00:36:35
Speaker
feeds a flipper so as long as you hit a ramp it's a safe shot you are feeding a flipper in some safe return safe return okay so most ramps really are safe returns though i mean how many ramps do you know that puts oh you just you got to see joel play he'll bust that really fast
00:36:54
Speaker
So one is this game right here behind me, Elton John.
00:36:57
Speaker
Elton John, that left ramp, that return does not feed the left flipper.
00:37:01
Speaker
It just, the wire form just stops halfway and the ball just rolls towards the left.
00:37:06
Speaker
Like a high speed return or something like that?
00:37:08
Speaker
So it's, you know, to me, it's like, I like it.
00:37:11
Speaker
I like it because it's somewhat safe.
00:37:14
Speaker
Okay, but that's uncommon though.
00:37:15
Speaker
Star Wars episode one too.
00:37:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:19
Speaker
I was not expecting that.
00:37:20
Speaker
That is uncommon for sure.
00:37:22
Speaker
But no, I like the feedback here because I think good on them for removing the upper play field and actually having a game that looks, I'm not saying it in an insulting way, but it's clearly a game that people want to shoot.
00:37:36
Speaker
There's a lot of shots here, seeing how it flows together, watching bugs stream it.
00:37:41
Speaker
you know, he was able to combo a lot of different random shots.
00:37:44
Speaker
And even, you know, the fact that the under the flipper shot feeds an orbit that then feeds another upper flipper.
00:37:50
Speaker
And, you know, the last game that really kind of had this type of flow was like Foo Fighters, you know, Foo Fighters, the way that that really combo together in different shots and people ate it up.
00:37:59
Speaker
So I think there's a chance that this layout will be very well received from Spooky.
00:38:06
Speaker
But now it comes down to the code and the code, which really interesting there is,
00:38:10
Speaker
Completely different.
00:38:11
Speaker
Completely different code teams, completely different code packages.
00:38:15
Speaker
So, you know, if Texas Pinball... Texas Pinball Massacre.
00:38:20
Speaker
Texas Chainsaw Massacre ends up being too, like, grotesque for you.
00:38:25
Speaker
Right.
00:38:26
Speaker
Well, is the... Like, I wonder if the spooky code will be family-friendly, if it'll be a lot more approachable, a lot more, you know, easy to get into modes or achieve whatever.
00:38:37
Speaker
Family friendly mode on a Texas chainsaw massacre.
00:38:42
Speaker
Is there an adult?
00:38:43
Speaker
Can I turn off adult content?
00:38:45
Speaker
It's just a black screen.
00:38:48
Speaker
And just has screen screen credits rolling.
00:38:50
Speaker
Get over the game.
00:38:51
Speaker
And the GI just goes pure white.
00:38:53
Speaker
There's no more red.
00:38:55
Speaker
And it's, I don't know.
00:38:56
Speaker
I don't know.
00:38:57
Speaker
Josh, you've been, what are your thoughts?
00:39:00
Speaker
I think you guys are all spot on.
00:39:01
Speaker
I don't know.
00:39:02
Speaker
It just, I don't know.
00:39:03
Speaker
It's, it's,
00:39:05
Speaker
I agree that like we're, we're just doing spooky and cartoon themes over and over, but really that's kind of their niche and no one else is going for it.
00:39:13
Speaker
So, I mean, if that's, by the way, they should be going for that.
00:39:16
Speaker
I mean, stop, stop just doing dad, dad, rock pins.
00:39:19
Speaker
Like you can do stuff like this, but the reality is the reality is Tom's what's I'm going to buy.
00:39:25
Speaker
I don't spooky is one of the consistent top players in the industry, rather, even if you're looking at their numbers and they're not,
00:39:32
Speaker
as high as what you think other manufacturers are.
00:39:35
Speaker
I mean, they're more consistently, I mean, the Scooby-Doo came out this time last year.
00:39:40
Speaker
I mean, I don't see, CGC is not releasing a game once a year and Americans have a tough time.
00:39:46
Speaker
I mean, you got to give them props to be consistent within their, their threshold of what they're doing too.
00:39:53
Speaker
So.
00:39:54
Speaker
Okay, watching the layout, by the way, I just have it on loop playing behind me.
00:39:59
Speaker
I'm going to say it, and I think that you will agree with me.
00:40:04
Speaker
If you look at the way the dynamics work, it actually really reminds me of Simpsons.
00:40:12
Speaker
Simpsons Pinball Party.
00:40:14
Speaker
Like the shot locations are very similar.
00:40:16
Speaker
And Simpsons isn't an easy game.
00:40:19
Speaker
It's super deep, but it's still consistently one of the games that everybody who comes over to my house, they always start it.
00:40:28
Speaker
So that seems to bode really well, and they seem to have fun doing it.
00:40:33
Speaker
The shots are more challenging, but it doesn't seem to be as much of a drain monster as some other ones.
00:40:41
Speaker
Yep.
00:40:41
Speaker
That could be it.
00:40:42
Speaker
Do you think some of it is theme also because they see Simpsons?
00:40:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:46
Speaker
Like if you get a non pinball person, they see it like they can identify a hundred percent.
00:40:51
Speaker
I've, you know what I mean?
00:40:52
Speaker
I've always said theme is King.
00:40:54
Speaker
Like that's,
00:40:56
Speaker
weren't you saying that, uh, Hey, there's been an uptake in interest in Led Zeppelin and we know it's not the layout.
00:41:04
Speaker
Those go like hotcakes.
00:41:06
Speaker
It's not the layout.
00:41:07
Speaker
When Stern did the closeout and I saw everybody else closing out, I was like, Ooh, this is going to be a mistake.
00:41:12
Speaker
And yeah, they're just, they're selling like crazy for Christmas and there no more is going to be produced, but it's like anything else.
00:41:18
Speaker
Somebody discovers pinball.
00:41:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:20
Speaker
It's the first time that they've seen the themes.
00:41:22
Speaker
That's not like they've seen it for three or four years.
00:41:24
Speaker
So if you're a big fan of Monopoly, there is a game for you.
00:41:29
Speaker
Yep.
00:41:29
Speaker
But that's why I do wonder, though, like what this layout would have been under different circumstances away from the themes that they're using.
00:41:38
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:41:39
Speaker
Because they've been using Warner Brothers themes, right?
00:41:41
Speaker
It seems like that they're going down that path.
00:41:43
Speaker
So what's the major cartoon that's associated with Warner Brothers?
00:41:48
Speaker
That was all part of our childhood.
00:41:50
Speaker
You guys got to think a little bit deep, but I think this would be a big thing for Spoon.
00:41:54
Speaker
There you go.
00:41:55
Speaker
Batman the Animated Series.
00:41:56
Speaker
I'd say Johnny Bravo.
00:41:59
Speaker
No, that's Cartoon Network.
00:42:00
Speaker
Batman the Animated Series.
00:42:02
Speaker
That would be awesome.
00:42:04
Speaker
Imagine if Looney Tunes was that instead.
00:42:07
Speaker
They would have sold 2,000 plus of those.
00:42:09
Speaker
Easily.
00:42:10
Speaker
Like, I don't know if that theme's easy to get.
00:42:11
Speaker
I have no idea how it works, but that to me, that's the cartoon that's staring everybody straight in the face that everybody identifies with that.
00:42:21
Speaker
Everybody knows the characters already, but still relevant today.
00:42:25
Speaker
Do you think we're getting superhero fatigue, though?
00:42:28
Speaker
I mean, look at Venom.
00:42:29
Speaker
Is Venom just its own... Nobody cares about Venom.
00:42:33
Speaker
Venom's a C-list superhero.
00:42:35
Speaker
I mean, Batman's up here.
00:42:37
Speaker
Venom is somewhere... Keep luring.
00:42:41
Speaker
You talk superheroes in general.
00:42:43
Speaker
You're basically like Batman, Spider-Man, Superman.
00:42:46
Speaker
They're all right there at the top.
00:42:48
Speaker
And I know Travis's view on...
00:42:50
Speaker
Somebody needs to make a new Spider-Man.
00:42:52
Speaker
The multiverse.
00:42:53
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:42:53
Speaker
The multiverse.
00:42:55
Speaker
That would have been so good.
00:42:56
Speaker
I agree.
00:42:57
Speaker
But to me, people have asked me that.
00:42:59
Speaker
I mean, anybody, any content creator, it's what would be your dream team?
00:43:02
Speaker
And the answer was Turtles.
00:43:03
Speaker
But now that Turtles has happened, Batman the Animated Series.
00:43:06
Speaker
Batman the Animated Series, right there at the top.
00:43:08
Speaker
Tom's got his Rush.
00:43:09
Speaker
Tom could stop with pinball.
00:43:12
Speaker
He's good.
00:43:13
Speaker
Scott, you got Rush.
00:43:13
Speaker
You guys are good.
00:43:15
Speaker
Check the box.
00:43:15
Speaker
I got Rush and Iron Maiden, like the two bands of my childhood.
00:43:19
Speaker
Yeah, you're good to go.
00:43:20
Speaker
Travis's dream.
00:43:21
Speaker
What's your dream team?
00:43:22
Speaker
Like, dirt?
00:43:23
Speaker
I mean, I pretty much got them all.
00:43:25
Speaker
I think what's intriguing.
00:43:27
Speaker
Be honest.
00:43:28
Speaker
Barbara Streisand.
00:43:29
Speaker
Yes, no.
00:43:30
Speaker
Yentl, the pin.
00:43:32
Speaker
Is that?
00:43:33
Speaker
If it's the South Park version, I'm all in.
00:43:36
Speaker
South Park.
00:43:37
Speaker
That's right.
00:43:37
Speaker
That makes sense.
00:43:38
Speaker
Make a Streisand.
00:43:39
Speaker
No, it's a good point.
00:43:40
Speaker
It's a really good point.
00:43:42
Speaker
And Spooky has done a really good job with licensing.
00:43:46
Speaker
So, I mean, they know that.
00:43:49
Speaker
They're not making original themes.
00:43:52
Speaker
They know day one it's going to be the license that helps sell their pins.
00:43:58
Speaker
And honestly, I think I haven't heard specifics or whatnot.
00:44:01
Speaker
I would be very curious.
00:44:02
Speaker
There's 888 Texas Chainsaw Massacres and 888 Looney Tunes.
00:44:07
Speaker
If I had to guess, I bet it's like two to one, like Looney Tunes to Texas, if not even more than that.
00:44:12
Speaker
That would be my guess.
00:44:13
Speaker
They said it was pretty close when we talked to him.
00:44:16
Speaker
And I know this is a few days ago.
00:44:18
Speaker
It said that I think Looney Tunes just barely was ahead.
00:44:21
Speaker
Do I remember that correctly, Josh?
00:44:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:23
Speaker
Yep.
00:44:24
Speaker
Two days ago.
00:44:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:25
Speaker
When we recorded.
00:44:25
Speaker
Yep.
00:44:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:26
Speaker
And so they actually, I, okay.
00:44:30
Speaker
I think they nailed being able to say, Hey, we got the, the ultra horror theme for our hardcore fans, but we also have this thing and really bugs bunny is a great theme.
00:44:41
Speaker
And maybe it's a little older than your generation because you guys grew up on something else, but my generation, that is like when you're 50, you know, you're pushing that 50 year old category.
00:44:52
Speaker
Bugs bunny was king.
00:44:54
Speaker
They were by far the best cartoons out there for my generation.
00:44:58
Speaker
And unless you get into like the 80s with with like Thundercats and G.I.
00:45:02
Speaker
Joe and whatever.
00:45:05
Speaker
I would say my last thought, at least on Spooky, is I think it's smart that they do the double play field, you know, from a part standpoint and everything like that.
00:45:17
Speaker
The problem is, in my opinion, it's always somewhat obvious which game they prioritized.
00:45:26
Speaker
So in this instance, it's clear they designed everything for Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
00:45:32
Speaker
And the big standout for me was the meat grinder.
00:45:34
Speaker
The meat grinder is a brilliant mech for Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
00:45:38
Speaker
But then to just kind of reshell it and put it as a rocket ship, the way that screw is still built into the rocket ship, it bothers me.
00:45:46
Speaker
It probably shouldn't, but it does.
00:45:48
Speaker
The grinding rocket ship, Joel.
00:45:49
Speaker
I'm like, that's not... And then people talk about Taz.
