Live From The Texas Pinball Festival 2018

It is 233 on the East Coast.
And now I gotta do math.
It is 11.33 a.m. on the West Coast.
I think, did I do that right?
Was that right?
Okay.
It is the 17th of, was this March?
In the year of our Lord, 2018,
I swear we've done this before.
Season eight, episode 32, 435 times.
This voice has welcomed you to the Clubhouse podcast,
normally live every Sunday night,
seven Eastern four Pacific,
also normally your one stop shop for all things pop culture.
But we've been telling you for weeks.
Today is the day.
We are live at the 2018 Texas pinball festival
in Frisco, Texas.
One of the coolest shows we get to do every year
because it combines two of our favorite things
in the world, being out of the house
and playing video games and pinball games
and things like that.
Welcome.
My name is Rob.
I am the executive producer of the Clubhouse podcast.
And if I could label a day Murphy's Law, this might be it.
But I'm not alone sitting next to me is my co-host
and a man who's, I'm gonna say he cursed my laptop
because what happened to his this morning?
I'm blaming him, chat is here.
Hello, sir.
I had nothing to do with it.
You think Murphy's Law might be taking hold
because of what day on the calendar this is?
I don't think that's the thing.
I'm gonna turn you up a little bit
because you're not very loud, sir.
Talk a little bit more for me.
Okay, how's it?
Yeah, it's a little bit more clear.
There we go.
And across from him is the official fact checker of this show
and a guy who, he's just buying stuff today.
I'm not sure what's going on over there.
You may know him as Fondango, but it's Mama name.
I'm Don Ford.
I'm gonna call him Don Ford.
Hello, sir.
Speaking of my mama.
Oh, you might want to.
Yeah, you're the loud there, Don.
Well, I can't help that.
I don't do the volume on this thing.
You're the one who control the volume.
You control the volume on your person.
You always say speaking to the thing, right?
But I tell you not to yell is you see how this works?
Okay, here's the thing.
Speaking of speaking of mama.
My mama's birthday's on Monday.
So we want to say happy birthday to Mama Ford.
Mama, Mama, Mama Arnsons.
Oh, Mama Arnsons, okay.
Okay.
Mama Montana, Mama Montana, there we go.
But to the right ear, I'm not kidding the right ear.
I don't know what's going on.
Okay, there, sir.
I really don't know.
How's that?
We're good.
Okay, also next to him could be shadowing him today
as we're getting her accustomed to the madness
that is our live shows.
The general is here.
Hello, friend.
Hello, everyone.
How are you doing?
I am excellent.
I'm seeing lots and lots of green,
which always makes me happy.
Absolutely.
Wish more was in my wallet, but I'll take it
in people's clothes.
Exactly.
Moving on.
Okay, good night, everybody.
So she's going to be hanging out with Don a lot today
because we're going to have a lot of guests.
We already have a guest with us.
We have no corrections or updates from last week's show,
which is good.
I am caught up.
I hadn't listened to the Oscar show, Don,
you didn't win.
By the way, just so you know, you did not win.
Hey, if on the, yeah, 64, I would have put Virginia lost
on my bracket if I don't win.
Brother, I haven't even touched my brackets from,
oh, they see this as I live for a show.
Oh, we watched the game.
Chad, we're going to talk about that here in a little while,
but we've got guests to talk to first.
You guys know me, so I'm going to get going.
Go do you, and we're going to,
we have a very, very special guest coming here
in just a little while.
And I'm not even going to spoil it
because you're going to find out on your own.
And if you think of what today is
and maybe the coloring that usually comes with today,
that's a hint.
That's all I'm saying.
But joining us right now, we have a repeat guest
from last year, sir.
You get to, okay, I thought you had your microphone over there.
Tell everybody who you are, sir.
We always let our guests introduce themselves.
My name is Brad Baker.
I own VP cabs virtual pinball based out of Cincinnati, Ohio.
And this is, I think, our fourth or fifth year
at the Texas pinball festival.
And it's always great to sit down and hang out with you guys.
Brad is awesome.
We used with us last year.
And also joining us is the only person
that has been with me every year
that I've done this festival.
This is John Howeser.
We call him Doc Hello, sir.
Hello, my name is Leopcens, I'm this class.
That's how he introduces himself every time he does this show.
This is our fourth year doing this show as well.
You guys have been here every year that we've been here.
We talk about you guys,
I mean, we talked about you guys even before
we came to the festival because I've always been impressed.
I believe, sir, I believe you told me about them originally
if I'm not mistaken.
Yes, I did.
You pointed out to me that there was a company
that does something that really, I don't know,
you guys are the only ones of your kind, correct?
No one's kind of trying to rise up on you right now.
There are others that do the virtual pinball thing.
So I can't tell you.
But not in the same manner, y'all do it.
I think in the manner, no.
We purposely tried to take this idea and technology
and run it to a level and take some crazy risks
and see where we could go with it.
So I think we've taken it a little further.
And maybe some days we want to take it.
And you guys, you and I were talking in
what was a very extended pre-show.
We were having some technical difficulties,
but we've got those worked out now
and we are broadcasting live.
From, you guys started if I'm not mistaken
in like a mall storefront?
Do I remember that correctly?
Yeah, well, start, start happened in my garage.
So I've owned a AV electronics company
for about 13, 14 years now.
And we had some slow times and my brother owns three
big arcades in Cincinnati.
And he kind of got me turned on to the idea
of a digital pinball cabinet.
And I built one for him just to play around with.
And then that kind of turned into,
hey, can you make me one for my buddy and so on?
So I built the first five or six in my garage.
And then we moved to a little,
it was an old dev clothing store.
And on that band and mall,
where my brother's main arcade happens to be.
So the landlord basically is like, yeah,
do whatever you want, just don't make a mess.
And we got kicked out of there because we made a mess.
I mean, and you guys have really,
and for those of people that don't know what you guys do,
I want to give a little bit of color to this.
I am a huge pinball fan.
I always have been, especially in this day and age
where every controller for a video game has 900 buttons.
I go back to pinball, I go back,
if I can hold a gun in my hand,
then shoot a discreet, I'm good.
So what you guys have done,
and it's, I just continually blows my mind.
You can, I mean, you have many different models now,
but the main thing that you guys are known for
is it looks like just a regular pinball cabinet.
It looks, it feels, I mean, the flippers are the flippers
and you've even got the little magnet that happens
when you hit the special, but the body of it
and the top glass are both LED screen or LCD screen.
Correct, and inside the pinball cabinet
is a physical computer, which if you've played things
like pinball effects or any kind of video games
that have, that play pinball games.
It's like that, but those screens make it look
and feel like you're playing an actual pinball machine.
So you could have 150 pinball machines
in your basement in one cabinet.
Exactly, I mean, it's a lot of fun to, you know,
turn on the Xbox and download and play some pinball, you know,
you can play the Zen pinball on, you know, Nintendo Xbox
and all that.
It's a lot of fun, but there was always something lacking
in the experience side, if you're used to
standing out a pinball machine, or even if you never have
the first time you come up to it and play it versus like,
hey, I play this at home all the time, what's a big deal?
It's a big deal.
It's a big deal.
It's not even the same sport.
Like I wouldn't even say it's in the same ball,
it's not even the same sport.
Like you get the feeling, I mean, how many,
and I'm sure that the number I threw out there
was a very, very conservative estimate.
What is the maximum number of tables
that you've put into a machine?
It's really hard to say.
So there's a couple different types of tables you could get.
We license all of the pinball FX3 tables through Zen.
They currently have 73 tables.
When we started with them, they had like 20.
So we've been with them for a lot of years
and they're phenomenal.
But also the end user can go and grab every old school
classic arcade game ever made.
There's a community of hobbyists that redesign
high-resolution photos and they put them in this program
called Visual Pinball, which is a free download
for anybody.
You can play it on your laptop.
You've had it for about eight years.
Again, not as fun as playing in a cabinet,
but so there's literally hundreds and hundreds.
I have customers that have reported back to me
that they have like over 900 games on their vertigo.
And what I love, too, is, especially when you come here
to the Texas Pinball Festival, if you don't believe it,
you can go play the actual machines
and then come back to where you guys are
and play them on the VP cab and see how close it is.
You know, and because one of the things
that people have said to me a lot is, you know,
it's that depth of perception.
It's like, no, you get that depth of perception
with the way that the graphics are presented.
And there's, I mean, outside of the maintenance
of keeping up with all the parts, I mean, to me,
that's the only difference between playing the actual machine
and planning it with what you guys have
because the love that you guys have for Pinball
comes through in the product, the amount of detail
you put into it.
And also what I like is you guys will customize,
no matter how much they want to talk about some
of the customization that you guys do for these things.
Well, yeah, it can get pretty crazy.
We just did a deal with the Skyjack Lift Company.
So it's totally obscure.
But so there's a big national company called Skyjack
and they make like cherry pickers and lifts
and stuff like that.
And they saw us on Shark Tank or something
and they said, hey, we do all these trade shows
and we're looking a way to draw people
to our booth and the trade show.
You got, you know, can you build some for us?
Well, we do that stuff all the time.
We've built machines for Robert Kirkman
and Galen heard for the Walking Dead.
But that was just torture for you.
That was tough.
Yeah, you know, okay, Robert Kirkman,
if you want one, we'll do one.
It's cool to think he's got it in his office.
They played all the time, you know,
and they take it to Comic Con and set it up
and, you know, it's a lot of fun.
So, but the Skyjack Company, they ordered two machines
to put in their booth and they have to the show.
They called and said, we can't believe
how much this helped our business.
We want six more.
And these are our full-on machines.
So stuff like that's really cool.
We did a series of machines for the impractical jokers.
And we launched that at Comic Con two years ago
and since then, the actual guys themselves,
three of the four guys own one of our machines
and we had an impractical jokers digital game created
for the machine.
Get out of here.
Yeah, yeah, so let's see.
Petri and Brian Quinn have told them Steve Dave.
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
Q has become like a good friend of EP Cavs
and they invited us to be in there.
There's an exhibit museum in New York.
This starts in July, all about impractical jokers
and they're going to put our machine on display
up front, which is cool, so.
And I love how we just kind of blew
by the whole Shark Tank thing.
Just, you know, it's old news, right?
But not, I mean, we have people that listen to this show
that may be new listeners that don't know.
You guys were on Shark Tank and you had Cuban
mesmerized for lack of a better chairman.
We talked about that last year a lot, how,
and it was really interesting to me how you guys were talking
about like, we were in there for like a day and a half
that would have down to seven minutes.
Yeah, it was cool.
We actually, we did not make a deal with Mark Cuban,
but we did build him one of our machines.
So after the show randomly, I was at
Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas
and I was walking down the aisle in like larger than life.
You know, Mark Cuban's just like walking this way.
He was taping an update episode for somebody else
and he, I bumped into him.
He remembered me and he's like, oh, man,
I had so much fun making me one.
And I was like, yeah, sure.
He's like, yeah, I want it to be Dallas Mavs,
players, Dirk Novitsky, everybody.
And so we went back, we had our artist draw it all up
and we sent him, he's so accessible, by the way.
I could right now text him or email him
and he would send it back.
He would get back to him in like five minutes.
I've heard that about Cuban.
Super cool, dude, not even partnered with me,
has no money interest in my business.
But so we delivered that two years ago.
Texas Pimball Festival 2016 to his house here in Dallas.
But it was a big secret.
We weren't allowed to share it because I had not aired.
I didn't air till May of 2016.
Oh wow.
So I had to hide it in the truck wrapped in a blanket.
And I wanted to tell people so.
They're like, sir, is your baby in the bag?
It's a large baby.
He's very, very big.
I wanted to tell people so bad because we were so excited.
But it like literally our contract with Shark Tank
was so, it was like $5 million penalty
for any breach of like, if it leaked, it was six times.
He's not about the same for his survivors
and the five or seven million is crazy.
I think so, yeah.
So yeah, I got that on me.
So you're having to pull a weekend at Bernies
with a pinball, can we?
We did.
We snuck over to his place, which, you know,
just a tiny little place here in Dallas.
Yeah.
He's got in the park guarded by the Dallas PD.
And they took our IDs and did a background check
before they let us in.
Good God.
It was incredible.
It was the passcode Avon Callway.
It was awesome.
So we've had crazy cool experiences like that.
That just like, you know, you can't put into words.
When you start this in your garage, you did five years ago
and you just kind of like, would never, five years, sir.
Is that all?
In the last time that this show has been on the air,
they have gone from conception to one of the biggest vendors.
I would say probably second biggest vendor
at the festival overall.
Not necessarily by square footage, but by foot traffic.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
I mean, the big dog in the middle, they are who they are.
And I hope we're going to have them on too.
But to me, there's two places you go.
I go to them.
I go to you guys.
Everything else is ancillary.
But we appreciate it.
I mean, is there right now?
Is there one that you're just like, all I need
to do is get a phone call because I would love
to do this machine tomorrow?
Weird out.
You saw that they're doing funco pops at him.
They're coming out.
They're doing two, one of him in the Hawaiian shirt
and one of him from the fat video, which I think is amazing.
Me and my brother are going to the concert this year.
They're doing like a little intimate.
They're not doing the big show this year.
It's like all his originals.
They're sitting down like stories.
Really?
Because they're coming here.
And Emo, Emo Philips is opening for him.
Oh, my God.
So we're pretty pumped about it.
I'm so old school when I think of the first thing
I think of when I hear Emo Philips.
Do you remember MTV did the half hour comedy hour?
Yeah.
And he did the commercial.
And he was the end of the commercial.
And he said, don't touch that dial.
Because I spat on it.
Yes, I do.
Which is a UHF is my favorite.
Oh, me, Mr. Butterfinger.
Wheel of Fish.
I actually, that was the first movie.
UHF was the first movie I saw at a dollar theater.
Wow.
It was called Value Cinemas.
You spent 75 cents too much, but it was totally there.
No, I loved it.
I had the soundtrack in my phone, right?
I watch it over and over again.
It's a classic.
It's one of those films that you watch and you go,
there's other things I could be doing, but why?
Life's too short.
It's one of those, you're scrolling through the guide
and you just stop that.
Yeah.
You're right.
So what do you guys have come in down the pike?
Anything new that you can talk about?
That you can talk about.
We do have a lot of cool stuff coming.
One thing that we're working real hard on
is we want to create our own digital game.
We're working on our own digital game.
And I figured that was coming soon.
It's our way to hopefully get into the coin op realm right now.
We've been in talks with Zen about coin op
and that's not a big secret.
We're hoping that'll happen as well.
But we're also working on our own game
that will be potentially licensed
with a large old school video game company.
Nice.
And it's going to be something pretty cool.
So we've got a couple of the levels in the works.
It's going to be like a 32 level throwback old school
game with a kill screen.
Wow.
It's my goal with it.
That's very early.
It's very expensive.
It's very early.
Especially given what's about to happen here.
It's pinball-related.
It's a pinball game sort of.
I can say that.
And I don't know.
We're just super excited about that.
We're 13 days away from play.
Ready Player One.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm going to be honest.
I'm still a little concerned.
Yeah.
Because I've read the book.
And I think that reading that book
is going to be my fatal flaw because 80% of the trailers
I've seen, I'm like, that's not even in the book.
So it's going to be very difficult for this movie
to impress me.
It has to appeal to the master.
I should have waited until after to read the book.
Because I'm going to be so hypercritical.
It's not even funny.
What right now is at the festival
that you haven't had a chance to mess with that you need
to just get your hands on?
Well, I need to get my hands more on a little bit
of the Total Nuclear Nolation.
We have one great game.
We have one coming to our Barcade in Cincinnati.
So we're really excited.
But Scott and E.C., the brains behind that, team double spooky.
And to me, I think it's one of the most unique throwback
fun games in the past, I don't even know, 10 or 15 years.
It's phenomenal.
Actually, you played that game for the first time
two weeks ago.
The first ball, I was like, I don't understand what I'm doing.
It's murderous.
And then what else?
I had a free play over in Richardson.
And there was nobody.
I went on a Monday night, because I like doing that,
because there's no one in there.
Once I figured it out, what to do?
That machine's amazing.
It's so fun.
Two years ago, they brought the first iteration
of the Total Nolation.
Yeah, it's here.
Yeah, it's here.
Before it had the back glass, and it was real, real basic.
Basically, there are prototype.
And you can play that, and you can play the final version too.
And it's just like Doc said, it's one of those games.
Once you get the feel of it, you can't play it enough.
I'm ready for, we're just two hours and nine minutes away
from the reveal of the new Alice Cooper table.
It's over there, but it's under, they've got the glass covered up.
At four o'clock central today, you need to get here
to the Texas Pinball Festival if you want to see it.
It's 40 bucks to get in the door,
but that 40 bucks makes itself back in what an hour.
Oh yeah, that's a lot.
I mean, I tell people every year.
There's 500 and something games, not counting vendors.
Right, not counting vendors.
I mean, and it's, you get, it's the entire
Fiscal Convention Center.
It's not like one room.
And what I love about this festival is,
everybody's so respectful and everybody's so nice.
Like you end up playing four player games with people
that you don't even know, but it helps everybody get to play
at the one at the same time.
The Guardians table blew my mind.
It's a lot of love.
That's the latest latest code on Guardians is real good.
Everybody's really stepping up their game.
You know, there's the P3 system.
It's multi-morphic is an awesome platform.
Yeah, we had those guys out there.
The washer was their first year here and stuff.
It's hard to even describe that system
until you get your hands on it.
Jerry's a great guy.
He's been working his tail off for like a decade.
It seems like to really get that thing to a,
and now he is shipping actual production games.
That's awesome.
I don't think people, I don't think people realize
the amount of time, effort, and millions of dollars
it takes to launch a game like that.
Well, it's to set yourself apart like you guys have
just from the, you know, because you've got the big boys.
Yeah.
And it's hard to compete, but when you can come up with something
that's different and is still effective like you guys have,
it's that thing where we just get to see them.
We're just like, you know, again,
we've just gotten to watch that evolution
of watching you guys just get bigger and bigger and bigger.
And we're excited because,
number one, you get to come sit down with us.
Number two, you got to help me figure this thing out.
Yes.
And I'm just going to say it,
when we were having our issues in pre-show,
this was the guy that was kind of walking me through it.
And it's like, I don't mean to say something like,
dude, you're not stepping on my toes,
because you're helping me understand.
You know, when you have a guy that understands what's going on,
you know, that helps me out, too.
Especially if guy that runs his own AV company,
because, you know, as big of an AV geek as I am.
Just to know a little bit about it a little bit.
Okay, so I know we've kept you long enough.
No, it's cool.
Thank you.
And you can say as long as you want.
You're more than welcome to.
Before we get to our next guest,
I want you to give the shameless plugs,
because we're all about shameless self-promotion.
All right, awesome.
All right, so the easiest way to find us is virtualpimball.com,
or vpcabs.com, either one,
but that's the deal.
www.virtualpimball.com,
where we're online there all the time.
We've got some great tax return specials going on right now.
And...
Tax return.
What's that?
I don't know what that is.
I've never got one.
I've been self-employed for years.
I don't know what's going on.
I feel like I pay enough, and I still don't pay enough, so.
I absolutely hear you.
But definitely, I mean, he's,
find these guys on social media.
Go hook up with them.
If you're, whether you're a novice or a hardcore fan,
they have something for you.
It's all high quality.
Again, whenever we do this show, I tell Don,
make sure we get the guys from vpcabs on,
because I am such a fan of what they do.
And again, you're one of the guys we seek out every year,
because I just love to see what you guys are doing.
We also have another guest to go for you to pick up the mic
and tell everybody who you are.
Hello, everybody.
I'm George Gomez.
I'm Chief Creative Officer for Stern Pimball.
He's got stuff going on.
Oh, my God.
He's got a pretty busy schedule.
This is a guy that's, that's, he's being humble.
He's got a few skins on the wall.
I feel like if you take all of the experience of my life
and you put it all together,
this guy has paid my mortgage,
at least twice over in 44 years, almost 45.
Or as much money as you've dumped into his machine.
That's what I'm saying.
I have invested in his company enough
and he has paid off my mortgage at least.
Well, thank you for putting my name on.
Tell us about your experience so far at the festival.
Oh, you know, I, this is one of my favorite
Pimball shows all year.
Texas Pimball Festival is always phenomenal.
Huge crowds here.
I mean, the quality of the games is absolutely top notch.
Make sure you stop by the Marco Booth.
It's entirely populated with the,
Well, this represents the two people
that I make sure I see every year.
Yeah, the Marco Booth is incredible, George.
Yeah, it's awesome.
The series that we have,
we have a lot of our state of the art stuff in there.
There's a, we're sampling Texas Pimball show,
only code on both the Batman game and the Guardians game.
Which those are two of the first,
I think those are the first two games I know.
Star Wars first and then I played those two.
Okay, and so yeah, there's a Star Wars there.
There's ACDC.
We've got Metallic is in there.
Yeah, I mean, we've, we've got a lot of great
Stern product in there.
The code that's in those games is going to ship
to the owners of those games with the games when they get it.
Because every, every one of those games
are already accounted for.
Somebody's bought them off the wall.
Which is great.
And not surprising, but it's a very nice thing.
And then, and then that same code
will probably be released in the next couple of weeks
for both Batman and Guardians.
And let's, let's, let's pause for a minute
because I want to go into that.
So people can understand what you're talking about.
Yep.
You know, this isn't your grandfather's pinball machine.
No, that's just a bunch of parts
in life.
When you say code, there's actually software
in the pinball machine that now are there.
And explain how that works.
Do people that currently have the machine
can they get updates for their machines?
Absolutely.
How does that work?
I mean, pinball in 2018 is just like every other product
that you own and interact with.
Meaning that, you know, it is, it is driven by a state
of the art microprocessor.
In addition to the physical pinball things,
which make pinball pinball, the stuff under the glass,
flippers, a ball, targets, transforming targets,
all that great stuff, ramps, and all those lights,
all of the logic for that is driven by the microprocessor.
And in addition to that, the games have an LCD display,
a liquid crystal display, just like every other device
in your life.
You're getting bigger and bigger and bigger every year.
When you look at the stuff like Wizard of Oz
or Alien, it's just like, it's now half the back glass.
Well, so we, you know, and we made a conscious choice
with the display size that we use in the Stern pinballs,
which is essentially equivalent to a 15 inch laptop,
15 inch stuff in display.
And the reason we did that is because I feel really strongly
that pinball art back glasses are a significant part
of the history of pinball.
I totally agree with you.
And so I really didn't want to make the back glasses go away
for a display.
And I thought the display, we will have a display.
It will be a state of the art display,
high resolution, all that great color.
And we do, but in addition to that,
I managed to preserve the dimensions
of the pinball back glass more or less.
And so, I mean, that art is iconic.
It is a part of what everyone knows
and understands of a pinball machine.
And I'm not afraid to say the first time I saw Batman 66.
There was a man here.
Because I am, I am, I left Batman fanatic
about four blocks ago.
You know, I passed that point.
I'm fully obsessed now with the dark night.
And to see that machine, I saw that for the first time
last year at the festival.
And I just sat there and looked at it for like five minutes.
I couldn't even move because I was just like,
this is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.
So I have to tell you that the guys that worked on the game
myself and at Lyman Sheets, that the entire crew, Chris
Franciard, all of, you know, Jerry Thompson's audio,
all of those guys grew up watching the show.
And every, every one of us, I mean, it was back in the,
I'm old enough that there were no DVRs.
Clearly, when I was watching that show, right?
And you prayed you were home in time.
I, I, no, in my case, I had to have my homework done.
Our mom wasn't gonna let me watch the game.
So, and then, you know, if you ever missed the show, right?
And you show up at school the next day
and all your buddies have seen the show.
Everybody's talking about the show
and you are totally, totally left out.
It's like the walking dead now.
So, yeah.
Well, it was one of those where if you missed it,
you just sat there and you're like, yeah,
that was totally cool.
And you let everybody else talk about it.
You just don't say anything.
No.
In the hopes that nobody asks you any questions.
Thank you.
And back in those days, you couldn't look it up on YouTube
or online.
You couldn't do anything else.
You were stuck.
You missed it.
Well, we, we have a Batman 66 on location
at our Barcade in Cincinnati, as well as at New Guardians.
And the Batman is a huge earner.
Yeah.
It's a, everybody just loves the game.
It appeals to non pinball folks.
Absolutely.
And tremendously, which is great.
And George, I have a question.
Bit of fan for a long time.
And we've got a lot of your guys' machines on our,
we have three arcades in Cincinnati.
And you guys kind of waited to put the bigger display
in longer than some of the competition.
Yes.
And I think, I thought that was really cool
because it seemed like you purposefully set out
to make sure you did it the way that you wanted to pay tribute
to a classic pinball.
Well, and not only that, but in some cases,
there's a choice.
You have the LED with the full motion video.
But you also have the choice of, for lack of a better term,
the dot matrix style, too, which I thought was really neat.
So we went away, if we made the game with the dot matrix,
it will have a dot matrix when we make it again.
But clearly, the LCD games, so the slow down
and bringing the LCD to market is about this.
The reality is that the challenge is not
in hanging the display in the back right.
And the challenge is not in getting hardware
to drive the display.
The challenge is in generating the content
that is going to go into the display.
That's really the challenge.
So it took some amount of time for us
to not only develop the pipeline to get the content into the system,
and the pipeline also includes all of the talent that
generates all of those images, all those beautiful images,
and cuts stuff up and edits it, and makes it beautiful.
And in some cases, creates computer graphics from scratch,
right? In a game like Batman, we're very lucky.
We had access to almost all of the video from the series.
So cool.
And the remastered images, too.
And that's one of the things that really pops a lot to me
in that machine is how clean the image is.
And one of the things that you guys have been doing
in the last few years that to me is mind-blowing, too,
is the little itty-bitty screens, the little TV, you know?
Did you guys do the WrestleMania machines?
Yes, we did.
OK, so when they unveiled those,
there's two different machines.
You have WrestleMania, and you have Legends of WrestleMania.
And Legends of WrestleMania is next level,
because at the top of Legends of WrestleMania,
there's a little ring that has flippers in it.
So you're basically bouncing off the ropes.
And when you pick your wrestler at the beginning,
their entrance video plays on a Titan Tron above that.
I mean, it was just one of those that I was playing.
I was like, can somebody just get rid of the people behind me?
Because I'm going to be playing this for like an hour.
It's way underrated.
Way underrated.
No, I love that machine so much.
Wait, is there one here this year?
I haven't seen it.
You know, we had to do it.
We had, I mean, how do you do WrestleMania without the Titan Tron?
Exactly.
I mean, let's focus on Guardians for a minute.
I want to go back to the code updates,
but I want to give people an understanding.
Let's just take Guardians.
Because Guardians is an amazing machine.
Yes.
As I was playing it and seeing how you're
you're building in the different characters,
and you have the different missions you can go on.
And sometimes at one point, you're at nowhere.
What is the timeframe from, OK, we're doing this.
To at least get the video part of it done.
How long does that take?
Well, so you can't, you know, the entire process
happens in concert.
So the games are designed by teams.
The teams include a game designer that essentially leads the team.
They include a lead developer that handles all of the software
and rules for the game and a lot of the choreography.
The game designer essentially focuses on leading
the high vision for the game and creating the play field,
the architecture of the play field, what are the toys?
How do the toys work?
There are mechanical engineers, electrical engineers,
cable designers, technicians.
There are illustrators that do the 2D art.