00:45:51
Speaker
Like...
00:45:52
Speaker
Tads needs to be faster than that.
00:45:55
Speaker
So could they have splurged and got a different motor, you know, like you do the, or buy the fast motor and then put a restrictor on it in some way for, you know, like to me, I get it.
00:46:06
Speaker
I get it.
00:46:06
Speaker
Those are probably business decisions that I can't make, but that's my only thing that bothers me.
00:46:11
Speaker
I think they made a brilliant move to, to change the code and to change the inserts.
00:46:15
Speaker
Like,
00:46:16
Speaker
They are making them feel more individual pins, but I still feel they did a good job with the girl popping out of the fridge.
00:46:23
Speaker
Obviously, I'm glad it's not like Wile E. Coyote popping out of a box.
00:46:26
Speaker
They completely changed that, Mac.
00:46:28
Speaker
Well, Josh and Scott can correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't they say on your guys' podcast that they pretty much designed these side by side?
00:46:35
Speaker
That's what they were claiming.
00:46:37
Speaker
At least that's what they're saying, right?
00:46:38
Speaker
That's what they said.
00:46:39
Speaker
So then it's, so we got to go, well, Joel, here's the point though.
00:46:42
Speaker
We got to go off what they say, right?
00:46:44
Speaker
But here's the unique thing still though.
00:46:47
Speaker
It's you look at it.
00:46:49
Speaker
So let's say that they did that side by side, right guys.
00:46:52
Speaker
And you look at it, it feels like Texas chainsaw massacre is very much all in on theme assets, everything.
00:47:00
Speaker
You don't get that same feeling looking at the play field for Looney tunes.
00:47:04
Speaker
Like, I think that's, and I agree with you, Joel, on that.
00:47:07
Speaker
That's why it feels like things or decisions were made based off what is Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
00:47:13
Speaker
Well, it's, it's clearly, that's the one they're more passionate about.
00:47:16
Speaker
Like we've, we've talked about this before that pinball designers, you know, Stern has turned down themes because they don't have a designer that's in love with it.
00:47:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:24
Speaker
And it's clear, like, like bug has made it very, very apparent what he is in love with and it's hard.
00:47:30
Speaker
So that's the unique thing about pinball.
00:47:32
Speaker
There's a lot of people that make things and code things according to what they like.
00:47:37
Speaker
And maybe not necessarily what the end consumer likes.
00:47:41
Speaker
It's kind of, it's unique like that, but I get it.
00:47:43
Speaker
It's hard to do a project.
00:47:45
Speaker
If you're not all in, because it's, it's obviously takes, takes up a lot of your time, but I would be very interested to see what would happen if stuff was done with the end consumer in mind to get the most mass appeal to it.
00:47:58
Speaker
Cause I don't, I don't know if pinball does that well enough yet.
00:48:01
Speaker
I'm not sure.
00:48:02
Speaker
I mean, each individual would have to answer for themselves why they code a game the way that they do.
00:48:06
Speaker
Why did they design a game the way that they do?
00:48:09
Speaker
Why did they come up with the ideas that they have?
00:48:11
Speaker
You know, cause it's something like what I think would be fun for me.
00:48:15
Speaker
I don't know if that would be fun for the end consumer.
00:48:18
Speaker
So it's the same way.
00:48:19
Speaker
Like I like this layout because I think it's going to be challenging for me.
00:48:23
Speaker
But just like I alluded to, what the hell is little Billy going to do with Looney Tunes when he's getting drained left and right?
00:48:29
Speaker
And even Joel could kick the dog crap out of him.
00:48:31
Speaker
Like what's going to happen?
00:48:31
Speaker
Little Billy has no chance.
00:48:32
Speaker
I got him.
00:48:33
Speaker
Yeah, little Billy's not going to like Looney Tunes anymore.
00:48:35
Speaker
You got to put rubber bands on that.
00:48:36
Speaker
Rubber bands.
00:48:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:38
Speaker
So, I mean, that's the thing.
00:48:39
Speaker
I think a lot of times too, you've got to consider your end consumer and your target audience also in this equation before you go too far deep.
00:48:48
Speaker
And that's not talking about like what Spooky's done.
00:48:51
Speaker
Like I like what they've done, but I think that's just pinball in general.
00:48:54
Speaker
right across the board like how are you how are you coding the games why are you putting the rules in that you are like not everybody's going to see wizard modes not everybody's going to understand multipliers you know the 2x the 4x times the 16x you know it's just yeah it's a unique thing i think it's a unique problem for pinball to have that it's it's difficult to solve right to appeal to the masses compared to us knuckleheads that do want to dive deep like how do you find that happy medium
00:49:23
Speaker
If there was an easy answer to that, all the games would have it, but it's not.
00:49:27
Speaker
That is something that I, that's how I evaluate a lot of my, you know, people give me crap because I say friends and family, but like friends and family, that, that really matters to me that if a game, if you step up to the game and it's not easily, you know, clear of some objective, you know,
00:49:43
Speaker
It's just, you're trying to get these people to fall in love with pinball.
00:49:45
Speaker
And if they can't, like they can't fall in love with the machine or can't experience the machine, they just, they tune out.
00:49:50
Speaker
And, and, uh, you know, Hey, we don't say anything bad.
00:49:53
Speaker
We don't say anything bad about pinball machines.
00:49:55
Speaker
And we only shill.
00:49:56
Speaker
But Venom.
00:49:57
Speaker
Venom was a game that I couldn't.
00:49:59
Speaker
There was nothing.
00:50:00
Speaker
When I had the game here, I enjoyed the game.
00:50:02
Speaker
My brother enjoyed the game.
00:50:03
Speaker
Every other person that stepped up to that game, there wasn't anything obvious for me to show them that was going to hook them in 30 seconds or less.
00:50:13
Speaker
And the three games behind me right now, Godzilla, not a problem.
00:50:18
Speaker
You got that big old building, Cactus Canyon.
00:50:21
Speaker
You got Bart.
00:50:22
Speaker
Just shoot the guy in the head.
00:50:23
Speaker
Watch his hat go up.
00:50:24
Speaker
And even Elton John.
00:50:26
Speaker
There's a little, there's a little alligator on that game and crocodile.
00:50:31
Speaker
And I was not expecting my three and five year olds to freaking love that alligator.
00:50:36
Speaker
The crocodile.
00:50:37
Speaker
And he bounces.
00:50:39
Speaker
It goes back to visual.
00:50:40
Speaker
You put something up the middle, right?
00:50:43
Speaker
Or less than 45 degree angles.
00:50:45
Speaker
Visually, that's an indicator to somebody that you, you've got to go that way because we are trained through anything that we do straight ahead.
00:50:53
Speaker
Right.
00:50:54
Speaker
Movie straight ahead.
00:50:55
Speaker
Driving straight ahead.
00:50:56
Speaker
Podcasting straight ahead.
00:50:58
Speaker
You know, that's that's the way we're trained.
00:51:00
Speaker
So you put something there.
00:51:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:02
Speaker
Scott's going to look to the side.
00:51:03
Speaker
But yeah, that's why you put something up the middle.
00:51:05
Speaker
Right.
00:51:05
Speaker
It makes so much sense.
00:51:07
Speaker
Think about like I tell you guys this all the time.
00:51:08
Speaker
OK.
00:51:09
Speaker
Why is soccer?
00:51:10
Speaker
It's the easiest shot straight up.
00:51:12
Speaker
Like up the middle is the easiest shot.
00:51:14
Speaker
The hardest ones are the, you know, you, you have to wait on the flipper.
00:51:17
Speaker
It takes a little more challenging.
00:51:18
Speaker
So yeah, Josh's phone just fell down.
00:51:21
Speaker
So we're looking at his keyboard here.
00:51:23
Speaker
Hey, we got our first Elgato.
00:51:27
Speaker
No drop.
00:51:27
Speaker
No.
00:51:28
Speaker
I don't know why my camera's freaking out.
00:51:30
Speaker
We're at 51 minutes.
00:51:32
Speaker
We're at 51 minutes and Travis's camera's still going.
00:51:34
Speaker
Josh is the new El Gato.
00:51:36
Speaker
I'm the new El Gato.
00:51:37
Speaker
El Droppo.
00:51:38
Speaker
So here's like, we can compare this though with Texas Chainsaw and Looney Tunes, right?
00:51:42
Speaker
So let's say all of our wives want to play a game, right?
00:51:46
Speaker
Hmm.
00:51:47
Speaker
Like how many of them are going to choose Texas Chainsaw Massacre?
00:51:50
Speaker
I don't know.
00:51:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:54
Speaker
I guarantee you if that's one leg in my house, my wife would just go.
00:52:01
Speaker
I've already told Zach that obviously I'm happy to stream whatever.
00:52:04
Speaker
But I said, honestly, if Texas Chainsaw Massacre is shows up at the house and I have to stream it, I'll probably have to put the head down.
00:52:11
Speaker
It's in the garage.
00:52:11
Speaker
Put a blanket over it.
00:52:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:13
Speaker
At any time, that's crazy.
00:52:18
Speaker
I was going to ask this earlier, but between the two themes, I'm assuming if Spooky reached out to all five of us and they're like, we want to give you a game, what do you want?
00:52:26
Speaker
I'm pretty sure five for five, we're all picking Looney Tunes.
00:52:29
Speaker
It's just that's where we're at.
00:52:32
Speaker
100%.
00:52:32
Speaker
I don't want to raise any...
00:52:34
Speaker
future serial killers or anything like that.
00:52:37
Speaker
So to their credit though, the up the middle shot, I mean, it's straight up the shadow sanctum lock is what they did.
00:52:44
Speaker
And that's an awesome, awesome mech, awesome lock.
00:52:48
Speaker
So that magnets, people love magnets.
00:52:50
Speaker
So as long as that,
00:52:52
Speaker
As long as you can get into that door and experience that in like one or two hits, that's a good move.
00:53:00
Speaker
And then the fact that if hopefully locking a ball in the meat grinder or locking a ball in the rocket ship, hopefully that only takes one, maybe two shots to the rocket before the first one happens, that would be smart.
00:53:12
Speaker
Just give us a little taste of the mechs quickly.
00:53:16
Speaker
It seemed like they took forever on Bugs Strange.
00:53:20
Speaker
When he showed it off, it seemed like it was a lot of wood chopping.
00:53:23
Speaker
Hopefully they can find a balance there.
00:53:26
Speaker
Because somebody said, it was actually, I think it was Ryan McQuaid, who now works at the Sonic guy and works at American Pinball.
00:53:33
Speaker
He said, what pisses me off is when people hide
00:53:38
Speaker
code behind mechs or they hide or maybe it's the other way they hide mechs behind code because when you step up step up to a game the thing you notice are the mechs so it's how do I get to the upper play field and if somebody if to get to the upper play field is six shots there's a lot of people that are never going to experience that upper play field well your mech needs to be your quote unquote bozo area what that means is anybody's going to go after if you don't know anything else you're going to go after that this is Lord of the Rings Balrog
00:54:07
Speaker
The Balrog has to come out almost every game because otherwise you're just looking at it as like, why is that even in the game?
00:54:14
Speaker
Sure.
00:54:15
Speaker
Well, that's what's funny too.
00:54:15
Speaker
Like going back to Keith Elwin, like his first game was Iron Maiden.
00:54:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:19
Speaker
It's up the middle.
00:54:20
Speaker
Like you're hitting the target, but like going on to Jurassic park, like he wasn't ever going to put the dinosaur in there.
00:54:27
Speaker
And then, and Gary, Gary walked in where he's like, no, you need to put something like that.
00:54:31
Speaker
You need the dinosaur.
00:54:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:32
Speaker
You need the dinosaur, the moving dinosaur.
00:54:35
Speaker
Like,
00:54:36
Speaker
Yep.
00:54:36
Speaker
And so Gary's, Gary's, Gary's thing has always been, there's gotta be some kind of mech.
00:54:40
Speaker
There's gotta be something that draws to you and it has to be easily accessible by code.
00:54:44
Speaker
I don't care if it gets buried in code, but like the first three shots or whatever, you should be able to activate the cool thing.
00:54:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:50
Speaker
Within the first 30 seconds to a minute.
00:54:52
Speaker
And I totally understand how, um, how challenging that has to be for a designer because, um,
00:55:00
Speaker
When I look at Venom, I think what they did is actually really, really cool.