And then there are computer graphics guys that
generate the video images you talk about.
Those guys, they'll all get into a room.
And they'll order pizza and start watching whatever movies
or immersing themselves in whatever fiction it is.
Think of Pinball as a medium, just like you can represent
a lot of things in a different medium.
So it is in some ways like making a film.
And then everyone has to be on the same page.
Everybody has to think about what are the ideas?
How do we represent these elements in our product, in our medium?
And so they are doing that.
And all the way along, after every one of those creative meetings,
guys are splitting off to do their little piece of it.
So that video content that we're talking about happens
as you're doing, as you're essentially developing the game.
It happens from the beginning, all the way to the end.
And when you get everything put together,
is there just this big event that you guys
have to unveil it to yourselves?
Or hello, sir.
Or is it just something that just kind of happens?
I mean, is there a moment where they say,
George, you have to stay out of the room until we're ready?
And then now you can come in and see it.
It happens that way relative to the guys outside of the team,
but the guys in the team are on it all the way.
I mean, that's got to be you wake up every day,
and I go, I get to go do this today.
Yeah, it's, my job doesn't suck, that's for sure.
We also have another very, very, very special guest.
Remember, I gave you a hint earlier,
but I didn't say who it was.
But now he is sitting here in front of me.
Please introduce yourself, sir.
Oh, hold on, hold on, let me, I think you've got this,
let me check the switch, let me check the switch.
Somebody switched off.
There you go, there you go.
Hi, how are you doing?
How are you, sir?
Wonderful, Lou Ferric, no, Lou Ferric, no, he's here, sir.
And person as a captain pinball convention, 500 pinball machine.
I got the hook machine here, next to my table.
Yeah, two of them.
No, I thought there's one on either side of you, is there not?
Well, being just that two, that means I get to keep two.
Oh, you know what, I can't sign off.
Wait, you said two.
Anyway, we have no pull here.
Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no.
They're the great machine things.
That allows childhood members, especially when I was a kid, you know, pinball.
So fantastic, the great fun thing to do for a dog for kids, a family to share together.
There's so much working right now because Lou Ferric knows here.
So it's St. Patrick's Day.
So you have to be happy with all the green that's everywhere.
Everything's green.
Green goes to green.
Exactly.
We pinball home, stay Patrick.
And you've actually recently got to work with someone who I'm a big fan of in Kevin Smith.
Yeah, for the commercial you guys did for the Marvel tour.
So I was very, another reason I'm excited to have you here.
Tell us about your experience so far at the festival.
Well, the festival is fantastic because the people are fantastic.
And it's nice to see the playing these machines.
It's almost like a fun family event.
And, you know, they bring about the memory that's a child when they want my series.
And it transports me back to time because when I see all these different machines,
you got like starts wrecking out, twilight's down.
I never realized that almost every famous TV series involved with a pinball machine.
Especially in that time capsule around when you were doing this series.
Pretty much everything that we watch back then is represented here.
Yeah, exactly because once it's a media, once you see the adventure today happening,
because the Hulk pilot and the series that down with the pioneer,
the later groundwork for the superhero today.
And it's carrying even through now that, you know,
you've got a whole generation of people that see you now.
And there's, you can still relate to them.
And they can still relate to you because of the things like DVD and Bluway.
We're going to go back to the generation.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
It's like I threw the voice for the Hulk and the Hulk.
I am really that old.
I was watching.
41.
Jeez.
So I was, I guess that means I would be right before I got into school was when the series started.
And I was fascinated by it.
I mean, I'm a huge superhero guy.
And being able to see my superheroes that I would read about on my television screen every week.
I mean, you were a huge influence to me.
Well, the great show ever show had a wonderful method.
Had to do with depression, anxiety, mystery, it was a wonderful show.
And I haven't met one person that did not like to show, except for the mother.
We make up, they continue to rip and clone on the couch, those didn't want that hate
me for.
First off, congratulations on Irving PD coming up with this officer.
We want to talk about that.
Secondly, real quick, I'm like a kid in the candy shop when I was a little kid, I live
for your show.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
But congratulations on the police department.
Well, back after we got that, we definitely share it for 14 years.
The real deal went through the academy.
I'm very happy to go to Irving for the police department because it's actually the police
athletically.
It's the youth, these kids.
And I talked to them about being careful, stay away from bullying and drugs and everything.
Very responsive.
And the officer's here doing a fantastic job, especially, you know, and the whole gang that
puts on this desk festival.
And we've got people blowing me up on social media right now.
It's like, keep looking down because my people are like, is this really, oh, this is really
happening.
Oh, yeah.
People are, there's text I'm getting people going to tell, tell Mr. Freaknow how great
he is.
And you've influenced so many people, have you had a chance to go walk the floor at all
and see anything?
Yes.
I did yesterday before the show opened around 1 o'clock and I had a chance to pay somebody
to get some machine.
But there's a jukebox here that I want.
Oh.
And the one on the backside.
Yeah.
Oh, that's over.
It's over.
It's over.
It's a full blowing world.
Isn't it?
Yeah.
It's gorgeous.
Yeah.
The way it's decorated and the way it operates.
Beautiful.
What other, is there anything else that you've seen that you're just like, I need to get my
hands on that.
But you just haven't had a chance to yet.
Any of the new machines?
Some more machines later on.
But the machine that I really like the one I'm getting is the whole machine.
And I like the old simple machine, but there's one new one.
I think it's the Batman machine.
And you can see the penguin.
Oh, the Batman 66.
The old one.
The 1966 series.
Yes.
And did you see that the Avengers machine that's got Hulk on it too.
That's a beautiful machine.
I played that one early.
It's made to how creative these people are.
Making these machines.
Wow.
What's up?
But I can't believe the attentive.
The thousands and thousands of people coming for a pinball convention.
I mean, I'm blown away.
I'm very impressed.
And they're saying that this is one of the biggest ones in the world that people come to.
This is my fourth time coming.
John and I come together every year.
I'm like you, I'm amazed.
Just especially from some of the conditions that some of these older machines.
Like the ones that you have by your table.
Those machines look like they look brand new.
The way they've been stored that it's beautiful.
Has anything surprised you since you've been at this festival.
What surprises me the quality of the machines.
How many machines here?
Yeah, it's 500.
I mean, I expect to walk in the room.
See, maybe 10 to 15 by expect to 500.
I mean, just thousands of people.
You can't even barely walk in there.
It's amazing.
What brought you to the show?
I was invited here by the promoter Ed.
Okay.
And I said, why not?
Why not get a hot pit bull machine?
Because the fact that it's a famous series connected with the pit bull machine.
It's, and just when I saw your name on the website, I was like, whoa.
And I mean, you couldn't be more.
I mean, people can't walk, not walk past you.
Because you're right there in the front when they walk in the door.
When they come in, I got my post with my picture.
They take selfies.
And you know, one guy came up with three dry cans ahead of the hall.
I saw that.
He came with a, you know, with a, with a dolly.
I said to him, I said, do you love this Hulk more than your wife?
No, no, no.
I love my wife more.
I love my wife more.
Was she there when you asked him?
Yeah.
Okay.
We'll see that.
He's like, did he give you a wink when he said, yeah.
Are you, are you here all weekend?
Yeah.
I'm here all day today till tonight and also tomorrow.
Okay.
So tonight, I believe, how late does the show go tonight, Chad?
I think I go to midnight probably be around tonight.
And then tomorrow noon to five?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So you're going to be here the whole time.
And that's, that's awesome because you're getting, people are going to get a chance because
people are coming from all over.
Oh, yeah.
We're at the Frisco Convention Center.
It's right off of the tollway, just north of Stonebrier Mall.
And it's a beautiful facility.
Yeah.
Wow.
I'm here.
It's only 2 2 3rd.
Okay.
Yeah.
Okay.
Anything else that you want to plug that's coming up?
Hey, hey.
Come on down everybody.
Get a chance because I will come here every year to check it out.
Do you want to see the virtual Hulk?
In a way to find it.
We need to make sure that we get a picture with Mr. Freedom before he goes.
Did Don take care of that?
Yeah.
Don already.
So Don took care of it.
Okay.
Perfect.
Thank you.
We don't want to take too much of your time, but we're so glad that you came.
Is that Lou Ferregno, sir?
He's here.
You got to come down to the pinball festival and meet this man.
He is nothing but kind and gracious.
And we're so happy that he's here.
And he came and hung out with these two slubs.
And he's going to go back and, and sign some autographs and take some pictures.
And he's got the, the Hulk pinball machine is there.
The old school Hulk pinball machine is there.
It's the 1979 model that they've restored.
Alex just texted me and he said the best Hulk.
That's just, that comes straight from Alex.
Alex is in the Bahamas right now.
He's flying back tomorrow.
Dude, that just happened.
That just happened just now.
We got to make sure we go back and see George before we, we lead to and sell him.
Thank you.
I felt bad that George had to go.
Yeah, I mean, we're going to have to see him there.
Don, come here.
Doc's still with us.
That was awesome, dude.
Brian Coleman, the game designer.
He's coming.
He'll be right out here.
Did you guys get to the guys from P3?
From E3?
P3, the, the machines that are over here with the big arch over them.
I'll look over that.
Yeah, check it.
Yeah, because we had that guy on last year.
He was really great.
But we got Brian Coleman.
He'll be here in about one minute.
He's coming out.
And so highlights of the show for me so far.
Guardians.
Absolutely.
Doc and I got to play the Rob Zombie pinball machine.
Oh, how is that?
Not safe for work.
There's definitely not safe.
Yeah, there's a, there's a couple of screens that you may have to answer some questions.
To the kids.
I think it's probably his wife shows up.
Um, part of her.
I looked over and I went, uh, Doc, is that?
And Doc was like, oh, yeah, that, okay.
Because Doc and I were playing the Star Wars game.
That was right.
That's the new Star Wars game is great.
It's awesome.
Yeah.
Uh, I love the fact that there's so many days.
It's not the same 14 machines everywhere you go.
Yeah.
It's stuff from the early and really if you, if you know about pinball,
the early days of pinball, there were some places where pinball was banned
because it was seen as gamble.
It was gambling.
Yes.
There's some great documentaries out there that you should go check out about the history of pinball and video games.
And speaking of which, we have another guest joining us and make sure you're unmuted,
which you are.
Please introduce yourself if you would.
Hi, my name is Brian Colin and I've been designing video games since 1982.
So your life has been nothing but a roller coaster for the last 30-some odd years.
You know what?
It has been a tremendous high for which I am grateful.
Even the lows are high.
Well, let's talk about, where did you start?
I started at Midway.
I was hired at Midway.
I went in.
I was an animated filmmaker, actually.
And I went in thinking with a very pen and ink style.
And I went in thinking I was going to be getting a job as a pinball back glass artist.
And they said, no, they saw my movie.
Which movie was that?
It was called In Searchable Plot.
It was a, I won a lot of awards for it around the world.
And they said, you know, this is, we need an animator who can animate.
Talk right into that thing if you would.
I'm sorry.
There you go.
We need an animator who can animate.
And so I got the job and they said, hey, you're going to be working on video games.
And it kind of stunned me a little bit because I'm thinking games are at the Pac-Man stage.
But, you know, and I thought, you know, this is it.
You know, I wanted to pay me actual money rather than like beer and pretzels,
which is what I was working for before then.
So you get through, that's how you get through college, isn't it?
It pretty much.
Yeah.
As you're going to go with your money anyway.
You're buying some beer and pretzels.
That's right.
It's a manicures point.
But I thought childhood was over and I was completely wrong.
Obviously, childhood has been going on for the next 36 years and very grateful for it.
And to see that evolution from, you know, the skyrocket of the early Atari era
and then the level off and then the Nintendo kind of holding things down
and then the boom again in the early 90s.
How it's just gone through these cycles and now it's back again bigger than ever
because now those technologies are now being incorporated into things like pinball machines.
Talk about that experience for you.
You know, I can't really contribute too much to that kind of an overview
because I've been making video games and I've been fortunate enough that people
keep tapping me on the shoulder and say, come here, do this, come here, do this.
And I'm not one of these people who follows the industry or looks at that kind of stuff.
I'm always concerned in my current project and whatever I'm doing next.
So, from arcade games to console games to casino games to adver games and PC games
and Facebook games, I'm always worried about what I'm working on
and I really don't have a sense of where I am.
Plus, I'm the kind of guy who, you know, I predicted beta over VHS
and that the internet's going to be a fad.
And, you know, no television needs more than five channels.
So, you don't want to talk to me about big pictures.
So, let's talk about your career then.
What's the one property you're more proud of than the rest of them?
I know it's like trying to pick a favorite child, but I have to ask the question.
I love them all for every creative challenge or every horrible mistake that I learned from.
But, obviously right now I only can have one answer and that's rampage.
Yeah, it's got to be rampage.
It's got to be rampage.
Which you have the game right over there by you at your booth because I walked by you earlier.
Yeah, one of the folks down here, Jeremy Prudence,
who I've did a tremendous job restoring that for the video game museum.
And, it's gorgeous.
It looks like it just...
That national video game museum is amazing.
I haven't been there since they first opened.
I need to see some of the stuff they've replaced.
But then...
And now, of course, that rampage now back in the news again.
Yes, I have been grinning like an idiot for the last year and a half
when I found out that the movie was finally going to be made.
It's been, you know, they started it about six, seven years ago.
And it kind of almost went away and then the rock attached.
And then, you know, my smile got bigger.
And, you know, can't get any bigger than this until they ask you to come down.
Now, you've got Negan involved from the Walking Dead.
And, Maylon Ackerman involved.
And Naomi Harris, Ms. Money Penny.
And can I just say if this...
If I go to see this movie.
And one of these monsters doesn't eat a stick of dynamite
and have that little moment, I'm going to be very upset.
Because that was always my favorite part of the game.
I think several people have mentioned to me they're looking for the, you know,
the guy on the toilet and then the face full of water.
Everybody has their favorite little bit which made making rampage so much fun back in the day.
Well, and I remember when it first came out and people were like,
well, what's the game about?
I'm just like, you're a monster and you destroy stuff.
It's pretty self-explanatory.
Why does there have to be a storyline?
Why can't I just blow stuff up for a quarter?
They were victims of pollution and experimental food products
and they were really the passion that the humanity of the game was the monsters.
Because they were victims.
You didn't have to eat people.
But if they're shooting at you, why not?
Well, they taste like chicken.
And they're nutritious.
They taste like chicken.
But I also like that little bit and it wasn't too much in the video game.
But it was enough for me to notice that little break of the fourth wall
where he would eat something and he'd look at you like,
you shouldn't have done it.
You know.
The beauty of it for me is, and you know, my first game that I worked on was Dissive Tron,
which they hired me as an animator.
And that blew me away because there was so much in that,
I don't know, in your listeners are familiar with Dissive Tron.
But you know, you've got 16 colors and colored Dissive Tron.
I love Dissive Tron.
But they made this total 3D environment that was just,
and that for me, for someone who came in skeptical about what you could do in video games,
that kind of opened it up.
And then for that, everything I did after that was,
let's push against the box, let's make something new.
And that Dissive Tron that you could stand in that side?
That's, yes.
The environment.
I was like, oh, this is the greatest thing I've ever seen.
We actually have another guest joining us now.
Go ahead and introduce yourself if you would.
Hi, my name is Hope Cram, and I am representing Snagit Game.
Hope has been a very busy lady today.
Yes, very.
Because hope features something,
and the only reason I know who she is is because I recognize the clipboard
that she has been attached to since 10 a.m.
They have something in their booth,
and you guys are right across from each other,
if I'm not mistaken.
You are.
Absolutely are.
You want to talk about something that literally stopped me in my tracks.
And let me just tell you, one of the guys that's listening right now,
one of our faithful listeners in the Bahamas.
He has, because I took a picture of your product,
and I put it on Instagram.
He, within five minutes, how much?
Like, with a gift of Tony Stark, how much?
The only way I can describe it is analog pong.
It's the only way I can describe this thing,
but it's mind blowing.
It's awesome.
It's my favorite four-letter word, pong.
Wow.
Yeah, you know what I'm talking about.
Now you know what I'm talking about.
Well, no, that was a brilliant statement.
She just made it.
We can't just gloss over the text.
I mean, it's...
That was good.
Like, when you can take something old school,
make it even more old school,
but make it even more awesome?
Yeah.
No, it's beautiful.
It is a piece of elegant furniture.
Yes.
That's a perfect description.
Yes.
It's a piece of elegant furniture that's totally interactive
in a way that I can't...
I don't know how you came up with it, but it's marvelous.
Thank you.
It's a marvelous piece of design.
So we designed it for in the consumer home
to be like a coffee table of sorts,
and a unique, interesting piece of furniture
that is a lot of fun to play, very interactive,
one or two players.
I'm really amazed at the kids that are at this show.
You know, take our group, right?
We all grew up with pong, so we know what it is.
They did not.
And the fact that it's mechanical versus video
has been very appealing to them.
It is a literal definition of 3D.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Now, have you been to the National Video Game Museum yet?
I have not.
I have not.
They have there a six foot, maybe even taller.
It's the first thing you see, pong,
with paddles that are probably three feet across
that you play with.
Very fun.
Because pong was such a...
Like, it's the thing.
Like, that's what you go back to.
Like, if you don't have pong,
you don't have anything else because it was
that technology that made things move.
And you guys have made it move in a way that, like,
I was like, nobody's thought of that in 40 years.
Because this literally, you have glass,
and then there's boxes under the glass,
and then the ball is a box,
and you literally bounce it back and forth,
and there's little LED score lights on it.
You have to see this thing to truly behold its greatness.
But yet, it really is the pong.
I mean, it really is pong, right?
Absolutely.
Yes.
We've really held that heritage.
The aesthetic.
The aesthetic is intact.
Yes.
Completely intact.
What's amazing to me is...
Hold that thing right, Xavier.
I'm sorry.
What's amazing, and I keep, you know, lazy old man.
I could adjust it from over here.
You're fine.
What's amazing to me is looking at it.
My first glance was, okay, this is simple physics.
This is just bouncing back and forth,
but then I'm watching it and going,
no, that's the real pong.
I can, you know, I can move it, pull it, let it go.
Oh, it's on it.
It's wonderful.
Yeah, that's...
It's not just, you're flicking a block back and forth.
Like, you guys have really captured,
and that's a brilliant point.
You've captured that, you know, if you hit it right,
and you could cut it,
so that it would bounce the other way,
and then it would have a chip.
Like, you've mastered that to, like,
where did this whole thing come from?
Like, who said, you know what we ought to do?
Yes.
Tell the story behind it.
Okay, well, it started with a company in Uruguay,
South America, called Canapher,
that actually did a Kickstarter with pong.
So they're the ones that contacted Atari,
and did the license agreement,
and kind of had the big idea behind it.
Well, then when it came time for production,
they did not have that wherewithal to do that,
or the resources.
So they contacted Universal Space,
who was a huge player in the coin app business.
They're the largest manufacturer worldwide.
And so, Eunice, our universal,
has partnered with them to take over the worldwide rights
of manufacturing, marketing, and sales.
And so, I am a distributor,
Snagagame, my company's a distributor here in Dallas,
so I've got several states in the Midwest,
and I'll be selling it to consumers
within the Midwest.
In addition, in Dallas,
we have our worldwide headquarters,
so we'll have parts and service availability as well.
And, you know, YouTube videos on how to,
and we promise a lot of fun.
And for those of you that are wondering,
this is not snog.
Like this is actual pong, the Atari logo is on it.
Or pongy.
Yeah, right.
I mean, when I was a kid, we weren't super rich,
so we had the little radio shack version
that it was like, you could play tennis,
or you could play hockey,
which is just the same thing with like two more of the rows on it.
I've actually been amazed.
I've gotten that question many times the last couple days.
Is this legit?
You know, is this like, do you have the license?
I'm like, yeah.
I'm sure Atari has many lawyers
that would be very savvy and generous.
Even today, they have those people.
But yeah, I mean...
No, we're in partnership with Atari.
And it looks amazing.
And you've got what two or three of them over there
that people can just...
We have two.
We have two of them.
Sir.
How many prototypes that they have to go through
before they settle on the design they've got now?
This is actually the second prototype that we've got.
Really?
Yes.
And then actually, the product is starting manufacturing in China.
And we'll have it in Dallas, roughly in June-ish.
And then for distribution in July.
Do we have any locations picked out of where they're going to be?
Hey, real quick.
Let me put a pause.
Brian's got to go.
But Brian, do you want to give any plugs, websites,
or anything before you go back?
Just...
You can...
Facebook is the best place to see anything I'm doing
or game refugees doing.
We've got some fun new stuff that just came out
for the arcade that was 30 years in the making.
But I'm just going to tease you there and say,
go to Facebook and find out more about it.
Brian Collins, CLLIN.
Thank you so much, sir.
All right. Thanks a lot.
All right.
Make sure you check out his booth right here at the Texas Pinball Festival.
He's got a rampage game there.
And it looks great.
I'm sorry.
Go ahead, please.
So right now, at this show, we're showing our model
that's for the home consumer version.
We're going to be following up with the coin-operated version.
Okay.
That's what I'm curious about.
And that you could use in an arcade or in a bar location.
Yeah, like...
Signer-cade and free...
It's so awesome that that's back in the vernacular.
That you'll be able to play in an arcade.
Thank God.
You know, it's this resurgence of the arcade,
even with the bar concept.
And we have another guest joining us, sir.
If you'd like to introduce yourself.
Hi, Mr. Christopher Franchi.
I'll probably tell you what I do.
Yeah, please.
Pinball artist for Stern.
Did Batman 66?
Oh, those guys.
I'm telling you, Batman 66 is a man-cry machine for me.
We never get tired talking about this.
But we want to keep going here because we're talking coin-op in the resurgence of the arcade.
So there will be a coin-op version of this.
Yes, yes.
I would say later this summer.
Yes.
Because I feel like something like this.
I don't know from a coin-op standpoint.
I would put this more in a bar type setting that I would in an arcade type setting.
Absolutely.
Because it's got that very intimate feel to it.
I want 100 people around.
Just me and a buddy of mine were hanging out having a couple of beers.
And here's this thing that looks like something I remember from when I was a kid.
But it's a little bit different.
But it's still awesome.
And I want to play it.
Well, just a stand point.
It's like it is a natural cocktail table.
Yes.
So it's almost a no-brainer.
It has to go into a bar type setting.
Yeah, I agree with that.
I agree with that.
Is there any plans of doing it upright?
Or do you just want to keep it as a cocktail, too?
The coin-op version will be a little taller than the one that we have here.
Because this one really is more designed for the home.
Yeah.
And it'll be a little bigger in profile.
But not too big.
But not too big.
It's simply beautiful.
I mean, everything about it is just.
And it's not like she's had a slow day.
No.
I mean, I've walked that booth five or six times.
And it's 10, 15 people deep all the time.
I can't get anywhere near it.
Yeah, I just keep watching it.
And go back and talk to yourself five years ago.
OK, you know, it's really going to be popular.
Yeah, I know, right?
OK, if you can get a hold of this and invest in this now.
And you're going to look at yourself and go, you're old.
Like, that's all you're going to say.
It's like, there's no way.
Wow.
So there's two things.
When people walk up to our booth, they stop and they look and they smile.
Because I can just tell in their minds they're remembering back to the pong
that they had when they were growing up.
And the biggest comment I'm hearing is, that is badass.
Yeah, I mean, because it is.
Like I said, it literally stopped me in my tracks.
I saw the Atari logo.
And I was like, OK, it's a vehicle.
Hope.
Back the truck up back.
What is going on here?
And I just sat there.
And I had to have the person that I was with kind of nudged me and go,
dude, there's an entire convention center.
And I'm like, no, but I want to look at this.
I mean, it's a beautiful machine.
It's doing very, very well.
Mr. Fransch, let's talk to you for a minute because you said Batman 66.
And now the wheels are shot off for me.
But you said pong.
And I saw that thing.
And I want one, too.
Is that not amazing?
Yeah.
I can hook you up.
I can hook you up.
She's got, she's got, she knows people, who knows people.
Yeah, that thing is damn cool.
By the way, Gary Stern is a very good friend of mine.
Very, my husband and I have toured the factory.
Tell him I said hi because I hardly ever seen a dude.
He's out there doing the work.
You guys, again, bringing it again this year.
Whether it's Batman 66, whether it's Guardians of the Galaxy,
whether it's, I mean, and what's really cool about, again,
we've said this on the show, this is, this is Doc over here.
This is our fourth year coming to the festival.
It's our second year doing our show live here.
Yeah.
It's really neat to come see some of the machines that have been here
for a couple of years, but the way you guys keep tweaking them,
whether it's Metallica or ACDC or even some of the classic machines
that you've gotten back, that you've fixed up even more of that Corvette machine
is gorgeous over there.
I mean.
Was there now?
There's one in the big booth in the middle, back in the corner,
because I found it because I was playing Batman 66 and was right over my shoulder.
I like the new coat on Batman.
Oh, my God.
We were talking to a golden temple wall.
Well, we had George over here earlier and I was saying one of the things that really,
a couple of things catch my eye about that machine.
Number one, the clarity of the video.
The remastering of the video just, you know, you're talking a video that's 50 years old.
And it looks like it was, you know, outside of the fashion was done last week.
Well, I don't think it's been a year since they remastered it and put it on Blu-ray
to when Stern came along.
That's right.
So they got all of that stuff all cleaned up.
And they did the work for you.
You're tying it up in that.
And I love the little TV.
The little TV that's showing the episodes.
I mean, it's, and you guys really have, and captured, have you had a chance to play it yet?
Yes, I did.
And it captures like you're really watching the show because when you lose the ball, it says,
last time we saw our heroes.
And it's just, I was like, I am seven right now and this is amazing.
My favorite version of the code was when you're, when you drain your ball and the Joker left.
These are a mirror who refused to shave his mustache to play the Joker.
So they just did the makeup over it.
So it didn't do that anymore when you lose the ball?
Now it does the last time we saw our heroes because it gives you all the bonus.
So it does that every time.
Okay, you're going to hear something real stupid.
I have one.
I have my own version.
Like I have a Frankenstein version.
It's got a plaque.
It says 101.
Oh, God.
I still have the original code.
Oh, I've never updated it.
I just, I would feel like I'd have wide wanted by a separate machine just for the updates and keep that one.
And it's in its purest form.
Lyman gave me the newest code on a sand discard.
Let's talk about that because we were talking about what we talked about code updates.
He literally just showed us an SD card that's going to update the software in a pinball machine.
Everything old is new.
Everything new is old and it's all brilliant.
I mean, from from what you guys are doing to what you guys are doing and it's all here.
That's why I love this show.
And last year when we were contacted to do our show here, I was like, are you kidding me?
Of course.
Of course it's been both.
You need to finish asking questions.
Because this is this is one of the coolest shows.
Not just of its ilk, but of any ill because it captures that big geek fest.
But it's not to the point like I don't feel like my claustrophobia kicks in at any point.
Because the way you guys design your booths, the way the floor is designed, I can move freely.
And everybody's really, really cool, which I like too.
Because if you've got a bunch of people out of the machine, four people just get together and say, hey, let's just all play together and knock this thing out at the same time.
To put it in a pinball vernacular, this is like the Steve Richie of Expo's because it's got flow.
Hey now.
Hey now.
He's the king of flow.
Yes, he is.
What are the, what are the, putting your bias aside, of course.
What are the machines that you're most jazzed about in the, in the festival this year?
I haven't got a chance to look around much really.