00:55:04
Speaker
And the mechs that they have in the premium and LE to change the entire layout of the playfield is really, really cool.
00:55:11
Speaker
But unfortunately, the amount of coils that are needed and the amount of mech that's needed to do that...
00:55:17
Speaker
they really don't have, I mean, doppelganger is the closest thing, but they really don't have that bozo standout mech and it suffers because of that.
00:55:24
Speaker
And so it's like, if people can look past that, the game, the game is there, but for the casual people that are just going to step up, they missed it.
00:55:32
Speaker
And if we look at starting, you know, like Foo Fighters, it has the, the, the overlord area, uh, which is a easy, easily achievable, um, shot for anybody.
00:55:42
Speaker
Um,
00:55:43
Speaker
But I mean, there's there's a lot of other games like Led Zeppelin didn't really have anything to grab you.
00:55:48
Speaker
Even, you know, like Avengers Pro didn't really have anything.
00:55:54
Speaker
The Captain Marvel shot visually looks really cool.
00:55:56
Speaker
But that's a premium.
00:55:58
Speaker
That's that's that's my point.
00:56:01
Speaker
And imagine if you design a play field and it was a high level play field and it was all subways.
00:56:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:10
Speaker
It's like a bingo game, right?
00:56:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:12
Speaker
And it's like, yes, it would take, it would take skill to be able to hit the right holes and to actually do it.
00:56:18
Speaker
But visual, like pinball is a visual, physical, sensory interaction.
00:56:25
Speaker
So everything goes into it, but we all know that the visual aspect of the ball doing something cool takes precedence over almost everything except for theme.
00:56:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:37
Speaker
Tom, you're good at hitting the right holes.
00:56:38
Speaker
What are your thoughts on... On... Meanwhile, on what we're talking about.
00:56:49
Speaker
On just layouts with Max and trying to... If you wrap it back to Spooky, I mean, stuff to draw.
00:56:56
Speaker
Anybody, they step up to this game.
00:56:58
Speaker
What are they going to... Like you guys have been talking about.
00:57:00
Speaker
I mean, Venom just doesn't do it.
00:57:03
Speaker
And Spooky...
00:57:09
Speaker
I don't want to say hit a home run, but they hit a triple at least.
00:57:13
Speaker
I mean, if I'm comparing the two games and they're out at the same time, there's no question I would pick Looney Tunes over Venom.
00:57:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:57:24
Speaker
Well, yeah, you definitely want to have a game that, that dangles.
00:57:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:57:29
Speaker
That shows you, I mean, there's definitely been games that I've stepped up to put a quarter in or whatever, go, go to dollar, put it, go to play.
00:57:36
Speaker
And then it's like, crap.
00:57:37
Speaker
I never like big Lebowski, you know, it took me two or three games to experience the bowling alley.
00:57:42
Speaker
And, but that, but that's, you know, under, it's like, what do I have to do?
00:57:45
Speaker
How do I qualify that?
00:57:46
Speaker
Like, that's what I need.
00:57:48
Speaker
That's what, that's what games need to draw you in.
00:57:51
Speaker
Um,
00:57:51
Speaker
So I think Spooky, I'm excited for this layout.
00:57:54
Speaker
I'm excited for what they put in the game.
00:57:57
Speaker
We've seen gameplay on Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
00:58:01
Speaker
It is brutal and disgusting and crazy, but they crushed it.
00:58:07
Speaker
They crushed the theme.
00:58:09
Speaker
And we'll just have to, I don't know, I think people will enjoy it.
00:58:13
Speaker
If that's a dream theme for you, I think...
00:58:15
Speaker
They've done a really good job.
00:58:17
Speaker
A ton of assets, a ton of everything.
00:58:18
Speaker
Looney Tunes were still kind of a wait and see on that.
00:58:21
Speaker
A big part of that is Eric Pripke.
00:58:24
Speaker
He's the guy.
00:58:26
Speaker
He did Rick and Morty's code.
00:58:28
Speaker
He is currently doing Labyrinth's code.
00:58:30
Speaker
As somebody who's played a lot of Labyrinth, I really, really enjoyed the code on that game.
00:58:37
Speaker
And then Rick and Morty.
00:58:38
Speaker
Rick and Morty's a brutal game.
00:58:39
Speaker
He's doing the whole code on Labyrinth?
00:58:41
Speaker
I think so, or leading it or something.
00:58:43
Speaker
I have Phil Grimaldi.
00:58:45
Speaker
Phil Grimaldi's doing, it was rules.
00:58:47
Speaker
Like I thought, I don't think Phil's coding the game, but Eric is the guy coding the game.
00:58:53
Speaker
So I'm just saying if, I really enjoyed Rick and Morty, even though it was brutal, I've really enjoyed Labyrinth.
00:58:59
Speaker
So I have faith that I will personally probably really enjoy Looney Tunes, depending on what type of, if Eric continues to do what he does, but that's definitely a wait and see, wait and see situation.
00:59:12
Speaker
So yeah.
00:59:13
Speaker
I don't know.
00:59:13
Speaker
I would say, yeah, if you haven't heard the Loser Kid podcast, I haven't had a chance to listen to it.
00:59:17
Speaker
It came out yesterday.
00:59:19
Speaker
Definitely give that a shot.
00:59:20
Speaker
But any other thoughts on Spooky?
00:59:23
Speaker
Anybody...
00:59:24
Speaker
No, no, let's move on to industry.
00:59:26
Speaker
No, my, oh, my, my one last thought was they powder coated the ramps.
00:59:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:59:30
Speaker
I'm very curious to see powder and clear coated.
00:59:33
Speaker
Okay.
00:59:34
Speaker
So, so, okay.
00:59:35
Speaker
They actually did bring that up.
00:59:37
Speaker
They said powder and clear coated.
00:59:39
Speaker
And they even said in their testing, they haven't had any issues with that.
00:59:44
Speaker
And they, they did push their support.
00:59:47
Speaker
They said, if there is our, if there are issues, we'll send you out a new ramp.
00:59:52
Speaker
Okay.
00:59:52
Speaker
Okay.
00:59:53
Speaker
Good.
00:59:55
Speaker
They did listen and address that concern.
00:59:58
Speaker
Yep.
00:59:58
Speaker
Wonderful.
00:59:59
Speaker
Okay.
01:00:00
Speaker
Anybody ever see problems with clear coat before?
01:00:03
Speaker
Never.
01:00:07
Speaker
I'm just saying.
01:00:08
Speaker
At least they're aware.
01:00:10
Speaker
You guys are like, it's a fix.
01:00:11
Speaker
It's good.
01:00:12
Speaker
At least they're aware of the criticism and at least they have a plan if it fails.
01:00:19
Speaker
So good on that.
01:00:20
Speaker
Well,
01:00:21
Speaker
Tom, we only shill.
01:00:24
Speaker
We only shill.
01:00:26
Speaker
We're only positive.
01:00:28
Speaker
I will say, as probably the only spooky owner here in the building.
01:00:34
Speaker
TNA's right there, baby.
01:00:35
Speaker
Yeah, whatever.
01:00:36
Speaker
It's right there, Cammy.
01:00:38
Speaker
I got a game with actual ramps on it.
01:00:40
Speaker
Okay.
01:00:46
Speaker
Rick and Morty.
01:00:47
Speaker
The play field is immaculate.
01:00:49
Speaker
The clear code is immaculate.
01:00:51
Speaker
I mean, it's probably the best clear code in the industry by far.
01:00:56
Speaker
Yeah, I'm, unfortunately, I have one of them.
01:00:59
Speaker
So hopefully that translates over to the ramps.
01:01:01
Speaker
Yes, they, so the TNA I have is an early, early-ish run, and I actually have clear code issues, but they've since solved that, so.
01:01:11
Speaker
There's no such thing as a clear code issue.
01:01:13
Speaker
None.
01:01:14
Speaker
You're just saying that, Joel.
01:01:16
Speaker
Not anymore, but I will say as, as podcasters, right?
01:01:18
Speaker
We, we only shill, we speak positive, but if there is a problem, it's our responsibility to hold the industry accountable.
01:01:25
Speaker
Okay.
01:01:25
Speaker
Because our voice matters.
01:01:27
Speaker
That's, that's how it works.
01:01:29
Speaker
So we move the needle.
01:01:30
Speaker
Okay.
01:01:31
Speaker
Yeah.
01:01:31
Speaker
Okay.
01:01:32
Speaker
We speak of, yeah, moving the needle markets market.
01:01:34
Speaker
We wanted to just kind of do, and maybe, maybe before we get into the sales spot, I think an interesting question, we can go around the circle here.
Surprises in the Pinball World 2023
01:01:42
Speaker
Um, cause we have about a half hour.
01:01:44
Speaker
Tom has a shoot.
01:01:45
Speaker
He's got to go to his modeling.
01:01:46
Speaker
It's a photo shoot.
01:01:47
Speaker
Yeah.
01:01:48
Speaker
Yeah.
01:01:48
Speaker
Just it's taking off.
01:01:50
Speaker
You're, you're, aren't you, you're going to visit your son right in college.
01:01:53
Speaker
I'm going to go pick them up.
01:01:54
Speaker
Yeah.
01:01:55
Speaker
Being a good dad.
01:01:55
Speaker
Say hi to Neil.
01:01:56
Speaker
Um, dad, feed me dinner.
01:01:58
Speaker
Um,
01:02:00
Speaker
Yeah.
01:02:00
Speaker
So my question here is 2023, what was something within pinball that was like the biggest surprise to you?
01:02:10
Speaker
If that, if that makes sense.
01:02:13
Speaker
Kind of quick thought.
01:02:15
Speaker
Oh, I got something.
01:02:16
Speaker
I would say if I'll go ahead and go first, honestly.
01:02:19
Speaker
Yeah, go ahead.
01:02:20
Speaker
Jeez, Tom, settle down.
01:02:22
Speaker
Sorry, sorry to interrupt.
01:02:26
Speaker
Tom graft is my biggest surprise.
01:02:27
Speaker
Um, how go ahead, go ahead, Tom.
01:02:32
Speaker
No, go ahead, Joel.
01:02:33
Speaker
I was going to say, I'll have something better to say.
01:02:35
Speaker
My biggest surprise honestly is Elton John Elton John.
01:02:41
Speaker
I, it's a tie between Elton John and labyrinth, but Elton John was a thing.
01:02:44
Speaker
It was a game that I, this I'm just being a shell, but no, I, um,
01:02:48
Speaker
That game, maybe my biggest surprise is what I underestimate is how incredible an art package can just draw you into a game.
01:02:57
Speaker
This was a theme I did not care about, did not care about at all.
01:03:00
Speaker
And the moment I saw this game at Expo, it was like, holy crap.
01:03:03
Speaker
It just sucked you in visually of like, I want to experience this game.
01:03:09
Speaker
And just the whole experience of the art package, the audio, the light show,
01:03:15
Speaker
It's just that game, I've been playing the heck out of that game.
01:03:18
Speaker
And it's not, the layout's fun.
01:03:21
Speaker
The rules are very approachable.
01:03:24
Speaker
But there is, I just think Franchi and JJP crushed it with just the whole audio and video, not video, visual, audio and visual experience to just...
01:03:36
Speaker
suck you in.
01:03:36
Speaker
So I don't know.
01:03:37
Speaker
That was the biggest surprise.
01:03:38
Speaker
Like genuine.
01:03:39
Speaker
I had very low expectations and actually really sucked into that game.
01:03:44
Speaker
So let me shill it, sell it.
01:03:46
Speaker
I need my commissions check.
01:03:48
Speaker
Go buy an Elton John.
01:03:49
Speaker
I will.
01:03:50
Speaker
If this game is in your game room, it will stand out.
01:03:52
Speaker
Everybody that's seen it in person will agree that game is,
01:03:56
Speaker
like legitimately stands out.
01:03:58
Speaker
I would take it by the way.
01:03:59
Speaker
Like it's, it's on my short list.
01:04:02
Speaker
Yeah.
01:04:02
Speaker
Yeah.
01:04:02
Speaker
Yeah.
01:04:03
Speaker
Commission check.
01:04:03
Speaker
I'm ready.
01:04:04
Speaker
It's on my short list of games that I am interested at, at, and I've said a different price point, but it would be, it would be a long-term keeper for me.
01:04:13
Speaker
It is incredibly accessible.
01:04:16
Speaker
Honestly, the code, most JJP games, you fall into a multiball or the code is so complex you can't understand it.
01:04:23
Speaker
There's kind of three main multiballs that you can pursue at any time.
01:04:26
Speaker
There's songs going on in the background.
01:04:27
Speaker
If you care about points, you can focus on wardrobe items.
01:04:30
Speaker
Otherwise, you're really not getting bogged down by a lot of other stuff.
01:04:33
Speaker
It's just kind of a pure do these things and you're going to see more of the game.
01:04:38
Speaker
There's no real modes.
01:04:40
Speaker
It's just songs and
01:04:42
Speaker
I don't know, just play.
01:04:43
Speaker
That's what I like about it is I'm not overthinking it.
01:04:45
Speaker
You just play.
01:04:47
Speaker
So it's a good, if people are all in on JJP, this game will definitely feels different than the other JJPs in your collection, but in a good way.
01:04:54
Speaker
It's very good.
01:04:54
Speaker
So that's my surprise.
01:04:56
Speaker
Tom, Tom is ready.
01:04:57
Speaker
He's locked and loaded, ready for.
01:04:59
Speaker
That was a huge surprise.
01:05:04
Speaker
Thanks Tom.
01:05:05
Speaker
Jeez.
01:05:08
Speaker
Biggest surprise of 2023.
01:05:09
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
01:05:13
Speaker
Pulp Fiction was announced and shown at Texas Pinball Festival.
01:05:19
Speaker
Where are they?
01:05:21
Speaker
That's a surprise?
01:05:22
Speaker
That's the big surprise, yeah.
01:05:24
Speaker
Well, they were supposed to be released in quarter three.
01:05:30
Speaker
True.
01:05:30
Speaker
So you tell me.
01:05:32
Speaker
I think we all knew, though.
01:05:34
Speaker
We all said when they threw out October, I think all of us were like, ha.
01:05:39
Speaker
Okay, yeah.
01:05:41
Speaker
I don't want to take away your surprise, Tom.
01:05:46
Speaker
I get it.
01:05:47
Speaker
I get it.
01:05:48
Speaker
Josh Sharp, right?
01:05:49
Speaker
You're not surprised that they don't have Pulp Fictions out yet.
01:05:56
Speaker
No, because CGC is involved.
01:05:58
Speaker
They're still running Cactus Canyon.
01:06:00
Speaker
I would be more surprised if they had it out before TPF of 2024.
01:06:06
Speaker
Yes.
01:06:08
Speaker
Apparently, I think we have heard they are building assemblies, but I don't necessarily know.
01:06:13
Speaker
Maybe they're waiting to start shit.
01:06:14
Speaker
I don't know.
01:06:15
Speaker
I don't know.
01:06:16
Speaker
Nobody knows.
01:06:16
Speaker
It doesn't equal a pinball machine, Joel.
01:06:17
Speaker
Nobody knows.
01:06:18
Speaker
There's more to pinball than just assemblies.
01:06:21
Speaker
yeah well this is the same company announced like in 2022 that they were coming out with cactus canyon and then at the same time it's like by the way we're going to do more medieval madness january 2023 and crickets like yep we're yep yep yep so okay i got a better surprise oh okay okay let's go round two round tom with the double alien ripley edition
01:06:46
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
01:06:47
Speaker
That's a good one.
01:06:48
Speaker
I even got Travis's attention on that.
01:06:51
Speaker
I think that's a good move by Pinball Brothers and
01:06:57
Speaker
I think it's a great move.
01:06:58
Speaker
They're going to sell more games.
01:06:59
Speaker
For everybody but the distributors that had the original LEs in stock.
01:07:04
Speaker
They are really stuck.
01:07:06
Speaker
They're stuck.
01:07:07
Speaker
Unless they find a way of retro-arting that.
01:07:11
Speaker
I don't even know how to say that.
01:07:12
Speaker
You can buy all the add-ons.
01:07:14
Speaker
I mean, you can still put the code on your old game.
01:07:16
Speaker
You can put the code on the old games.
01:07:17
Speaker
As long as it's a Pinball Brothers game.
01:07:19
Speaker
That's the key.
01:07:20
Speaker
Yeah.
01:07:21
Speaker
You can buy all the add-ons.
01:07:22
Speaker
You can buy all the art.
01:07:23
Speaker
You can buy all the add-ons.
01:07:24
Speaker
But unless Pinball Brothers just gifts those to the distributors and be like, here, give these.
01:07:32
Speaker
I just don't.
01:07:33
Speaker
It sucks that they have games that are technically more expensive than the Ripley edition that have less in them.
01:07:38
Speaker
Like, what do you do?
01:07:38
Speaker
What do you do with that?
01:07:39
Speaker
So.
01:07:40
Speaker
Welcome to the hobby in 2023, everybody.
01:07:44
Speaker
Solid surprise.
01:07:45
Speaker
I think Travis is writing something down.
01:07:49
Speaker
I'm just taking notes off the podcast.
01:07:52
Speaker
It's for my memoir that's coming out soon.
01:07:55
Speaker
Oh, God.
01:07:55
Speaker
All four pages.
01:07:57
Speaker
It'll be great.
01:07:57
Speaker
Travis, the man, the myth, the legend.
01:08:00
Speaker
I had a podcast with Keith Elwin by Travis.
01:08:04
Speaker
I can't wait.
01:08:04
Speaker
The cover will be blank.
01:08:06
Speaker
Elgato, no signal.
01:08:07
Speaker
Or like insert cover art is what it'll say.
01:08:10
Speaker
It's the double zero with Travis staring at you.
01:08:12
Speaker
The life and times of Travis.
01:08:15
Speaker
All every page in the book would be numbered double zero.
01:08:19
Speaker
All right.
01:08:22
Speaker
Well, we'll get out of triple drain.
01:08:23
Speaker
Scott, what was your biggest surprise of?
01:08:26
Speaker
Okay, I have two biggest surprises, so I'm going to cheat a little bit.
01:08:33
Speaker
One of my biggest surprises was that the Elwynn-designed Bond 60 wasn't a better game.
01:08:44
Speaker
And I'll put it as I think it's a solid game.
01:08:47
Speaker
It's a solid game.
01:08:50
Speaker
It is definitely a vanity piece that you're paying twice to three times what the game really warrants.
01:08:58
Speaker
I played it.
01:08:58
Speaker
I thought it was a lot of fun.
01:09:01
Speaker
But when I look at the price tag and say, I can have two or three games for the price of this.
01:09:05
Speaker
I'm not sure that this is for me.
01:09:08
Speaker
So that was my biggest surprise.
01:09:11
Speaker
Given obvious limitations,
01:09:14
Speaker
for having a... I think the theme should have just been the classic just because it felt... It was a 1960s vibe on the game.
01:09:22
Speaker
It also felt a little bit retrofitted for... Yeah, they have the wheels in it, but it's still... I think the...
01:09:33
Speaker
I would have got the same pop by not even having the wheels and just having a screen with the fake wheels like Beatles does.
01:09:40
Speaker
So that was a big surprise to me.
01:09:42
Speaker
I, that was, I anticipated that having a longer lasting effect.
01:09:47
Speaker
The second thing that surprised me, we had, what was it?
01:09:53
Speaker
Five, five plus games that were announced right around TPF.
01:09:57
Speaker
Oh yeah.
01:09:58
Speaker
Yeah.
01:09:59
Speaker
And the yeah, Foo Fighters came out of the gate kind of hot, but then cooled down to, I would say, what I would consider an average game.
01:10:09
Speaker
That's not an insult.
01:10:11
Speaker
That's just an average game.
01:10:12
Speaker
So of those five games, Foo Fighters was the most successful, which turned out to be more of an average release.
01:10:21
Speaker
So there doesn't seem to be a monster release that came out this year that was obviously this is the game that you need to have long term.
01:10:32
Speaker
This feels very much like a like an in-between year where a lot of stuff happened, but nothing that's going to make it into my collection for long term.
01:10:42
Speaker
Interesting.
01:10:43
Speaker
Yeah.
01:10:43
Speaker
No, I know people talked about 2021 that way, that it was just kind of a, there was no standout.
01:10:48
Speaker
And then 20, was it 2022?
01:10:50
Speaker
No, it was the other way around.
01:10:52
Speaker
2021 was Godzilla.
01:10:53
Speaker
It was just obvious.
01:10:54
Speaker
And then 2022 was kind of a, huh.
01:10:58
Speaker
you know who's and i i'm in that i see what you're saying because honestly this year the um you know twippy like pin of the year i don't know i genuinely don't know there's no um it'll probably be foo fighters just because stern's the biggest there's probably the most out there it's the game most people have played but i get it i i yeah i see what yeah those are solid um solid surprises yeah
01:11:24
Speaker
Josh, what surprised you?
01:11:26
Speaker
Scott stole mine with Texas Pinball Festival and the releases, you jerk.
01:11:32
Speaker
I actually did have another.
01:11:34
Speaker
I think the biggest surprise was seeing Barrels of Fun come out of left field with Labyrinth and the response to it and the professionalism around that game for a first release.
01:11:46
Speaker
It's outside of probably Wizard of Oz, which I wasn't in the hobby when that released, so I can't really attest to that.
01:11:52
Speaker
But this has got to be the best...
01:11:54
Speaker
like first game ever shown by a pinball company.
01:11:57
Speaker
And I've seen handful of pinball companies start up in the last decade.
01:12:02
Speaker
Well, it's almost like a two part thing.
01:12:04
Speaker
It's it's barrels of fun is a really big surprise.
01:12:08
Speaker
The team that's there, the people that are involved, the way they've handled themselves, the communication being, you know, outside things, getting involved with, you know, tested that YouTube video gazillion views like David Van S being super responsive on Pinside.
01:12:23
Speaker
It's just like that company coming out of nowhere.
01:12:26
Speaker
Nobody knew it was coming.
01:12:27
Speaker
And then they've been, they've done everything right.
01:12:30
Speaker
And then the second part of that is Labyrinth.
01:12:32
Speaker
Like Labyrinth is actually for a first game is really, really good.
01:12:37
Speaker
The layout's good.
01:12:38
Speaker
The art is awesome.
01:12:39
Speaker
They got good toys.
01:12:40
Speaker
The build quality is, I mean, I've had one here.
01:12:44
Speaker
I did not lift the play field one time that I had it here.
01:12:47
Speaker
And that game was a show game.
01:12:49
Speaker
That was a game that had already had hundreds and hundreds of plays from Chicago pinball festival.
01:12:55
Speaker
Then it left a play field one time.
01:12:56
Speaker
So there's, yes, that, that's a very, I will agree with that.
01:13:01
Speaker
You can send your check to Joel at.
01:13:03
Speaker
Yeah.
01:13:04
Speaker
Oh, David knows.
01:13:05
Speaker
I mean, he's already sent me.
01:13:06
Speaker
I mean, I streamed his game, you know, three times.
01:13:08
Speaker
So I've, that's at least, you know, so much partial ownership of the company.
01:13:12
Speaker
Yeah.
01:13:13
Speaker
I passed the stock.
01:13:14
Speaker
I just want stock.
01:13:15
Speaker
I just want stock in the company.
01:13:17
Speaker
Okay.
01:13:17
Speaker
But little known fact is that Joel's actually one of the heads of the trolls on the topper.
01:13:23
Speaker
Yep.
01:13:24
Speaker
Yep.
01:13:24
Speaker
Yep.
01:13:26
Speaker
Makes sense.
01:13:27
Speaker
Is this true?
01:13:29
Speaker
All right.
01:13:30
Speaker
No, that's good.
01:13:31
Speaker
That's a good, that's a solid surprise.
01:13:33
Speaker
Um, all right, Travis surprises.
01:13:36
Speaker
All right.
01:13:37
Speaker
I got a surprise that I think you guys will all agree with kind of is a big surprise, but then kind of not when you really think about it.
01:13:44
Speaker
Um, I would say the amount of times
01:13:48
Speaker
that Stern keeps re-releasing games, including games that are last call.
01:13:53
Speaker
Yeah.
01:13:54
Speaker
Like that's surprising, such as like Stranger Things wasn't last call, but there wasn't many that was sold back in like late 2019, early 2020.
01:14:02
Speaker
I think there was less than like 600, 700 premiums that even went out.
01:14:06
Speaker
Now they're all coming back.