I've been sitting at my table, but I really, really, even though it was really mean to me last night.
You got the, you got the table that's got the beautiful background behind it.
Do you not?
Yes.
Do you see this thing?
No.
You got to go see it.
What's the backdrop?
Here's the shape.
Do what you want.
So I just grabbed a bunch of my art.
It looks amazing.
And it looks amazing.
Thank you.
Yeah, I like Houdini.
I mean, that's just my, yeah, I love that old, very magical, you know.
That was the big deal last year.
Yes.
Yeah.
This year, I haven't seen, I'm interested to see Alice Cooper.
And that gets unveiled in one hour and 26 minutes.
Yeah.
And everyone else pulled out really.
So, you know, even though I work for Stern, I've still not seen what's it called up.
Iron Maiden.
Oh, I haven't seen the Iron Maiden machine yet.
I haven't seen anything.
You got Doc's attention.
Supposed to be revealed here, but the band or just the machine.
Close the machine.
The machine.
No, but it's the, is it based on the band?
Yeah.
Okay, okay.
Okay, so it's not like an Eddie.
Not the mummy thing with the nails.
Okay.
But it's not like an Eddie pinball machine.
That's an actual kind of like the AC DC machine or the I don't submit the machine.
Well, I don't know.
Oh, yeah, because they haven't unveiled it.
Yeah.
I haven't seen any art.
I haven't seen anything.
I don't.
But it's not like having heavy, you know, because all of this.
That's right.
You know.
So I love it.
That's again, you talk about what's old is new again.
The Metallica Machine is amazing.
And of course, it's got a line a mile long.
So you know what I'm wanting to ask , Ask him.
I know what you want to ask, but it's your question.
Ask the main I am dying for somebody because I'm a huge Prince fan.
He is prince fan.
One.
Literally any artist.
If any musician is ripe for having a pinball machine made in just suiting up his history it's that guy.
Well, you know what though? And now's the time to because now the family's running it. They're just pouring everything out.
That's a fair point.
That's a fair point.
Prince would have said no, he's like, I don't know.
Not necessarily because from what I read, he had a customized purple rain pinball machine in the break room at Paisley Park.
I don't know who did it.
I've seen a picture of it, but I don't know who was behind designing it.
But it was just, you know, him on the motorcycle on the back less. I couldn't see the field, but it's definitely him.
It's definitely a purple rain pinball machine, but I want to see one just encapsulating his entire career.
And we had you guys to be perfect.
We had somebody on this show last year that said, if anybody wants to do it, we will sign up tomorrow.
We had Ed Robertson from Bearnick and Ladies on the show last year.
And he's a huge pinball fan.
And they even have an album called Silver Ball because of it.
And I said, so when are these two worlds of yours going to collide?
His eyes got as big as saucers. And he was like, if anybody wants to do it, call us right now.
And I mean, with that catalog, I'm just saying.
And, and, and apparently Ed comes every year.
He's not like it's their touring this year because I haven't seen him.
Yeah, yeah.
But they're, they're amazing. They're amazing humans.
So that may be one that you want to put in the back of your head because I think you guys have a ball with it.
The video for the song Silver Ball was shot in his basement.
That's those are all.
Oh, we're.
Isn't that the house he invited us to?
No, that's Todd McCullough.
Todd McCullough is also on a show last year.
I want to go to that house.
This is a guy.
I don't know if you know who Tom McCullough.
He's a former NBA player.
He lives in Seattle now.
He has a full blown arcade in his basement in Seattle.
And in 2010, he hosted the world pinball championships in his basement.
Wow.
Was it 23 guys from 17 different countries?
All came to his house.
Something that's something about life.
We talked about the game zone.
We could talk about the Slurpee machine where he's.
He's imported the Dr. Pepper Slurpee from Canada because it tastes better than the Dr Pepper.
See, he didn't tell us that.
He never mentioned that.
And then when he says if you guys are in Seattle, look us up.
I love Dr Pepper.
And I'm like, you start talking about that.
I'm like, what?
I don't care about your games.
I want to put my mouth under this.
The guy says, you know, if you're in Seattle, look me up.
I said, don't tempt me.
He's like, no, come on out.
I'm like, give me a saddle tomorrow.
That's because it's made with sugar up there and corn fructose here.
Look, except if you go down to Dublin.
Did they sell the Dublin factory?
I came from the soft drink industry.
Oh, okay.
But isn't the Dr. Pepper point down in Dublin?
Aren't they?
You don't they use the cane?
Yeah, they lost their friends.
Okay, that's what it was.
I know one point.
That was a sad day.
And people don't think it makes it different.
It makes it different.
It's the huge difference.
Have you tried to catch up from Canada too?
I have no.
More sugar.
So good.
And I would be in a coma.
It's kind of like drinking Coke from Mexico.
Exactly.
It's the same thing.
Exactly.
You ever had a Coca-Cola from Mexico?
It's like night and day.
I just want to say shout out to Coke Zero.
Because now I can drink something in the taste.
Because I can't have the sugar in my work as I'm old.
But I hate and I hate Diet Coke because of the bitterness.
Because it's based on the formula for new Coke.
Coke Zero gives me back the taste of Coca-Cola and it makes me happy.
I worked for Coca-Cola for 28 years.
I just retired from Coke at the end of December.
So she goes and works for Coca-Cola.
And then she's like, you know what?
I want to go work with video games now.
Like, that's the life.
Do you?
Why are you living my life?
Exactly.
Because I've been obsessed with Coca-Cola since I was like eight years old.
I wore those clothes.
Remember the Marjani clothes.
Yeah.
I wore them all the time.
I came from one brand and now I'm building my own.
There you go.
Not a bad way to go.
So I guess is this your first time at the festival?
It is.
And I have been very, I have to tell you I've been very impressed.
I did not know what to expect.
And it's been the organizers have done a great job of setting this up and running it.
And the crowd to your point have been phenomenal.
Really, really great.
This is the second year that they've done the food trucks.
And I think that was a stroke of genius because you paid a park in the garage.
And then, you know, we got here right before 10 o'clock and we're on the third level of the garage.
Well, I don't want to have to leave or walk across the street to where the mall is to try to find something to eat.
Now, we're going to bring food trucks to you.
And the last year, we were the only thing in the hallway.
Like, you could have fired a cannon through this hall and not hit a soul.
Now, you know, we're here and we've got comic books.
We've got these quilts to our left.
This lady's made video game themed quilts.
One of which your niece would go crazy over.
That's what we can see right now because she's a big Zelda fan.
I know.
And it looks great.
And it's just, it's getting bigger and bigger and bigger every year.
And just to watch the growth of it.
And now they're working with the National Video Game Museum.
If you haven't been there, you need to go.
It's so neat.
Because what the way that works is you pay to get in.
And it's literally a timeline that you follow through the history of video games.
Oh, yeah.
That's why that's why pong is one of the first things you see.
That's why that giant pong is one of the first things you want.
And they have like a six foot Mario that you go that you can pose next to.
And at the end, they have a little arcade that you can then they give you tokens
when you walk in the door.
They have an exhibit that's just a kids room from like 1986.
They've got a couple of them.
They've got a living room in a bedroom.
Right.
And they actually have kids that they pay to be those kids that live in those places.
And they show you about.
And they have a whole section there just about video games that were made into board games.
Yep.
And you know how I feel about board games?
No.
Please.
I love board games.
I'm a big fan.
And to see some of those board games.
Oh, they made a Pac-Man board game.
It's like an Allen.
I have to set that thing up.
And I hate it.
You know, that's the new bar thing now.
Four game bars.
It's all coming back, man.
It's all coming back.
They have like just put a shelf on the corner, a bunch of board games.
And then you grab some drinks.
Sit down on a table, play board games.
The Hama Bucks does that now.
Oh, do they?
Absolutely.
You're right.
You're right.
You're right.
You're right.
I never even realized that.
I see a shelf.
And I never even thought Donna.
Okay.
We can grab it.
I remember when we first got our Nintendo Wii.
And I downloaded Galaga.
And I'm playing Galaga right now.
480p.
480i.
I thought they did 720p.
New.
It was a 480i?
No.
That's a low-res machine.
It's still great.
And it's just no matter how fast the technology moves, the classics always remain.
Yes, they do.
That's why this festival is so popular where people, again, we had somebody say earlier, this is one of the biggest festivals in the world right now.
People are coming from all over the world for this show.
And I know we've kept you long enough.
We want to let you go back because you got stuff here.
Thank you.
We're going to come by and see you guys later.
Thank you.
Can I give my name again?
Please, shameless plugs.
Do them all.
Thank you.
So my website is being developed as we speak.
But I have a great email address.
Okay.
And it's sales at Snaga Game.
S-N-A-G-A-G-A-M-E.
And my name is Hope.
And I am ready to set you up with Pong.
And trust me, you want to see this.
It's beautiful.
Absolutely.
Thank you guys.
I really appreciate it.
Oh, it's our honor to have you.
Thank you.
I'm going to come by and see you.
Thank you.
Because I hope to get a sweet.
See what he did here.
Hope.
Hope real fast.
My wife's name is Faith.
Oh.
So we're going to have to play one on one again.
Yes.
And then we need charity to stop it.
And love.
Hope.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
We've got other guests that come sit with us as well.
Chris, they where you are.
Because we want to talk more to you.
Okay.
And, oh, pin graphics this here, sir.
Pin graphics this here.
Go ahead and put the heads up.
And tell everybody who you are.
Because we're excited to talk to you as well.
I'm Corey Gabe from Pin Graphics out in New York.
And we came here with a bunch of really cool,
electro-luminous and paper products.
What I love about what you guys do is you can make something cool
and make it cooler.
And talk, and probably have worked with some of Chris's games as well.
And talk a little bit about that.
And hold that microphone right up to you.
I don't know directly what I've done with him.
Right here.
I don't know directly what I've done with him.
But 66 in Guardians.
Those are the games I did our work for.
Great games.
Very cool.
Well, right now we just came here with Star Wars.
And we're getting a great reception on this.
That Star Wars machine is amazing.
That was the first machine I played today.
Awesome.
Awesome.
And the reception we're getting with the lighted up stuff.
Attack for Mars.
Is that attack for Mars the one you guys have?
Is that what you're right here in the front?
Yes.
And for those of you that don't understand,
one of the things that they do is they'll take that back glass.
And they'll isolate certain pieces of that image
that will light individually.
So there's pieces of it.
That attack from Mars table looks gorgeous.
It came out like a million dollars.
It really did.
And I always love that table because when you look at it,
you're like, that's T2.
It's the T2 table with just a different picture on it.
Which I was like, that took so much of my money in college.
But talk, how are things going at the festival?
Things are good.
It means some great people here.
It's our first time in Texas.
And welcome.
So far, it's a really good show.
Good people.
Good, good people.
You got it before the weather got too bad.
Which is nice.
Don't come back in August.
Please.
Because you'll die.
We got snow in New York.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You guys are the Nareaster.
I just like saying it with that accent,
because it just makes me sound like I got a Nareaster.
I'm going to be up that way here in a couple of weeks.
Oh, please.
It's exciting.
It's exciting.
So talk more about what you guys are doing and things of that nature.
We've been doing a lot lately with the light-up stuff,
but we've also been doing with the mirror blades,
where we cut out certain features on the mirror blades,
fun house, the roller coaster.
Picture cutting out every piece of that roller coaster that supports it.
And now it's a mirror.
It looks like a piece of jewelry.
And I miss selling them as best as I make them.
Hey, you know what?
Isn't that kind of the goal?
Yep.
Creatured a black lagoon.
The same thing at the starlight now.
Oh, that's a beautiful machine.
I love it.
Cut out all the cars, the tail lights, the back of the cars.
It looks again like a piece of jewelry.
And when you're working with machines like Chris is designed,
like the back glass for Guardians alone.
It's beautiful.
I remember when they unveiled that on Facebook,
and I was like, I need to get my hands on this machine.
And to be able to take what you do and integrate it
with the artwork that he designs,
it just next levels it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I've seen what you,
I haven't seen your booth since I got here,
but I saw the Mars attacks.
And I love that.
It's a little spaceship lights up.
And the little ray that comes down and all that.
And they got them on the side of the back box.
And the blade like the whole thing.
It just takes it to a whole new level.
It takes everything that's static about a pinball game
and brings it to life like the blade is.
Yes.
So it's very cool.
That's a reception we've been getting.
And it's just so positive.
I can't thank you guys enough.
Oh, it's our honor to have you talk.
Give a little bit of background of just like we said with hope.
Where did this come from?
Who said, you know what?
We know we can do.
Joe is actually my childhood best friend from camp.
Oh, wow.
And he's been telling me for the last few years.
There was no one who could do it.
What we do.
And I need you to work for me.
And I just moved back to New York about a year ago.
And I've been working in that basement
locked there three o'clock in the morning.
Haven't seen the wife and kids in a while.
But those mirror blades and the products
and the artwork that Joe does.
He just knocks it out of the park.
He really does.
And we've been talking probably for the last half an hour or so
about how all that's old is new again.
And how.
Absolutely.
You know, when when something's tried and true and works.
It's as long as it keeps up with the times.
Well, the revival.
Absolutely.
I mean, we're feeling it to the point of it's awesome.
And what a ride.
Seeing our kids make a comeback.
Yes.
Especially with some of the original machines that were in there.
You know, we have a couple here that are called free play.
You pay ten bucks to get in and you just play until you drop.
And I'm like, I never thought I'd get my hands on a rolling thunder machine.
You know, the best thing is is is now.
We can play pinball in an arcade and drink beer.
For those of us that couldn't the first go.
Yeah, so it's better.
It's better than our youth.
That was me, by the way.
Playing Tapper was as close as we got back in the day to drink beer in an arcade.
That was my mom loves that game.
That was a good game.
Okay.
So before we let you go, Chris, because now you got to go shake hands and kiss babies.