01:14:09
Speaker
I think Guardians of the Galaxy, the last call came out for that for over a year ago.
01:14:14
Speaker
And then they had a second last call for it.
01:14:16
Speaker
And then in August, they said that Iron Maiden was last call.
01:14:20
Speaker
And now there's actually a build date in 2024 for it.
01:14:25
Speaker
So that's not last call.
01:14:28
Speaker
And then on top of that, you know, coming out with these anniversary additions with Elvira, with Jurassic Park.
01:14:35
Speaker
It's almost like they're killing the elite market.
01:14:39
Speaker
That's surprising.
01:14:40
Speaker
Like they've done different editions, of course.
01:14:43
Speaker
I mean, there was a 40th for Elvira, but I think it's just surprising seeing all that come all at once.
01:14:51
Speaker
It feels like.
01:14:52
Speaker
Like it's happening in Avalanche in the past six months.
01:14:55
Speaker
It feels like more than the first two quarters of the year.
01:14:58
Speaker
It feels like it's all been on the back end of 2023.
01:15:00
Speaker
It's kind of...
01:15:03
Speaker
I don't know if it's throwing the market into total chaos just yet, but that's interesting.
01:15:08
Speaker
And then the bigger surprise too with that is closing out games.
01:15:12
Speaker
I was very surprised by that.
01:15:14
Speaker
Was not expecting that at all.
01:15:16
Speaker
You're saying selling games, selling those turtles.
01:15:18
Speaker
Close out like waving MSR.
01:15:22
Speaker
Rush shocked me because that was still a, okay.
01:15:27
Speaker
I understand the theme is for Tom and me and probably about 50 other dudes.
01:15:33
Speaker
But it's more than that.
01:15:35
Speaker
Dozens of you.
01:15:36
Speaker
It won dozens.
01:15:37
Speaker
Dozens.
01:15:37
Speaker
Game of the Year.
01:15:38
Speaker
So that's like it did win 2000.
01:15:41
Speaker
Speaking of Twippy, it did win Game of the Year last year.
01:15:44
Speaker
And it was a very solid effort.
01:15:49
Speaker
And the code was great.
01:15:50
Speaker
The layout was still good.
01:15:52
Speaker
It was challenging, but it was good.
01:15:54
Speaker
But it really shocked me that they, man, I don't know who ran more, the original Stranger Things run or Rush run.
01:16:04
Speaker
Oh.
01:16:05
Speaker
Because it would have to be rush.
01:16:07
Speaker
I would think.
01:16:08
Speaker
Yeah.
01:16:09
Speaker
However, I don't feel it was a better receptive game.
01:16:12
Speaker
And considering that it's not like it came dead on arrival, it was very, the reception was out of proportion with the theme.
01:16:20
Speaker
And so I, I was, I was pleasantly surprised that it was a great game and a theme for me, but they didn't keep running it.
01:16:28
Speaker
And that, that surprised me.
01:16:30
Speaker
It kept getting relegated behind Elwin's next rebuild.
01:16:35
Speaker
Yeah.
01:16:36
Speaker
Supply and demand, I guess.
01:16:38
Speaker
Absolutely.
01:16:39
Speaker
I think what's interesting, I mean, Travis, you're saying the fact that some of these games are still
Pinball Market Trends and Challenges
01:16:44
Speaker
making them.
01:16:44
Speaker
I think part of that, though, is a lot of the games that are currently available are all in stock.
01:16:51
Speaker
So many distributors have so many games in stock.
01:16:53
Speaker
So it's surprising that it's like there's already a good list of options.
01:16:56
Speaker
But guess what?
01:16:57
Speaker
Stern's going to...
01:16:58
Speaker
make old games again too.
01:16:59
Speaker
So let's add to those options.
01:17:01
Speaker
And that's going to be tough from a distributor standpoint, because now you have, we've talked about dynamic pricing before how there isn't any.
01:17:08
Speaker
So it's like, you've got just this banger of a pin, like a Godzilla or a, or a Jurassic park.
01:17:14
Speaker
And that's having to go up against, um,
01:17:17
Speaker
whether it's rush turtles or venom venom you know like how do you or i remember when they announced venom there were still le's there still are le's in uh in distributors hands so distributors are holding a lot of le's yes industry i stared at them just the other day there's a lot
01:17:36
Speaker
Yeah.
01:17:36
Speaker
Are you trying to intimidate them?
01:17:38
Speaker
You know, get out of here.
01:17:39
Speaker
I'm trying to convince people they need to start buying it because daddy needs a new car.
01:17:43
Speaker
So you said, I remember it came out that it was like the day that Jurassic Park 30th edition came out.
01:17:49
Speaker
You're like,
01:17:51
Speaker
what like that game is beloved and it's an le a second version of an le all the bells and whistles all the prettiness and it's the same exact price as a venom le that's sitting here and i told you guys and elvira and elvira i told you guys immediately venom is doa like that's it that's that's it and we've had that before like i've i've shown people pins in our showroom and
01:18:16
Speaker
People that are brand new to pinball and they look at Godzilla and they're like, why is this so much different than the other ones?
01:18:23
Speaker
Like they can tell, you know, and people, people aren't dumb with their, with their eyes.
01:18:27
Speaker
Like we talked about, they can tell what looks interesting to them, you know?
01:18:32
Speaker
So I, I don't know.
01:18:37
Speaker
But what I'm saying, yeah, I know, I know.
01:18:40
Speaker
Yeah.
01:18:41
Speaker
Especially if they look at Tom, they're not done with their eyes.
01:18:43
Speaker
They're doing the right thing.
01:18:44
Speaker
Look at Tom.
01:18:45
Speaker
Oh boy.
01:18:45
Speaker
But yeah, that's, that's like my biggest surprise.
01:18:48
Speaker
It's the constant releases and combined with,
01:18:52
Speaker
the closeout.
01:18:53
Speaker
Like I was shocked that star Wars, the pen.
01:18:56
Speaker
Yeah.
01:18:56
Speaker
Got a closeout price.
01:18:58
Speaker
Cause it's star Wars.
01:18:59
Speaker
It's still selling actually.
01:19:01
Speaker
Oh my God.
01:19:02
Speaker
Yeah.
01:19:02
Speaker
Like we, yeah.
01:19:04
Speaker
I mean, I can't get into specifics.
01:19:06
Speaker
I'll just say from my end, I'm very surprised that a lot of the, the only one I'm not surprised of is Ninja turtles.
01:19:13
Speaker
Like when I see that, I'm like, okay, that makes sense for a rock pen though.
01:19:17
Speaker
Yeah.
01:19:19
Speaker
like turtles though.
01:19:21
Speaker
I will say that I, what I have enjoyed is the fact that the price of turtles has come down.
01:19:27
Speaker
I've actually had people reach out to me that finally pulled the trigger on one and
01:19:31
Speaker
They like it.
01:19:32
Speaker
They're like, this game's hard.
01:19:34
Speaker
You understand it's hard, but the code is good.
01:19:37
Speaker
It is a fun game.
01:19:38
Speaker
Once you get in the house, instead of going on to a bar and losing a dollar quickly and being like, screw this game, now it's in your house.
01:19:46
Speaker
Now it's time to dive in, figure out the shots.
01:19:49
Speaker
It's actually a very fun game.
01:19:50
Speaker
So I do think...
01:19:52
Speaker
more people are experiencing it now that they're on like clearance.
01:19:56
Speaker
Um, but Tom, do you still have your turtles or you sell it?
01:19:59
Speaker
Yeah, I still have it.
01:20:00
Speaker
See, there's, it's a good game.
01:20:02
Speaker
It's, I don't know.
01:20:04
Speaker
I, I, I'm glad it's being talked about or people are playing it now, maybe even for the first time.
01:20:08
Speaker
Okay.
01:20:08
Speaker
At least you're finding a bright side in the closeout pricing.
01:20:11
Speaker
Okay.
01:20:12
Speaker
I do have a followup though.
01:20:13
Speaker
Yeah.
01:20:14
Speaker
Yeah.
01:20:14
Speaker
Considering we have had another year of sales in pinball and a year ago, uh,
01:20:19
Speaker
you are still having a hard time finding games.
01:20:25
Speaker
Does it surprise you that now if you want a game, it's available?
01:20:30
Speaker
If you want a game at a discount, it's probably available.
01:20:34
Speaker
If like, does that surprise you that in a year things turn so quickly?
01:20:39
Speaker
And what does that say to the overall health of the industry?
01:20:46
Speaker
I know Travis could talk about this a long time.
01:20:48
Speaker
This is what he thinks about all day.
01:20:51
Speaker
I think it comes down to how much do I want to say publicly and give away all the sauce.
01:20:56
Speaker
So that's why I just throw it out.
01:20:57
Speaker
I mean, this is obviously Travis's day job.
01:21:01
Speaker
This is our hobby.
01:21:03
Speaker
It's Travis's day job too.
01:21:05
Speaker
But you can, we can all have a gut feel about how the market has changed in the last year.
01:21:11
Speaker
And, and I, we can talk freely about it, but I'll, I'll take, I'll take the first lead on this.
01:21:19
Speaker
It surprises me at how quickly it changed.
01:21:22
Speaker
It didn't, uh,
01:21:23
Speaker
It seemed like over about six months, we went from got to get a game, got to get a game to, you know what, hold, you can wait.
01:21:32
Speaker
And maybe if you hold off, you can get it.
01:21:35
Speaker
So this makes me concerned about the overall state of the industry, because if you
01:21:41
Speaker
if buyers who used to be historically have been LE and premium buyers, which I would argue that Tom and I have been in that category.
01:21:50
Speaker
Tom actually, I see a lot of LEs behind him.
01:21:54
Speaker
That's all I got.
01:22:12
Speaker
You are eroding the people who are willing to buy a game.
01:22:16
Speaker
This is the car market, right?
01:22:19
Speaker
You're eroding the people who are willing to buy a car.
01:22:22
Speaker
Take the hit because that's how the industry works.
01:22:25
Speaker
You shouldn't be able to sell used things for more than new in-box things because that tells me a margin is left on the table.
01:22:32
Speaker
But if there is a segment of the population who are eroding, and I know I'm a small segment, but is that enough to concern the industry because it is a supply and demand market?
01:22:46
Speaker
And if the supply is...
01:22:47
Speaker
way outstripping what demand is, then does that have a ripple effect back toward manufacturers, back toward their ability to, they built these huge manufacturing facilities and do they have to pump the brakes on what their facilities are because they're putting out too much?
01:23:08
Speaker
They still have overhead.
01:23:08
Speaker
They still have standards.
01:23:09
Speaker
They still have to pay the electrical bill every month.
01:23:12
Speaker
They still have to pay the rent every month.
01:23:14
Speaker
And what does that do for the next one, two years of the market?
01:23:20
Speaker
Because I'm concerned.
01:23:22
Speaker
I'm concerned that we are going to see some companies and probably some dealerships that are going to be in crisis and are not going to be able to meet their overhead and may have to close doors.
01:23:36
Speaker
I would say that that's pretty much spot on.
01:23:39
Speaker
I mean, I've been telling you guys, I know in our triple Jane chat chat, I've been saying it since what summer of 2022, like you can see it coming.
01:23:49
Speaker
And that just comes from looking at the analytics, seeing what people are searching for, seeing what the consumer habits are.
01:23:55
Speaker
You could see it coming at some point because obviously raw materials and everything catches up.
01:24:00
Speaker
I think what's going on with pinball is that there is.
01:24:04
Speaker
something that's foundationally broken on the, that for the end consumer, like it's, it's obvious it's there.
01:24:12
Speaker
And there's a lot of variables that are going into that.
01:24:15
Speaker
that's both on the manufacturers, it's on the dealers and it's on consumers.
01:24:19
Speaker
I think it's very much, it's like a whole Venn diagram of everything happening at once.
01:24:25
Speaker
And I think it's a cumulative thing.
01:24:27
Speaker
It's not just like one single thing that why it's happening.
01:24:31
Speaker
It had to build a lot over time.
01:24:33
Speaker
And I think it just goes back to, like you're talking about LE, Scott, right?
01:24:37
Speaker
And I know Tom, you've discussed LEs too.
01:24:39
Speaker
So it's kind of like, I think what pinball has really kind of,
01:24:44
Speaker
lost out on recently is that their core offer, which always should be the LE in general to help push all other products.