Yeah.
And girls.
The one.
Hey, God bless you for that, sir.
The one machine that you've got to get your hands on before you leave today.
Besides the out of Cooper one, because that's coming a little over an hour.
Like what the classic machine that made you go.
Oh, you're asking me.
Yes, sir.
Oh, classic machine.
The classic.
What's the classic machine that you that you were just like, oh, I need to play that out.
It's not here.
What is it?
My favorite is Captain Fantastic.
Oh, wow.
They had that last year.
They was here last year.
Yeah.
I grew up, I played hockey for 30 years.
So I grew up in the Midwest.
There was always at least four pinball games in the warming rooms and hockey rinks.
And when I quit playing hockey, my brother played.
So I was there for that.
And I played the hell out of Captain Fantastic.
That is a great machine.
So, and I have the backlash for that at home, and all the machines.
Ooh.
Every time I find one, some guy wants like four grand for him, like, what kind of pot are you
on?
Sell your soul.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I haven't got, I haven't got one of the games yet, but that's, that's my jam.
That's my whole school jam.
Okay.
This is Captain Fantastic.
All right.
Any shameless plugs you want to throw up before we let you go?
Shameless plugs?
Websites with social media, anything?
No.
You know, my Facebook page for my art is so hard to say.
It's, it's, I named it after this Islander of Madaluna Mutants.
Oh, okay.
So it's Madaluna 5 Media.
If you can spell Madaluna, M-E-T-A-L-U-A.
It'll fill the rest of it in for you.
That means alternate moon.
And come see him at the Texas Pinball Festival.
If for no other reason to say hello, because he's really cool.
But that backdrop on your, on your.
I'm seeing my back.
Awesome.
Because it's all your artwork.
So why wouldn't we?
Thank you so much, sir, for hanging out with us.
Thank you.
It's a pleasure.
All right.
We're going to, we're going to rotate out a little bit, Don.
Now you can say it right where you are.
We got plenty of time, Corey.
We're just, we're now into our two, sir.
Just to keep you updated.
Already?
Yeah.
We are.
We're at the hour 90, almost hour 17, Mark.
We've got a lot of great people that are coming through to hang out with us.
I'm a friend of the show.
Oh, yeah.
Corey, okay, before you go, because you said you've got to go.
I don't want to keep you longer.
I have to shameless self promotion.
Do it all.
Again, I really appreciate you guys shouting out to us and let us.
Staping graphics.
But I'd like to think also my wife out there to our anniversary.
Happy anniversary to you, sir.
And I just want to say thank you.
All right.
Corey, go see pin graphics too.
So see some of the great work they're doing.
Oh, he's got to go.
He's got to go.
Yeah.
All right.
They're a little hot.
Okay.
We'll turn that down just a wee bit.
How's that?
How's that?
Better for you?
All right.
Go ahead and pick up your microphone and you just tell us who you are.
My name is Brett Weiss.
I write books about video games.
I did see your booth now that I see the t-shirt as we were walking through.
You're right there as we walk in.
Yeah.
I've got a really good spot.
Right next to the tournaments, right?
Next to the tournaments.
And I'm sharing a booth with old-school gamer magazine, which is a magazine I write for.
Chad has the copies right here.
I'm giving away free issues today.
And unfortunately, you have to actually pay money for my books.
But the magazines are free.
What was I saying?
The first one's always free after that.
That's right.
It's like drugs.
You know, you kind of get them in with a little sample and then boom.
And then you talk, we've been talking a lot the last few minutes about, you know, what's old is new.
Magazines making a huge comeback.
Yeah.
Independent publications, you know, small press.
And, you know, people like to have a physical copy.
And, you know, they just missed that.
Just kicking back on the couch or outside, you know, just under a tree.
You know, just reading physical media.
Is this your first year at the festival?
It's not.
I've actually been to every single one.
Oh, wow.
Including all the way back to Arlington.
Except for last year I missed just because I was busy.
But I've been to all the others.
This is such an amazing show.
It's crazy.
When it first started, it was pretty small in a little Arlington hotel.
And there were no video games there.
There were no arcade games.
And at that time,
Pinball hardcore Pinball fans were sort of anti-video game.
Because they were still stinging from when video games took over in the arcade
and sort of crowded out a lot of the Pinball machines.
So there wasn't.
The love there is now where everybody's like, you know, yeah, we love both.
It's cool.
Back then, there was actually a little bit of an atmosphere toward our game.
Well, and that then diagram has gotten bigger, too, because of the advent of technology.
And as much video game as it is that goes into these machines,
I remember when the T2 table first hit.
We were talking about that earlier.
That was my first year of college.
Right.
And, wait a minute.
You mean I can fire the pinball at the helicopter?
I love that.
It's amazing.
I put it off in games.
They had T2, and I love that machine.
It was so awesome.
And the first time you heard Arnold Schwaregger say, get out.
Right.
Oh, that was a terminator.
Very, very cool.
You know, when the pinball machines, I grew up playing stuff like firepower and hot hand and Dolly Parton
and all these old-school, you know, late 70s pinball machines.
Well, when the newer machines came in with all the toys and, you know, multi-level playfields,
I kind of didn't like that at first.
I thought, well, this isn't pure.
This isn't that.
Well, once I got kind of used to the idea, I started loving them.
Black knight.
Oh, yes.
Great stuff.
And my favorite pinball machine of all time is Monster Bash.
And that's just crazy with toys and features and gimmicks and stuff.
But I love that machine.
We have another guest joining us.
Go ahead and introduce yourself, sir.
Hi, my name is Ryan Wyden from American Pinball.
Very good.
All right.
Welcome.
We're just sitting here and we're just talking about stuff and things.
That's a good thing.
And tell us about what you guys got going on over there.
Oh, we got Houdini.
Oh, nice.
See, he just dropped the mic without dropping the mic.
And I appreciate you not dropping the mic physically.
But that last year, that was the V machine at this show that everybody was talking about.
And I love that you guys are back with Houdini with more machines because Houdini last year,
there wasn't more than just a couple three, but I've seen like four or five of them out there this year.
Well, last year we had two machines here.
Yeah, I remember there was two.
It was our two working prototypes.
They went from December of last year through Texas Pinball Festival.
And we built two fully functioning coded prototype games that people were here playing shooting whenever I have you.
We shipped our first games December 31st.
So we are now shipping games.
That's awesome.
Out of our factory.
So now customers are getting them.
And this machine is so amazing.
I'm a big fan.
Yeah, our artist chef Bush kind of took a little inspiration from the steam punk era,
which really ties into the theme of Houdini because it is of that era.
I got a chance to play one here in town.
They have it at the cidercade and they all shipped it in either January or February.
It's fantastic.
I just want to say thank you for that machine.
It's amazing.
Oh, no problem.
We're about the customers.
We're about making sure everyone has a good time with that game.
Did you expect the boom from that machine that it got actually being part of that team back in Texas,
helping them out and then coming on board after shortly after Chicago Expo.
I think the boom is just starting with that game.
I think as we start shipping more and more and more, I think people are going to get more and more in love with that game.
Because when we showed up last year, I had heard mention of it and I was like,
okay, there's a new machine and then it was just all of a sudden.
It went from casual mention to this is a must play, like with just that fast.
And now even this year with you guys having more machines here, those machines are packed out too.
What is it about that machine?
Do you think that that has made it so popular?
I think our timeline really helped on it.
You know, it is a timeless theme, Houdini.
It's an unlicensed theme actually.
So it is original.
So there is no licensing.
It's not to go through the Houdini family or anything.
No, actually he had no family at all.
When he passed away, that was the end of it.
I did not know that.
So it is copyrighted Houdini, the Houdini pinball.
We do have a copyright on it.
But yeah, so we didn't have to deal with the licensing thing.
No, we took something everyone knew and it was timeless.
And we created a beautiful pinball machine as far as art.
It's gorgeous.
The art package on it is amazing.
Okay.
And that draws your eye.
Absolutely.
But then you start playing it and looking at the features in it.
Okay.
And it is so interactive.
As we like to stay on the show, there's a lot going on here.
Well, I grew up, I mean, I like the license.
Because when I was a kid, I really liked Houdini.
One reason was his name was Eric Weiss, W-E-I-S-S, like my name.
And as a kid, you think that's cool.
And somebody famous had your last name.
And so I ordered the scholastic book of Houdini and just sort of grew up.
You know, what's the movies and just grew up really being fascinated about Houdini.
So I think it's really cool license.
It is.
It's a timeless license.
It's something that's fun.
And everybody instantly identifies with Houdini.
Sure.
About far and away, the most famous magician of all time.
And probably always will be.
And what I dig about that machine too is there's some machines out there that just you get frustrated
because it's like, I can't make the ball go here and then it keeps bouncing back.
With Houdini, there's so much going on.
There's so much activity that there's always something that's flashing at you or coming.
So it makes you give you that feeling of accomplishment.
Like, oh, I'm doing something at this point.
And it doesn't get frustrating, which I really like about it.
It's a fun game.
It's a tight shooting game.
There's some tight shots in there.
But when you hit them, they're very, very, very rewarding.
It's not as tight as people would think.
You know, but even when you miss, you've got to say on Spalty Ball right there.
Exactly.
In your face.
Nothing like a good say on it.
Right now.
You know, Houdini, Houdini gets involved in that one.
Yeah.
He was a skeptic of, you know, the afterlife and things like that.
It was really funny.
Did you do your research?
He was a little bit of a skeptic on it.
But he also debunked some of it.
And he believed in a lot of it, too.
Yeah.
I think he had mixed feelings about it.
Yeah, I do.
You know, he really kind of, he fell into a real weird pattern on that.
Yeah.
He was contemporaries with Conan Doyle.
And Conan Doyle believed all that, you know, the afterlife and the spiritualism and all that.
And Houdini would try to kind of debunk that.
But yet he believed in a lot of it.
But he believed it, too.
So yeah, it's kind of interesting.
Have you guys gotten a chance to really kind of walk around the show at all
and experience some of the other things going on?
Have you guys been kind of just in your own lane?
Most of my team is actually out walking the,
walking the floor right now since these are production games.
But the games are running nonstop flawlessly.
What kind of things were you looking forward to when you, before you came in?
Oh, the weather.
We were just saying you caught it at the good time.
Yeah.
August, not so much.
But yeah, may like April, May, June, great time to be in Texas
because of the changes season.
And the fall is wonderful here.
It's just the summer terrible.
You know, I mean.
But what machines have you been looking forward to getting your hands on?
Oh, as far as me personally, I like looking at the old stuff.
I like playing some of the older games that are here.
You mentioned the Dolly Parton machine.
That's actually here.
That old artwork on it and looks gorgeous.
I like the machine.
For some reason, my brother and I were just really good at it.
And we would pop games on it and then sell the games to for a quarter
so we could play video games.
Same way with hot hand.
We could wreck up games on that.
And seeing some of those old games too,
that people think they're simple, but I'm like, no, they're such a challenge to it.
Because they're simply.
Exactly.
And just seeing how it's developed.
I said this before.
I'm at the point of my life where pinball is one of the very few things I can do anymore.
Because the controllers for these games have 90 different buttons.
And I don't know what any of them do.
And unless I can shoot something on the screen or play pinball, I'm pretty much useless.
And to see how the technology has integrated, especially with it.
Especially with a table like Houdini.
It just when I saw it last year, like I said, it was absolutely mind blowing.
And I'm so excited that things are going as well for you guys as it is.
What else you guys have coming up that you can talk about anything?
Nothing I can talk about right now.
Okay, sure enough.
Right now I'm working on getting, we're working on getting Houdini shipped.
Getting it into the customer's hands.
And quality is job one.
You know, so it shows.
Where are you guys out of?
We're out of, we're out of stream with Illinois.
We're right outside Chicago.
Okay.
Kind of the pinball paradise.
I guess you'd say easily.
Yeah, there's a lot going on up there.
I don't want to, we don't want to keep you guys too long.
Anything that you guys want to blatantly plug.
Because we're all about shameless self promotion on this show.
So we're here.
We're shipping.
I've got 15 distributors.
You can check us out on our website, American-pinball.com.
The game is $69.95 through all my distributors.
And that's a pretty competitive price point.
When you look around the floor, what people were asking for games.
When you look at what all's in the game.
Absolutely.
It's a full-featured game.
Okay.
Toys done by back alley creations.
Matt is amazing with the sculpting work.
So you've got full-featured toys.
You've got that 22-inch catapult shot.
Which I know you love.
Oh, yes, I do.
You've got to love that.
It's such a great, it's just a great machine.
And when you said that price point, I kind of sat back a little bit.
I was like, I was expecting more.
It's just, you know.
It is a wonderful machine.
If you haven't played it yet.
Again, with the resurgence of our Cades that's happening right now.
It's going to be somewhere near you.
If it's not there now, we have one here in Dallas.
We know it's going to be near you soon.
I say, if you haven't played one now, jump on a plane, get in the car.
Come on down here.
Well, there's six of them here.
Yeah, come down to Texas Pinball Festival.
This is one of our favorite shows that we do every year.
Because I get to play Pinball.
And then I get to just talk about it for a couple of hours, too.
There's a lot of enthusiasm with this show.
A lot of people are excited to come out.
And there's just a good buzz going on.
And a lot of smiling faces.
Yeah.
It's just nice to see the renaissance of Pinball coming back in such a big and bold.
And Ed and everybody have done such an amazing job with this show.
From the marketing to how great the volunteers have been.
Everybody's been really helpful.
The attendees, everybody understands the bit.
So, you know, everybody's very respectful.
The vendors are great.
They're always willing to help you in trying to show you.
Hey, this is what we've got.
But make sure you go check this stuff out, too, which I think is awesome.
All right, Bart.
Anything else you want to play while you're here?
Well, my name is Brett Weiss.
I wrote books about Bart Weiss as a friend of ours.