01:24:52
Speaker
I think they've kind of lost it with that.
01:24:54
Speaker
They've kind of lost the narrative with that being their core, their core offer, such as understanding how to increase demand.
01:25:02
Speaker
Like it's not just the supply and demand.
01:25:05
Speaker
You have to know how to increase the demand for your product.
01:25:09
Speaker
And that goes with just like, why is it valuable to somebody, right?
01:25:13
Speaker
You have to have a perceived value.
01:25:15
Speaker
And when you look at it, when it comes to LEs, you got three different types of people, right?
01:25:20
Speaker
You got the ones that are gonna be all in on every LE.
01:25:23
Speaker
You got those that are gonna be on the fence about an LE.
01:25:26
Speaker
You got those that are completely out, right?
01:25:29
Speaker
So number three doesn't even matter, but how do you get number two back in?
01:25:34
Speaker
How do you get people to stop filtering from number one to number two that were always buying every LE and now they're just on the fence.
01:25:42
Speaker
That's what's happened.
01:25:42
Speaker
So your core offer always has to come down to increasing demand and then controlling supply.
01:25:49
Speaker
That's what you have to do.
01:25:50
Speaker
So I think obviously if we go back down to 500, I think things kind of ride at ship a little bit, but we're very much dealing
01:25:59
Speaker
with an industry that is entirely built around price sensitivity.
01:26:03
Speaker
It's all about finding the lowest possible price for a premium product, find the free shipping, find it tax-free, and you keep doing that for a premium product over and over and over again.
01:26:14
Speaker
Guess what happens when you have to hike up the price?
01:26:17
Speaker
You get pushback.
01:26:19
Speaker
And those people are out.
01:26:20
Speaker
If they're buying a product, if their whole entire value prop for a product is pricing, you're going to lose long term.
01:26:27
Speaker
That's just what's going to happen.
01:26:28
Speaker
It's just like the pros and premiums.
01:26:30
Speaker
They didn't even keep up with inflation from what the prices were in 2015, 2016.
01:26:34
Speaker
And the industry has no idea that that even happened.
01:26:38
Speaker
They still look at the premiums and they think it's too much.
01:26:40
Speaker
It's actually premiums should be closer to $10,000.
01:26:43
Speaker
God's honest truth.
01:26:45
Speaker
Pros should be closer to $7,800.
01:26:48
Speaker
And people don't realize that that's where the material is at.
01:26:50
Speaker
So it's like, how do you come back from that?
01:26:53
Speaker
And I don't know.
01:26:55
Speaker
I don't know if it's possible because you have to sell out the LEs, right?
01:26:58
Speaker
To make your pros and premiums even more desirable for people, right?
01:27:03
Speaker
The people that are on the fence about it that weren't going to get the LE anyways, what happens psychologically if you see that the LEs sold out day one?
01:27:12
Speaker
Like it's a frenzy, right?
01:27:14
Speaker
Everybody starts talking about that's, and we're not seeing that, right?
01:27:17
Speaker
So it, we'd have no way to extend out the lifetime of these products anymore without that.
01:27:23
Speaker
We, we severely need that.
01:27:25
Speaker
I would, I know that's all really well said.
01:27:28
Speaker
What I, um,
01:27:30
Speaker
Yeah, what I will say is from a distributor standpoint, or not a distributor, from a manufacturer standpoint, you obviously need to push the value of what you're doing, not once again to shill.
01:27:40
Speaker
Cha-ching, Elton John, what I am seeing here is like this has everything.
01:27:44
Speaker
It has rad cows, it has art blades, it has a topper, it's all installed.
01:27:48
Speaker
It's all there.
01:27:49
Speaker
It's all ready to go.
01:27:50
Speaker
So I understand $12,000 is a lot of money, but at least I feel...
01:27:54
Speaker
Like it's there.
01:27:54
Speaker
And that's something that when you barrels of fun did this really well for that game to be fully loaded speaker lights, everything.
01:28:01
Speaker
It's like, okay, I'm getting value or feel like I'm getting value.
01:28:03
Speaker
Spooky does it too.
01:28:05
Speaker
So we've talked before.
01:28:06
Speaker
It would be awesome if Stern stepped up the LE a little bit, made it not only do less of them, but also put more in it, make it a little more something.
01:28:16
Speaker
But then the price goes up.
01:28:18
Speaker
Yeah, hopefully they can dance around.
01:28:20
Speaker
I don't know.
01:28:20
Speaker
But then distributors, what can a distributor do?
01:28:23
Speaker
That's where it sucks when you're talking about trickling up.
01:28:27
Speaker
You know, previously Stern, they were selling all their games to all the distributors.
01:28:30
Speaker
They didn't care.
01:28:30
Speaker
All distributors, gimme, gimme, gimme, go, go, go.
01:28:33
Speaker
Well, now all of a sudden there is pushback from distributors like, I can't, I can't take it.
01:28:37
Speaker
I cannot take any more.
01:28:39
Speaker
That's where we're at now.
01:28:40
Speaker
So how do we help out the distributors?
01:28:42
Speaker
I see how Stern would do the clearance sales or allow there to be clearance sales to help distributors.
01:28:48
Speaker
I don't know that answer.
01:28:49
Speaker
Hopefully they can find out a way to appease, but the reality is there's a ton of distributors out there.
01:28:54
Speaker
Some of them, this was a hobby.
01:28:56
Speaker
This was a way that they could enjoy it, make a little money on the side, not so much anymore.
01:29:01
Speaker
So unfortunately they may not, they might not be around.
01:29:03
Speaker
Not only that, if you take that into it,
01:29:06
Speaker
Yeah.
01:29:06
Speaker
That's where you end up in a situation to where a lot of people are flipping games and it's not flipping games for above MSRP.
01:29:13
Speaker
It's not like if you go on any marketplace and you see the serial number blacked out or not available.
01:29:20
Speaker
Yeah.
01:29:20
Speaker
That's a game.
01:29:21
Speaker
That's most likely getting flipped.
01:29:23
Speaker
And I mean, I know that kind of got out on some of the groups to where somebody was saying like Stern made them stop and stuff like that.
01:29:29
Speaker
And yeah, it's if somebody is reselling games over and over and over again, it hurts the ecosystem of that area.
01:29:38
Speaker
Well, not only that, it drives down pricing like crazy.
01:29:41
Speaker
Well, it's not healthy for an industry.
01:29:43
Speaker
How crazy is it?
01:29:44
Speaker
Because you pointed this out to us the other day.
01:29:46
Speaker
What was it like a week or two ago?
01:29:47
Speaker
Some guy had openly admitted on Amazon.
01:29:50
Speaker
on comment section in Stern pinballs on their Facebook saying he's like yeah I pretty much I've I resell and flip from distributors and I had to cancel so many orders because I can't flip them now or something like that and it's like you have a guy admitting he's not he's breaking that up you know what I'm saying yeah I don't know
01:30:10
Speaker
Yeah, we've talked about that too.
01:30:11
Speaker
When you see somebody post like, oh, I bought this game for a friend and now they don't want it.
01:30:15
Speaker
And it's like, here's the box not opened, crossed out.
01:30:20
Speaker
I mean, that happens.
01:30:21
Speaker
It's distributors buying games, reselling them at prices they shouldn't to somebody else so that they can legally resell because it's their game now.
01:30:30
Speaker
However, it's just... It is what it is.
01:30:32
Speaker
But it's kind of...
01:30:36
Speaker
I don't know.
01:30:36
Speaker
I would say as a pinball fan, what can we do?
01:30:41
Speaker
Not talking to Travis, this is his job, but what can we do?
01:30:44
Speaker
We can buy the games we want to buy.
01:30:45
Speaker
We can buy the games we want to buy.
01:30:47
Speaker
It is interesting.
01:30:48
Speaker
You know, when I got into the hobby, Turtles shortly after that came out.
01:30:52
Speaker
And to me, I was like, why would you ever buy a new in-box game when you can get them cheaper used?
01:30:57
Speaker
But the reality was a dream theme came out.
01:30:59
Speaker
I wanted it and I wanted it as soon as possible.
01:31:01
Speaker
So I actually splurged and bought it new in box.
01:31:04
Speaker
And at the time I knew I could always resell it and lose a little bit of money.
01:31:09
Speaker
We're kind of back at that point.
01:31:10
Speaker
Unfortunately, some games you're losing a lot more money than you want, but luckily you can trade stuff.
01:31:16
Speaker
Like I know Tom, you just recently traded away your Godfather, you know, stuff like that.
01:31:20
Speaker
Godfather.
01:31:21
Speaker
Yep.
01:31:22
Speaker
And it's crazy.
01:31:22
Speaker
You got James Bond, a game you had sold previously, but like that game has come along so much.
01:31:28
Speaker
But I got the premium version.
01:31:30
Speaker
Yeah.
01:31:31
Speaker
Actually, I have two friends who they both that we have pretty big collections and we're all within each other within a few miles of each other.
01:31:41
Speaker
And both of them bought one of them bought bond 60.
01:31:45
Speaker
Didn't like it.
01:31:46
Speaker
Sold it.
01:31:46
Speaker
Bought bond LE.
01:31:48
Speaker
Didn't like it.
01:31:49
Speaker
Sold it for Foo Fighters.
01:31:51
Speaker
Then sold Foo Fighters to get the bond LE back.
01:31:55
Speaker
Yeah.
01:31:56
Speaker
Code, man.
01:31:57
Speaker
And because the code has really come along and that does make it a reality check.
01:32:04
Speaker
How much is a night out with your family, your friends?
01:32:09
Speaker
How much is that typically?
01:32:11
Speaker
OK, when you when you factor in food, travel, all that kind of stuff, I'm guessing you're probably looking at 50 to 100 bucks.
01:32:18
Speaker
Oh, more than that.
01:32:19
Speaker
Okay.
01:32:20
Speaker
Okay.
01:32:21
Speaker
Maybe.
01:32:22
Speaker
Okay.
01:32:23
Speaker
But maybe soul, if I'm just, you know, hanging out with my buddy, what I'm bringing to the table.
01:32:28
Speaker
Okay.
01:32:28
Speaker
Maybe 50, you know, once you, and I'm talking like a decent, okay.
01:32:32
Speaker
It takes my family 60 bucks.
01:32:34
Speaker
If we even go through McDonald's drive-thru.
01:32:36
Speaker
Okay.
01:32:37
Speaker
Yeah.
01:32:37
Speaker
And so,
01:32:39
Speaker
For us to say, well, okay, a night out with friends to a location, we're looking at food.
01:32:44
Speaker
If you're drinking, you're looking at drinks, you're looking at all that kind of stuff.
01:32:47
Speaker
You're looking at easily dropping 50 to a hundred bucks.
01:32:50
Speaker
And if you can't get into your mind, hey, if I buy a game and have it in my home and even take a $500 loss from what I paid for it down there,
01:33:02
Speaker
that's still roughly five to 10 evenings out with a friend.
01:33:08
Speaker
And if you get the same sort of level of enjoyment, then that's, that's actually money ahead in my bank account.
01:33:14
Speaker
So I lost a lot more than 500 on God.
01:33:19
Speaker
Okay.
01:33:20
Speaker
Now, are you okay?
01:33:21
Speaker
That was a Ferrari as we know.
01:33:23
Speaker
Okay.
01:33:24
Speaker
So,
01:33:26
Speaker
But how do you, Tom, how do you feel about that?
01:33:27
Speaker
Like, so you lost, you lost a decent chunk of money on Godfather.
01:33:32
Speaker
Are you like, I'm out?
01:33:33
Speaker
There's a lot of other games where I'm way ahead, Joel.
01:33:37
Speaker
Yeah, so exactly.
01:33:38
Speaker
So you're not like- At least at this point in time.
01:33:41
Speaker
But do you have any like ill will towards JJP or like any reservation to buy another game?
01:33:47
Speaker
No, but-
01:33:48
Speaker
Yeah, maybe some.
01:33:50
Speaker
I mean, maybe a little bit.
01:33:53
Speaker
I mean, I don't want to keep buying games and take a $4,000 loss.
01:33:58
Speaker
Yeah, I think it really comes down to how quickly... With the atmosphere, just like we talked about, when you train the majority of consumers to be price sensitive, it's damn near impossible to have an expensive premium product last a long time in those conditions.
01:34:17
Speaker
You know, I understand the games are going to, you know, you buy a new in-box game, you're going to lose some value.
01:34:26
Speaker
Like Scott was saying, $500, $1,000, maybe even $1,500.
01:34:30
Speaker
But if you're talking like $3,000 to $4,000, that's a good chunk.
01:34:36
Speaker
That's a bigger deal.
01:34:37
Speaker
That's like a pretty damn good Bailey Williams game, maybe a B title.
01:34:44
Speaker
That's an F14 right there.
01:34:47
Speaker
Yeah.
01:34:48
Speaker
You know, something exactly.
01:34:50
Speaker
So, you know, you're talking about a whole pinball machine.
01:34:54
Speaker
Well, you, uh, you know, if you want to do the, uh, I can afford that loss.
01:34:59
Speaker
Yeah.
01:35:00
Speaker
Okay.
01:35:00
Speaker
I don't know if everybody in pinball.
01:35:03
Speaker
Well, Tom, Tom's hit the nail on the head right here, because think about it guys.
01:35:07
Speaker
If we get back to what a core offer is for a product, right.
01:35:11
Speaker
It's increased the demand for it.
01:35:13
Speaker
So if you don't have an extreme amount of demand for a game that's already expensive, what's going to happen to that price very quickly?
01:35:20
Speaker
Yep.
01:35:22
Speaker
It's going to bottom out fast.
01:35:23
Speaker
And if that keeps happening to people that are always in at the beginning and they start to get tension and friction and they're not wanting to keep losing that much money,
01:35:34
Speaker
What are they going to do?
01:35:35
Speaker
They're going to stop buying new in box.
01:35:37
Speaker
The whole thing comes to a screeching halt.
01:35:40
Speaker
Yeah.
01:35:40
Speaker
Like you're saying, Travis, maybe the numbers of LEs need to be dramatically.
01:35:46
Speaker
Yeah.
01:35:47
Speaker
You have to change something.
01:35:48
Speaker
And a lot of it is too, is who, who are selling these games?
01:35:51
Speaker
Are you trying to sell just on Facebook, a 12 to $15,000 product?
01:35:57
Speaker
Like, are you marketing it to as many people as possible that are searching you on Yahoo, Google, YouTube, wherever you could.
01:36:03
Speaker
Did you just use Yahoo as a search?
01:36:05
Speaker
Yeah.
01:36:06
Speaker
Okay.
01:36:06
Speaker
Hey, Google.
01:36:07
Speaker
Bing.
01:36:08
Speaker
Yeah.
01:36:09
Speaker
How about your AOL keyword?
01:36:12
Speaker
What's that?
01:36:12
Speaker
Yeah.
01:36:13
Speaker
Okay.
01:36:14
Speaker
So if you have...
01:36:16
Speaker
Okay, here's just quick business 101, right?
01:36:20
Speaker
If you are not readily accessible on a Google search result in the top 10, when random guy, girl hops in, types in pinball sales or buy pinball machine, if you're not top 10, then you have a very niche market.
01:36:41
Speaker
Okay.
01:36:42
Speaker
And you are definitely in the mom and pop, this small potatoes category.
01:36:47
Speaker
And if you are wholly relying on a single avenue to market or sell your product, then you should be very concerned.
01:36:57
Speaker
A quick analogy right now,
01:37:00
Speaker
There's been a lot of stories about Disney kicking out people who are third party hosts.
01:37:08
Speaker
So people want to go to Disney World.
01:37:11
Speaker
They don't want to spend the $500 an hour that Disney charges to have one of their hosts take them around.
01:37:19
Speaker
And so there have been these third party hosts that have kind of in that gray market, the blacked out serial number market where I should have thought of that.
01:37:27
Speaker
Yeah.
01:37:28
Speaker
Where they get hired out and they go for like 150 bucks an hour or something like that.
01:37:34
Speaker
And there's been a big news story lately that they have gone and they've tried to badge in their annual pass and they get, you know,
01:37:43
Speaker
blue circled, which means, Hey, there's something wrong.
01:37:45
Speaker
And they basically flagged them for trespassing and kicked them out of the park.
01:37:50
Speaker
Wow.
01:37:50
Speaker
Yeah.
01:37:51
Speaker
And so this has been a big news story because a lot of people, all of their eggs are in that basket.
01:37:57
Speaker
That is all they do.
01:37:59
Speaker
Disney is their life and they want to just go and host and, hey, if they can make $1,000, $1,500 in a day, go gathering people around, fine.
01:38:09
Speaker
But once Disney looked at that and said, yeah, we're not letting you do that anymore.
01:38:13
Speaker
What are they going to do?
01:38:14
Speaker
They can't just say, hey, we're going to do the same thing for Knott's Berry Farm.
01:38:17
Speaker
for six flags, you know, it's just not going to happen.
01:38:20
Speaker
So if this is my long way of saying, if the only way you're selling a premium product is on Facebook, you should be very concerned about your business.
01:38:30
Speaker
Yeah, I was, that's a really good point.
01:38:33
Speaker
That's crazy about Disney too.
01:38:35
Speaker
That's crazy.
01:38:36
Speaker
But just because all I'm talking about is Elton John, what I think is interesting is this game's not selling right now.
01:38:45
Speaker
But is this, is it because people think JJP, you buy it, you're going to immediately, the moment you buy a JJP game, you're out two grand.
01:38:52
Speaker
Like people have that idea.
01:38:53
Speaker
Like, is this going to be the hottest used pinball machine?
01:38:57
Speaker
Like as soon as people go to sell this, like, are there people that are like, I'm in when I get a used one for two grand less?
01:39:04
Speaker
Possibly, but look at, look at, I mean, yeah, maybe you're doing like the pirate scenario where, you know,
01:39:13
Speaker
these things are 20 grand or whatever.
01:39:16
Speaker
Yeah.
01:39:17
Speaker
But look at Godfather.
01:39:18
Speaker
I mean, Godfather didn't sell that great to my knowledge.
01:39:24
Speaker
And it's yeah.
01:39:27
Speaker
JJP.
01:39:27
Speaker
The number one thing is price.
01:39:29
Speaker
It's the perception of exactly.
01:39:31
Speaker
It's basically if you're comparing their version and I know they have bells and whistles and they probably have a little bit more,
01:39:39
Speaker
Build a material, then maybe a stern.
01:39:41
Speaker
However, for the end user, the perceived value for a, an, an LE or premium or platinum or whatever it's going to be, let's just say the platinum version of a JJP game, the equivalency is the premium version of a stern.
01:39:58
Speaker
And so people are going to equate those prices.
01:40:01
Speaker
And unless there's something that takes you beyond the premium version and whether or not that's fun, quality, whatever, then people are going to generally go to the lowest price point.
01:40:16
Speaker
And you have to say the best option right now with JJP is probably Elton John.
01:40:22
Speaker
It's probably Elton John.
01:40:23
Speaker
That's probably their best game right now.
01:40:26
Speaker
and you add, okay, should I get that or should I get a Godzilla, which is the best offer with Stern.
01:40:33
Speaker
I'll add something to that, Scott.
01:40:39
Speaker
Also, availability of getting the game.
01:40:42
Speaker
Because JJP, they're good at getting games out the door, but they don't do it like Stern.
01:40:50
Speaker
Stern gets them out quick.
01:40:53
Speaker
So that's another thing.
01:40:55
Speaker
Well, to tag onto that, I have a buddy here locally that he has been on.
01:41:00
Speaker
He's been in on Scooby-Doo since day one, but he didn't get the bloodsucker edition.
01:41:05
Speaker
He got the standard edition.
01:41:07
Speaker
So he's at the end of the line.
01:41:09
Speaker
He's at the end of the line.
01:41:11
Speaker
And he, here he is.
01:41:13
Speaker
He hasn't like what I, what I, I feel so bad for him because he, anytime over the last probably six plus months, he could have gotten a used Scooby-Doo bloodsuckers edition for cheaper than
01:41:25
Speaker
than what he is prepared to pay for for his standard edition.
01:41:29
Speaker
Right.
01:41:29
Speaker
But he's trying to be like a loyal person.
01:41:33
Speaker
Like I said, I was going to buy it.
01:41:35
Speaker
I'm going to buy it.
01:41:36
Speaker
But when you have games like this, it's just what do you... Don't do it.
01:41:39
Speaker
Like I will tell anybody out there, as somebody that sells games, don't be loyal to something that costs you money in that way.
01:41:48
Speaker
You know what I mean?
01:41:48
Speaker
Because we're all here to make a profit.
01:41:51
Speaker
Like, yeah, I love pinball and all that, but we have to sell, right?
01:41:54
Speaker
To stay in business or I'm going to love pinball while being unemployed.
01:41:58
Speaker
So it just doesn't work like that.
01:41:59
Speaker
So I would always recommend to everybody out there, like don't feel a sense of loyalty.
01:42:05
Speaker
to anything other than your family, like do what's right for you.
01:42:09
Speaker
Don't feel forced to spend thousands upon thousands of dollars.
01:42:13
Speaker
If it ain't right, it ain't right.
01:42:15
Speaker
Don't be afraid to walk away.
01:42:17
Speaker
I mean, that's the main thing.
01:42:18
Speaker
Like, and I say this as somebody that sells these things.
01:42:21
Speaker
Like I don't want anybody to ever feel pressured.
01:42:24
Speaker
That just because they do have a non-refundable deposit that there's just no way out, you know, and they got to buy this pen or like I've heard of people taking on a bunch of pens like in debt with credit cards that are 15, 20% interest.
01:42:36
Speaker
It's like, wow.
01:42:37
Speaker
You know, it's like, let's, let's keep this under control.
01:42:40
Speaker
You don't have to be forced to do anything.
01:42:42
Speaker
Don't put yourself in the poor house.
01:42:44
Speaker
Right, exactly.
01:42:45
Speaker
Well, Joel, you do touch base, though, on what gets dangerous for these things.
01:42:49
Speaker
And that's where, you know, it's tough for Spooky.
01:42:52
Speaker
It's obvious that they want everybody to funnel up to the CE, right?
01:42:56
Speaker
You can look on their website and you get that feeling when you see what the cabinets look like for both
01:43:02
Speaker
you know, TCM and for Looney Tunes.
01:43:04
Speaker
It doesn't look anywhere near what the CE is for the bloodsucker and for the standard.
01:43:09
Speaker
And plus you're all the way on the back of the end of the line.
01:43:12
Speaker
Yeah.
01:43:12
Speaker
Right.
01:43:12
Speaker
So they're obviously wanting to funnel everybody up there.
01:43:14
Speaker
So that's just, it's interesting to see the different types of companies, how they go about
01:43:20
Speaker
getting people to buy their top of the line product and buy a lot of it.
01:43:25
Speaker
Yeah.
01:43:25
Speaker
You know, cause I think, I think we just see vast differences from how JJP does it, how spooky does it and how Stern does it.
01:43:32
Speaker
Like they're three incredibly different companies.
01:43:34
Speaker
It is spooky.
01:43:35
Speaker
Probably should have mixed that up a little bit.
01:43:37
Speaker
That's why Stern does a little bit of a,
01:43:40
Speaker
get the pros out there, get them quickly, get them out, then do L's.
01:43:44
Speaker
But
Future Speculations and Enjoyment Over Investment
01:43:45
Speaker
they've started mixing them up and doing like a little bit of pros, little bit of L's, little bit of premiums.
01:43:50
Speaker
And so they are catering to all the market because it's one thing having the, the product available that versus, okay, you can get the awesome thing two years down the line.
01:44:04
Speaker
It basically is unavailable.
01:44:05
Speaker
Let's make it unavailable.
01:44:07
Speaker
But we're also trying to compare strategies between, you know, Stern, a mass manufacturer of pinball versus Spooky, who's literally a boutique pinball company that's in the name, Boutique.
01:44:19
Speaker
You can't call Spooky a boutique anymore.
01:44:22
Speaker
I'm sorry.
01:44:23
Speaker
I mean, they're putting out as many games as JJP is, right?
01:44:30
Speaker
They're putting in a lot.
01:44:31
Speaker
They're putting in a lot of games.
01:44:32
Speaker
They're doing well.
01:44:33
Speaker
I'm just saying, compared to Stern, it's hard to say.
01:44:39
Speaker
Of course.
01:44:40
Speaker
You could say the same thing about American or JJP.
01:44:45
Speaker
CGC.