And it just, it wears me out.
I apologize.
No problem at all.
Brett Weiss.
I wrote books about video games.
Atari, Cleak, Vision and Television, all that good stuff.
I wrote the classic home video game series.
I wrote the 100 greatest console video games 1977 to 1987.
And I wrote, I've got a new book called The Arcade and other strange store,
strange tales.
And that, the lead story is set in an art classic arcade.
You can find all my books at Brett Weisswords.com,
B-R-E-T-T-W-E-I-S-S-Words.com, Facebook, Twitter, all that stuff.
You can just go through my website.
And come down to the text.
It's one of the first people you're going to see when you walk in the door.
And just get them directly from the man himself.
That's right.
And you can do it when we get off the air.
And the magazine as well.
You can subscribe to the magazine as well while you're here.
Make sure you give them that.
And then we'll take care of you as well.
Absolutely.
All right.
Gentlemen, we're going to let you guys shake hands and kiss babies.
We're going to come try to see you after the show.
Thank you.
Come on out.
All right.
Play a game.
I won't hear.
I didn't get you last year.
Yeah, I know you're going to have to this year.
Well, tonight you got your choice.
Yeah.
You've got four.
You've got to play.
Or am I got to play.
You have to.
You will see me shortly.
And then don't forget to join us at a clock tonight.
Oh, that's right.
Oh, that's right.
You guys have a panel tonight?
Yeah, we got a panel tonight at a clock.
Awesome.
So we're open.
You guys are going to show up.
All right.
I may have to leave a little bit early, but I'm sure that some of the crew will still be here for sure.
Absolutely.
Yeah, come on out.
We'll see you guys there.
Thank you guys so much.
Thank you so much.
We are here live at the Texas Pinball Festival 2018 at the Frisco Convention Center right off the tollway.
You know, you come back up and then go hang out at Stonebrier for a little bit afterwards.
And you know, we got food trucks here.
You don't have to leave yet something to eat.
It's a beautiful day to be out and about.
They're doing shuttles to and from the National Video Game Museum, which is right up the road as well.
Docs here.
Holy mackerel man.
I need a breather.
We've been going nonstop.
We're now at the, we're at the hour.
We're at the 90 minute mark is worth on.
I don't know.
Okay.
Fair enough.
I saw him and what's your name again?
Gen Rome take off in one direction.
That's your boy.
Dude, after everybody, we've just talked to this.
It really our first dance to come up from here.
Yeah, we've been going nonstop.
A lot going on last night history made in the world of sports.
As the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
That's a real place.
Takes out the number one overall scene in the NCAA man's basketball tournament.
First time in history that a 16 has beaten a one.
I was so weird.
I got this.
I get this phone call from him, Doc.
He's like, yeah.
Is your cable installed here?
Because we just moved into the new place.
We're getting everything set up still.
And I'm like, no, not yet.
But I think I could get it online.
He's like, why?
And he's like, history is about to go down.
I'm like, what do you mean?
And he described it to me.
And so he's giving me the play by playing as I'm scrambling truck.
And one convincingly, they won by 20.
Alex just piped in.
It's the only bet he won yesterday.
That he won that thing?
He probably had it on the points.
Oh, okay, okay.
But yeah, first time ever, it's happened.
Not the 16 that everybody thought would win.
And they said if there was going to be one, it was going to be pen.
Here comes Doc.
That didn't quite happen.
Just a couple of TV highlights real quick.
Stars has renewed power for season six, even before season five has started.
Wow.
Let's see.
Your Cagney and Lacey leads have been cast.
A Sarah Drew and a Michelle herd.
You got that going for you.
Annabelle Shiora is going to be your your bad for next season.
Luke H.
I did see that.
And because we needed this, Tori's spelling and Jenny Garth going to do a revival
of the 902 or no.
Didn't we have to try this once?
What did a massive thing?
It made a couple of three seasons.
All right.
We have another guest joining us as we finally take it to breath.
Go ahead and tell us who you are, sir.
I'm Jerry Stelbert with Multimorphic.
Jerry's back.
Jerry's with last year.
Yes.
I remember this guy.
Dude.
I am so excited for you.
Because I remember last year you had your thing set up.
You have just blown it up this year.
We went nuts.
Yes.
Jerry's booth for those of you that don't remember Jerry from last year.
His concept.
And we talked to the guys from VP cabs.
They're like, we love what he's doing over there.
Yeah.
You have kind of morphed the two between the traditional pinball and kind of what VP cabs
does.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's hence the name.
Hence the name.
See what you did there.
But it's a basic like all of your hardware set up the same.
But it's you can do multiple things within it.
Like you got one that can be a trainer.
I played the baseball today.
That was pretty cool because the way it works is it's the ball spits from the top of the
machine.
And you get kind of get one chance per flipper to put it either into a ramp.
And then it's certain there's certain things that pop up.
And if it goes down there you hit into it out and you play you play a half an inning.
And it was a lot of fun.
Yeah.
It was.
It's.
As I was trying to play it at certain times.
But it's really cool because it's unpredictable.
And you shuffle it around and I love the things that you're going.
And the booth looks great this year.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Talk about what's been going on since we saw you last year.
So yeah.
This platform that you we talked about last year.
The idea is it's a it's a machine that you buy once.
You have this cabinet legs back box flippers.
All these things that you don't you don't touch more than once at a time.
So buy one cabinet and let's start filling it up with the game content.
It's just like the video game console.
Idea but re envisioned for physical pinball.
So we have the cabinet.
We drop a new new play fields.
We developed a game in the last year called Cosmic Cart Racing.
And it's in the booth today.
We're showing it off.
We have this life size version of the ring element that's in the game.
It's a nice booth display and under that we have two machines showing off this new game.
This new game has 800 RGB lit LEDs lining every shot and showing these amazing.
These amazing light displays.
We have these magnetic ramp assist features and we can lock balls on the actual ramps.
We're doing all these new cool features.
This is our second complex pinball style complex deep rule set.
Neat shot layout game for the p3.
All of our other games are trying to demonstrate different capabilities like the pitch and bad game
that you're talking about.
Grandson rally or cannon lagoon or I played cannon lagoon last year.
It reminds me, I don't know if you, sir, if you remember, do you remember Disney Quest?
Vagely.
It was a big multi-level arcade that they had at downtown Disney.
And one of the things you could do there was it was based on pirates of the Caribbean.
And you go into this room and the room is the front of a pirate ship.
And everybody has a little cannon and you pull the string on the cannon and you're firing at other ships.
Right.
That's what this is in a pinball can.
Right.
No, I think it was so much fun to play.
Did we?
Yes, we did.
And then you've got, you've got a story based one too.
So we have Lexi lightspeed.
Lexi lightspeed, right?
It's a pin head style game where it's got modes and it's got multi balls and you have all these different objectives to get to the wizard mode.
And it's just what pinball people are used to seeing.
And then we're trying all these other things with the other games to bring variety to the platform to interest kids and families.
And people that might not traditionally like the physicality or the uniqueness of pinball.
And they want to integrate it with pinball or with video game style gameplay and all those things.
So we're trying to broaden the market, bring new ideas and we're trying to do it in a cost effective way where they don't have to blow the budget on a lot of different games.
They can just build up their game library with slight cost adders to build up that library.
How's the reception been so far at this year show?
It's been amazing because we have this huge booth display showing that we're not just a new company anymore.
We're a company that can show off this machine in a professional way.
We can develop all these cool things.
We can give people a lot of value for their money.
We have show specials for people buying machines at the show.
And we have plans for more and better and bigger and cheaper and faster and those things are coming next year.
So how many different software packages do you have right now?
There are nine games you can buy for the P3.
Three physical game modules and then the rest are software variations for those play field modules.
What's the plan down the road form?
So more, we want to do more kids games, more family friendly games, but we don't want to ignore the pins.
We want to keep developing complex, deep rule set games as well.
We want to be the machine people know they have to buy because they want the variety and the capabilities and the high-techness of the machine.
And they can supplement that with their favorite theme from another manufacturer.
But the P3 is a machine that it just makes sense to have because for about the same amount of money as you spend on another machine, you can get a lot more content.
What machines were you excited to see this year when you came to the show?
I was so involved in my machine that but but but here's the thing multi-morphic my company.
We now make the board set that's being used in five other companies games.
That's awesome.
We do Dina uses our boards, total annihilation uses our boards, Dutch pinball and the Big Lebowski they use their boards.
All great machines.
The new Kingpin game coming out is using our boards.
So we get to help all these other manufacturers get off the ground and develop a machine with a stable board set and all this content that is cool to see.
I love to hear that.
That's what I love about the pinball community.
It's you know there's competition but there's also camaraderie.
It's a friendly competition.
We know that we're trying to battle for the same customer base but we've managed to do it in such a way where if they make money we make money.
And you know what we send business to spooky we get them to help print stuff for us and yes we all work against each other.
We all work with each other too.
And you say you're fighting for the same customer base but each each group still has its own niche base too which is kind of cool.
And you guys work together and that's it.
Let me think there was something else I was going to ask and now I've forgotten what it was.
Well with that in mind the yes we're competing for the same customer base but we're also trying to grow that customer base and every machine has its hook.
And that hook might bring in a whole new demographic of people.
Someone like a game like Barnard will bring in kids and kids and Ken and Lagoon too can bring in kids and get them introduced to pinball machines.
Absolutely yeah.
Because I mean you're seeing kids nowadays when you see their eyes light up at a pinball machine I'm like you weren't even a thought when this machine was popular.
That means the legacy will live on sir.
And that's so it brings a little bit of light into the world.
It's the smiles that get to me.
Exactly.
You walk around a game room and you watch people playing machines and they're into it they're serious about their playing and they're hoping not to drain and when they drain they get upset or you don't see a lot of smiles walking around the room.
That doesn't mean they're not having fun.
It just means it's not listening a smile but if you watch kids or somebody's wife playing Ken and Lagoon you'll see them smiling constantly.
It's just because they get it they understand that they shoot a ball into a hole and a ship blows up or an animal spins around or something that they can tie directly to their action happens and it's fun.
I may have asked you this last year but I'm going to ask you this again.
What's the machine that got you originally?
Theater of magic.
Oh so good. Great one.
An attack from Mars. Those are the two.
When we had the guys on from pin graphics a little while.
What they've done with that attack from Mars for machines.
They're both up right across from Mars.
Gorgeous.
Yeah absolutely.
Yeah you haven't seen that heavy.
You need to check that out.
I've walked past about.
I didn't really take the time to look and see what they had done.
You really see it once you're actually playing the game.
Yeah it was a thing.
I just I breathed past and saw the captain but I didn't see the captain.
Yeah what the attack from Mars.
There's so much feeling to it and every target makes sense.
It's one of those games sometimes you walk up to pinball machines.
I don't know what to do.
It's too busy.
Attack from Mars while it is complex.
You know exactly what.
There's two different versions.
You've got the video integrated version.
It was like the episode one pinball.
Right.
And then you have the physical version which we said earlier is the T2 machine just with a different coat of paint on it.
Right.
And so and you get that.
But it's still the same feel because both of them still work pretty much the same way.
But the video version is a little bit more compact.
It's the flowingness of these games that attract me.
I like games where you shoot a shot and it quickly goes around a looper.
Are we able to go back to the flipper and you can chain these these shots together?
The high speed flowing games.
What was the one that you shot the ball up and it was in like a motor and it just spun around the motor like seven times and then spit it back out?
Was that Tron?
No.
No, this was it was a it was a driving theme like a racing themed.
Oh.
High speed too.
High speed too.
That's what it was.
And it was just this metal circle around an engine in the end.
And it just spun and spun and spun and spun and it was like I'm not doing anything on getting points.
This is amazing.
Yeah, interestingly it doesn't affect gameplay at all that feature.
But it's just fun to watch it.
It's fun to hear hitting the metal ramp as it spins around.
So on Cosmic Heart Racing the game that we just came out with we have a similar thing we're on the ramp.
There are magnets that can do that kind of stuff.
They can accelerate the ball.
They can catch the ball.
They can they can do that same kind of high speed to effect.
It's pretty cool.
You just have to go to work every day and go.
I get to do this.
Is it really work at that point or is it just a hobby?
Hey, my old man is saying you love what you do.
You never work a day.
Exactly.
That's what they say.
And then you turn what you love to do into work.
So there are there are good days on their back.
There's a training of course, but but yeah, I don't go out and play pinball much anymore because I'm because I'm working on pinball every day.
But I still love it.
Yeah, how can you not?
Yeah.
I mean, really it's just it's it's something that just gets into your bloodstream and you just can't get rid of it.
Absolutely.
And the ideas are always flowing and you want to experiment with new designs and luckily we can do that with the platform so we can just drop in a new idea and see if it works.
And it's a lot easier for you guys to do it because because of the nature.
We don't have to cut a full play field and do all that stuff.
Yeah, yeah.
All right, before we let you go and shake hands and kiss babies and get back to the deal.
Give everybody the shameless plus websites social media everything.
Appreciate that.
www.multimorphic.com.
We have a Twitter feed.
We have a Facebook page.
It's all based on the word multi-morphic.
Email us at info at multi-morphic.com or check out the website.
You can put in a pre-order today.
You can put a deposit down on a p3 if you do that before the end of the weekend.
You get a $500 discount towards Cosmic Cards.
And it's go check out their stuff.
It's really, really neat.
I really love what the concept that these guys use.
I'm a big fan.
Thanks, guys.
Thank you so much, Jerry.
And we'll come see you in a little while.
I'm sure.
All right. Sounds great.
Once we get this stuff put all away and we get to go play a little bit more pinball before I got to go home.
All right.
You're listening to the clubhouse podcast.
We're live at the Texas pinball festival at the Frisco Convention Center.
Get out here if you're in the neighborhood.
Come check it out.
It's one of the coolest things that you're going to do on St. Patrick's Day weekend.