01:44:46
Speaker
CGC probably makes the least of all those.
01:44:49
Speaker
Stern's the giant, man.
01:44:51
Speaker
I mean...
01:44:53
Speaker
Well, they do it right, releasing their pros when they do.
01:44:55
Speaker
Because you see all the launch parties.
01:44:57
Speaker
That's very strategic marketing to get it on location, advertise it, get as many people playing the game and talking about it.
01:45:05
Speaker
Badges.
01:45:06
Speaker
Yeah.
01:45:07
Speaker
Well, I think I would go ahead, Josh.
01:45:10
Speaker
Oh, I was just going to say, I think to wrap it all up with what you guys are saying is like, it's going to be an interesting going interesting.
01:45:16
Speaker
You're going into 2024 because of, because of everything that we've talked about, like we're, we're a premium luxury item yet.
01:45:24
Speaker
We have, you know, basement bargain buyers trying to drive down the price as much as they can so they can get it on clearance.
01:45:31
Speaker
And it's a really weird dynamic.
01:45:33
Speaker
And it seems like the manufacturer's,
01:45:35
Speaker
are feeding into that with closeout deals and stuff like that and just not positioning themselves right.
01:45:41
Speaker
Going into a few, like, and it's really weird to me too because like Stern has been doing this for 30 plus years now.
01:45:47
Speaker
Like they've been through the ups and the downs of all this.
01:45:50
Speaker
I mean, 2000 is almost closed the door.
01:45:53
Speaker
But like, we're kind of back to that point of like, what is 2024 going to bring market-wise when we have so many that are refusing to buy now because, you know, they're just ripping us off.
01:46:04
Speaker
versus, you know, that's, I'm just sorry, I'm saying that as, I'm not saying that as loser kid, I'm saying that as like, that's the comments I read online.
01:46:11
Speaker
You're projecting what the buyer's saying in their mind.
01:46:15
Speaker
Correct.
01:46:16
Speaker
And so, it's just a really, we've created a really weird environment going forward for pinball.
01:46:23
Speaker
And it's going to be interesting to see who sustains and who ends up having to close door.
01:46:28
Speaker
Not only distributors and dealers, but if manufacturers can even weather this.
01:46:32
Speaker
And I already see that some of them really can't.
01:46:35
Speaker
I'm not going to start pointing fingers.
01:46:36
Speaker
We don't have time for that.
01:46:37
Speaker
Sure.
01:46:38
Speaker
I mean, I will say 2023, it's been a fun year.
01:46:40
Speaker
It's been a good year.
01:46:41
Speaker
There's been a lot of pinball, a lot of pinball that's been putting out in 2023.
01:46:46
Speaker
I do think all the companies are kind of pushing each other to be the best that they can.
01:46:51
Speaker
Are all these companies still going to be around in 2024, at the end of 2024?
01:46:53
Speaker
I don't know.
01:46:56
Speaker
But are all the distributors still going to be around?
01:46:58
Speaker
I don't know.
01:46:59
Speaker
But as somebody who's really into pinball and loves pinball, luckily there's a lot of games out there that you can buy.
01:47:06
Speaker
You got a lot of different options.
01:47:07
Speaker
You can buy them new.
01:47:08
Speaker
You can buy them used.
01:47:10
Speaker
It's still there.
01:47:11
Speaker
Where would you buy those games at, Joel?
01:47:13
Speaker
Who's paying me?
01:47:15
Speaker
I don't... This is where you just say Flippin' Out Pinball.
01:47:22
Speaker
I literally lob him on baseball.
01:47:26
Speaker
And he misses.
01:47:28
Speaker
He just looks at me.
01:47:29
Speaker
He's like, I don't know if I'm going to say it.
01:47:31
Speaker
Loser Kid is sponsored by Flippin' Out Pinball.
01:47:35
Speaker
The Loser Kid portion is brought to you by Flippin' Out Pinball.
01:47:39
Speaker
Contact Zach and Nicole Minnie at Flippin' Out Pinball.
01:47:42
Speaker
Bye, bye, bye.
01:47:42
Speaker
Ding.
01:47:43
Speaker
Bye, bye, bye.
01:47:44
Speaker
But I'm just saying it's, if though, if part of this hobby though is a thought of this is, I do this and I get to make money while I do it, you might need to like readdress that.
01:47:56
Speaker
Never buy a pinball machine expecting for it to hold value.
01:48:01
Speaker
Yeah, sure.
01:48:02
Speaker
That's what I would recommend anybody.
01:48:03
Speaker
Even if you buy an LE.
01:48:05
Speaker
Like if somebody, if you bought a pinball machine from somebody and they've told you, yeah, this will hold its value for you.
01:48:10
Speaker
Yeah.
01:48:12
Speaker
Like I wouldn't, I wouldn't trust it.
01:48:13
Speaker
And it's not to say it can't, there's certain variables where it can, but don't have that be your driver because guess what happens there again?
01:48:21
Speaker
Right.
01:48:22
Speaker
You're so price focused.
01:48:23
Speaker
You want to buy low, you want to sell high, you want to go back and forth.
01:48:26
Speaker
Like it's meant to be a toy for adults.
01:48:29
Speaker
That's not a triple X adult toy, except for Tom, probably at some point.
01:48:33
Speaker
Tom's a toy.
01:48:35
Speaker
But still, you know, it's a, it's a toy for us to play with.
01:48:38
Speaker
And so it should be played and I get it.
01:48:40
Speaker
There's people that buy the LEs.
01:48:41
Speaker
It's an art thing.
01:48:42
Speaker
It's a flex thing.
01:48:43
Speaker
And it stays in there in their man cave and all that.
01:48:46
Speaker
And we've seen that tons of times, but when you look at premiums, you look at pros, you look at everything else, like just buy them to play, have fun and buy it.
01:48:54
Speaker
When the time's right for you, the time's right for you is to buy new inbox.
01:48:57
Speaker
And you happen to be the type of buyer that needs free shipping.
01:49:00
Speaker
There's companies out there for you.
01:49:01
Speaker
You're the type of buyer that wants to wait till it's used.
01:49:05
Speaker
There's plenty of opportunities out there too.
01:49:06
Speaker
If you're the type of buyer that just needs it immediately, no matter what.
01:49:10
Speaker
Yeah.
01:49:10
Speaker
There's dealers out there for you with that also.
01:49:12
Speaker
I mean, that's the beauty of it.
01:49:13
Speaker
I think, I think another thing too, is we need to keep in mind, like the sky's not always falling.
01:49:17
Speaker
Like I think a great example, this is bond bond had to been like one of the roughest out of the gate releases, but almost a year later it's being received very well.
01:49:28
Speaker
People are loving it and people are loving where the code has went, but it took about a year for us to get to that point.
01:49:32
Speaker
So yeah,
01:49:34
Speaker
I get you.
01:49:35
Speaker
I get you.
01:49:36
Speaker
Well, we're approaching the two-hour mark.
01:49:38
Speaker
This is super long for you guys.
01:49:40
Speaker
I know, Loser Kid, you guys are really good at that one.
01:49:44
Speaker
What I love is the feedback that we get at Triple Drain.
01:49:46
Speaker
Some people are like, can you make a longer podcast?
01:49:49
Speaker
And they're dead serious.
01:49:50
Speaker
They're dead serious.
01:49:51
Speaker
We've had four hours.
01:49:52
Speaker
And then there's other people that are like, I can't.
Conclusion and Community Engagement
01:49:56
Speaker
Whatever.
01:49:56
Speaker
So it is what it is.
01:49:58
Speaker
Let's go ahead and plug it up.
01:49:59
Speaker
Scott and Josh, if you want to go for it, plug away.
01:50:02
Speaker
We are loser kid pinball podcast at gmail.com.
01:50:05
Speaker
If you want to get ahold of us, you can get ahold of us there or on Facebook, Twitter, Twitch, sorry, X, uh, whatever else, uh, YouTube hit us up at loser kid pinball.
01:50:15
Speaker
Leave us a comment.
01:50:16
Speaker
We've, we've received a lot of great positive comments out of all the shenanigans these last two weeks.
01:50:22
Speaker
there has been a couple negatives.
01:50:23
Speaker
Um, but I want you to understand like, it's like a, a 10 to one.
01:50:27
Speaker
And so, uh, just there's, there's a lot of people that want to speak their mind, but they, they just can't, I guess, or they don't want to, or, or yeah.
01:50:36
Speaker
Anywho, but the point being is if you want to hit us up, that's the way to hit us up.
01:50:40
Speaker
Be safe, be positive.
01:50:42
Speaker
Thanks.
01:50:43
Speaker
No stabbing anyone.
01:50:45
Speaker
Uh, Travis plug away.
01:50:47
Speaker
My camera worked the whole entire time.
01:50:50
Speaker
He did it, guys.
01:50:51
Speaker
He did it.
01:50:52
Speaker
Who had the bet for full show?
01:50:54
Speaker
Oh, I have no one here.
01:50:56
Speaker
Wow.
01:50:56
Speaker
We all lost.
01:50:57
Speaker
Actually, Josh, you lost because your camera fell.
01:51:00
Speaker
Imagine how Elwin feels right now.
01:51:02
Speaker
Yeah.
01:51:03
Speaker
Yeah.
01:51:04
Speaker
That's what it took.
01:51:05
Speaker
It took getting one of the greatest pinball designers of all time on our podcast and Travis just falling apart for him to step up his game and figure out how to actually use this.
01:51:15
Speaker
You know what?
01:51:15
Speaker
He actually said, get behind me, boys.
01:51:17
Speaker
I got this.
01:51:17
Speaker
Yeah.
01:51:18
Speaker
All right.
01:51:20
Speaker
uh is that your oh yeah listen to us on triple drain got a ball podcast too forgot that's actually a valid plug though because people are hearing this on loser kid yeah yeah and loser kid listen to loser kid podcasts and come over to my neck of the woods youtube the pinball company just watch some stuff on there i'm not going to sell you anything just just watch the videos you guys will get me a christmas bonus or something like that yeah wonderful tom plug uh five cities pinball
01:51:49
Speaker
I like it.
01:51:50
Speaker
Okay, and what does Fox Cities do?
01:51:53
Speaker
We stream pit ball.
01:51:54
Speaker
Okay, teach you how to play.
01:51:55
Speaker
Okay.
01:51:57
Speaker
It's a lot of tournament streams.
01:51:58
Speaker
He does it incredibly well.
01:52:00
Speaker
Tom's way too humble.
01:52:01
Speaker
If you want to watch good people.
01:52:02
Speaker
500 hours the last year.
01:52:05
Speaker
600.
01:52:05
Speaker
600, Tom.
01:52:07
Speaker
I even forgot.
01:52:08
Speaker
It was 600.
01:52:08
Speaker
His YouTube, he throws up past it.
01:52:11
Speaker
Just subscribe to him on YouTube.
01:52:12
Speaker
There's a lot of good content there.
01:52:14
Speaker
And then also live, watch it on Twitch.
01:52:16
Speaker
He's partnered.
01:52:17
Speaker
He does a fantastic job with all the tournaments he streams.
01:52:19
Speaker
He is the best partnered tournament streamer in Wisconsin.
01:52:23
Speaker
Hands down.
01:52:25
Speaker
Hands down.
01:52:25
Speaker
Hands down.
01:52:26
Speaker
Hands down.
01:52:26
Speaker
Yeah.
01:52:27
Speaker
And I am Joel.
01:52:28
Speaker
I do the flipping out pinball stream every Wednesday night from 10 to midnight Eastern Standard Time.
01:52:33
Speaker
Check us out on YouTube.
01:52:34
Speaker
All of our past streams are there from this year.
01:52:36
Speaker
And then obviously here on Triple Drain.
01:52:38
Speaker
I think we're all on Silver Ball Swag.
01:52:39
Speaker
Check us out for merch there.
01:52:41
Speaker
Both Lose Your Kid and Triple Drain.
01:52:42
Speaker
And what I will say, guys, is this was a lot of fun.
01:52:45
Speaker
Everybody have a...
01:52:46
Speaker
All of our listeners, thank you for being a listener.
01:52:49
Speaker
Everybody have a wonderful and fantastic holiday.
01:52:52
Speaker
It's been a great year.
01:52:53
Speaker
And yeah, Tom, like always, you get the last words.
01:52:57
Speaker
I got to go get Neil.
01:52:58
Speaker
Bye.