And you know, you'll keep the man off your back.
I'm just saying, General is back with us.
Doc is here as well.
Getting close to the end of our two hours.
There's a lot going on, man.
So just as a reminder, no show tomorrow night because we're doing the show today.
Next Sunday, we will also not have a show because Grace Descending will be alive at Port David's pub in Uptown.
So come, come see the boys.
We're going to be playing somewhere between 730 and 8 o'clock on March the 25th.
Probably 30, 40 minutes somewhere in there.
And then we'll be off the following weekend because it's Easter weekend.
And so by the time we're back in studio for an abnormal show, it's going to be WrestleMania.
Oh, yeah.
Speaking of WrestleMania, some interesting things going on as it pertains to that.
We know that there is going to be a women's battle royal to compliment the under the giant memorial battle royal.
It had a name and then it didn't have any.
Yeah.
And I don't understand the logic behind this.
It was going to be the fabulous Mula.
Because you have the May Young Classic and then they decided it's going to be the women's battle royal.
I don't understand the logic behind this.
Do you have any light on that?
A little bit.
Go ahead.
Apparently, it has been brought to light that Mula apparently took advantage of some people in the industry and people that are still in the industry.
And is it the name they attach to it more than the concept?
Yeah.
Right.
Okay.
All right.
I mean, I guess I see it from that standpoint, but I also see honoring people as well.
Yeah.
Let's see.
Jeff Hardy had a little bit of rough week.
Whoops.
And DWI after blowing triple the legal limit when he took out 105 feet of guardrail.
And his license has been revoked for 30 days.
So you got that going for you.
And Kid Rock will be going into the celebrity.
Moving on.
But he may be involved at WrestleMania, bringing out your leader.
Oh, God.
That might be happening.
So get ready for that.
Great.
You know how I feel about that.
We have another guest joining us this time.
Please tell everybody who you are, sir.
Hey, my name is Paul Bandletort from Marco Specialties.
You know, you'd think they'd get better real estate for who they are.
Yeah.
And I was dragged over here by my ankle.
So I'm going to go on records.
There's there's really involuntary.
I'm being held against my will.
There's two places I have to go every year at the festival.
You guys and VP gaps.
Those are the two that I those are my two mains.
And again, this year you guys raised the bar.
Little thing called Guardians of the Galaxy.
It's a good game.
Little thing called Batman 66 again.
Also both amazing game.
And you've also got what's over.
Star Wars is over there this year.
Metallica.
ACDC that Corvette machine.
Looks great.
Yes.
Fun.
Yeah.
So we worked with funding museums this year as well.
So they brought the Corvette out.
And actually George Gomez stopped by the booth.
He's like, wow.
They got all my games in here.
We had him earlier.
George, you're just great.
We really enjoyed having him on the show.
How things going over there?
Fantastic.
Loud and exhausting.
Yes.
That's pretty nice.
It's like Epcot Center with pinball is really what it is.
Exactly.
I am always amazed at the stuff that you guys are bringing.
Talk a little bit about some of the technology that you're working with and how that's been
becoming more and more advanced just in the last couple of years.
Yeah.
For the games or for the booth or.
All of it.
I mean, because you even your own.
Yeah.
But even the booth has just gotten bigger and bigger and bigger every year.
Yeah.
I was born into this industry.
So I'm Mark Sun.
Mark started business in 85.
And here we are 30 years later.
Still haven't grown up yet and I side need some Lincoln logs and just need some bigger ones.
So now we have the trust.
You've got a bigger sandbox to play.
Exactly.
Yes.
It's a little bit more dangerous.
So we have to be careful not to drop it on anybody.
But.
It's been.
It's kind of like a running gag now to see what we can build and what can get away with every show.
Right.
Getting getting kind of out of hand and I enjoy it.
It's fantastic.
And you guys are always bringing the brand new stuff every year.
We talked earlier three years ago that you brought the.
The WrestleMania legends of WrestleMania tables and.
Good memories.
Yes.
I can't remember what you know we're doing 15 15 shows a year now across the country.
And actually this year right now it's the first actually this weekend we have all hands on deck.
Because we also have another crew on banning right now the arcade expo.
Oh wow.
And this one games out there too.
So.
Yeah.
Both these shows are.
This is an incredible problem to have.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You said you were born into the industry so you really I mean very few people probably know this industry in and out better than you.
What what was the thing?
Just scary.
Was there was there a machine that really made you think like I really want to be in the family business?
Well I mean I literally had a firepower in my room burn up so you know Steve Richie is my second dad in a way.
Living the dream sir living the dream.
Yeah.
It's a nightmare to play on a point of view.
I could solder before I could walk.
I mean walking through the floor is it just like this is my life flashing before my eyes.
Yeah.
Yeah it gets to a point every year is like another one because they all blur together and then once it starts it's like this is incredible.
You know it's just just seen this thing is completely evolved into an absolutely beautiful thing.
Well we were saying last year was the first year we did the show here and we were the only people in the hallway.
Yeah.
And then when I called Ed this year he's like yeah by the way we're going to have a bunch of vendors out in the hallway with you.
I'm like great that just means that we're not by ourselves you know we're totally cool with that.
Yeah.
Everybody with the festival has been so amazing.
This is just such an easy show to do.
Yeah and we've supported so little trivia we were the first vendor at Texas ball.
Really?
In 2002.
Wow.
So it's our 15th year of the festival.
Yeah I'm trying to do the math on that.
I think it's 2002.
I don't even know I can't remember anymore.
I was in high school at times.
No, so I was in college.
And they were saying it was a much smaller venue in Arlington back then.
Yes.
Yes actually.
That's right.
Actually I was at college at times to mark and Nancy came out here I think.
And yeah and since then it's just gotten bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.
And back then it was only you know.
I don't even know how many games are there but it wasn't this.
I mean yeah they said over 500 here.
Yeah.
Lou Ferigno came and sat down with us and he was saying how overwhelmed he was about seeing everything here and all the people.
Yeah.
What is the main thing about this festival that just tends to wow you every year?
It's the people.
It's always the people right.
So this pinball everywhere and especially for me right.
I'm around pinball 24-7 and the irony is I barely get a chance to play a game at these shows right.
And you'll find a lot of the veterans in the same boat.
Like now it's turned to a thing where it's really just a gathering of friends and cool people.
And we all go out and party all the time.
It's fantastic.
And more importantly you know being able to share this with the new folks that are coming through here.
So that's been our driving motivation now at the show.
Because we dump every marketing dollar we have in the shows.
It's like all right.
Whatever it takes to get more new games at shows.
That's our only goal.
And I've gotten huge fights with everybody.
Along Dean is calling and I'm stressing out where to add it.
I need about 30 by 60 booths here.
It's like we're so full.
And again it's all that foot traffic.
And we've talked about this a lot on this show too of one of the things that impresses me so much at this show is everybody gets it.
Yeah.
Like people people don't get crazy.
They don't get stupid.
Everybody respects each other.
And you'll have people that.
Hey, there's four of us all standing in line.
Why don't we just play a four player game together so everybody can play it.
And we can see what everybody else is doing.
And everybody's very respectful.
And I love that about this show.
It's all about the people every time.
We've got a big one coming in about 36 minutes.
Because that's when they're going to be unveiling the Alice Cooper.
That's right.
See, I haven't even been keeping track of the schedule here because it's pulling on fires all day long.
Is there anything that you coming into the show that you've been excited to see?
I mean, just the vast quantity of...
We're in a golden era of Pimball right now.
Absolutely.
So we realize this is what over a dozen manufacturers now have spoken with a lot of folks.
And now we're seeing people from out of nowhere.
So before the others generation of manufacturers coming up,
there's still kind of the Pimball board of Williams reassembling in various ways.
But now we're starting to see folks that are completely outside the industry coming in,
which is really exciting.
New money, new people, new ideas, new processes, new assembly lines, new everything.
So that's actually good for us long-term because it helps us supply chain
and makes all the more parts of it more available.
So even if any of these companies don't make it, it's fine because they're supporting suppliers.
Absolutely.
So we always wish everybody the best of luck.
We try to help out everybody because we figure out rising type of social shifts.
You're absolutely right.
And that's one of the things that this community tends to get that a lot don't either.
Some folks forget it sometimes and after you're mind them,
guys, it's not a competition.
There is like, oh, one game sold.
No, trust me.
There's definitely a vast shortage of machines still.
Every game that comes off of every manufacturing line for the last 10 years is collected instantly.
Absolutely.
And that resurgence of it is just, it kind of just gives me happy feelings
because I get to relive my childhood a little bit.
Oh yeah, absolutely.
But what we have now is completely beyond anything that's existed in the past.
So this is this air pinball is the first air community pinball is community driven finally.
The old air pinball is all defined by the operators which are detached from their communities.
They just care about coin box.
They didn't really care about like the bigger picture of, you know,
has this game interact with the environment with the location, the layouts,
and the people it's bringing in, and the ancillary events around there.
So now, yeah, pinball machine by itself like cashbox doesn't make money.
It's the the people brings into the venue.
That's how you make money now.
And that's the whole shift that's happening.
That's never existed before.
Is there a license that you're dying to get your hands on?
You know, here's a question constantly.
What license is, what's the next title, what's the next title?
It's like everything's excited, you know.
I don't want pick favors there.
Me personally, I would love to see, you know,
aim my favorite, you know, cartoons or, you know,
whatever, I'd love to see Futurama's one of my favorite things.
Wow.
You know what?
That surprises me.
Because there's what two or three different Simpsons machines out there.
It's fantastic, but what's great about now is before,
you know, before when you have, you know, your stern,
you're struggling to stay alive and the market's still thin
and you're not quite sure it's going to work.
You gotta go with the big shots because one or two bad titles,
you gotta do business.
But now we got a bunch of boutique guys.
They can take these risks that the bigger companies can't take.
And so it's exciting.
You know what I'd love to see?
Sir.
We're talking about licenses.
Is it one of your favorite animated series of all time
to get ready to have a huge comeback?
Oh.
Exactly.
Animaniacs is what he's referring to.
Oh, that would be incredible.
Yeah.
Yeah, it was kitschy.
You know, it was really.
Well, it was Ready Player One coming out.
Spielberg should be pretty open to it.
Yeah.
There should be.
There's some synergy at work here, at least it should be.
Yeah.
And there's a lot.
And we're also in the golden area of entertainment now, right?
The networks have lost control.
And now we have all this great little niche stuff coming out,
which is also awesome.
So now you can see a lot of the targeted IPs that are not mass market appeal,
but you don't need that anymore.
Well, last year, somebody brought in a machine
that they based on the noise, if you remember.
Yeah.
So even some of those niche brands that have been,
yeah, have been gone for 30 years, all of a sudden.
No way.
And there was the same group that had a Jetson's machine, too,
if I remember correctly.
Where's my California race?
Exactly.
Hey, now.
I'm on board with that.
Hey, man.
I had all those little collectible reasons back in the day.
That's one of the things that's really science,
but maker community now is spring up in pinball.
So now, yes, you want to go make it.
And the tools are available now to do that.
You know, I think the biggest success story of that is, you know,
the total nuclear annihilation thing.
That's basically the ultimate.
What an amazing table.
It's the tools and the, now one person can bring a game to production
that's unheard of in the pinball role.
That would, that game would have taken, you know,
a $5 million budget 20 years ago to get done.
Exactly.
All right.
That's.
And it's moved because it's moving so fast.
Yeah.
The technology is becoming easier to manufacture,
to get it out to the public.
So there's better and better stuff coming out all the time,
which is why another reason I love this show,
because every year we're seeing new stuff.
Because the demand keeps going up.
You know, when I found out that,
when that Guardian's table dropped,
I was like, I can't wait until March.
Oh, yeah.
You know?
And to be it, I got my hands on it this morning,
and it's everything that I wanted it to be.
Oh, perfect.
Yeah, it's a great implementation, the IP.
You know, and that's where all these games,
it's just like I had a buddy,
his Australian was told me though,
there's not such a thing as bad beer.
They're like better beers.
And the same thing applies to pinball, right?
There's no such thing as a bad demo machine.
There's only better games.
I think Doc would agree on these.
There's no such thing as a bad beer.
There's just better beers.
Look at the shirt.
Yes, Doc doesn't discriminate.
I have to throw the PBR out there on that one.
Hey, no, PBR is greatest.
PBR is PBR.
No, we call it utility beers.
They get the job done, you know?
Exactly.
You're going to get there one way or another.
It's a Swiss Army beer.
Exactly.
Well, we know that you got a ton of stuff to talk about,
but we want before we let you go and go,
shake hands and kiss babies,
give us all the shameless promotion,
all the social media websites,
everything.
So everybody can check out what you guys are doing.
I mean, hopefully you know us by now,
Marco Specialties.
We sell parts by game, by parts.
You know, it's support the community.
If you're involved in the community,
you're supporting us in this vice versa.
So it's nice as we've gotten this to a point now,
where I'll need to shamelessly plug it.
I just want everyone to come to the show
as I want everybody to get involved.
I want everybody to go to somebody's house and play pinball.
Then you're supporting us.
And they've got some great t-shirts over there as well
that you can buy.
Absolutely, yeah.
We're always trying to get cool shirts done, you know?
Anything that builds the community up.
We have the epiphany a few years ago.
It's like, oh, wait.
We just invest everything in the community.
It always comes back to us.
Because we're busy.
I don't have time to play like doing promo codes
and marketing stuff and all that stuff.
I rather bring, you know, 50-hundred games out to a show.
That's my goal.
I want to get 50 games out to the show in the next year or so.
We already got 30 games in the booth this year.
Everyone told me I was crazy.
And you're making great use of the space, too.
Oh, absolutely.
And that's actually something I've been trying to do.
Everybody do is space the games out.
It's the epiphany we had a couple of years ago,
because if you've got games, rank and file
is the worst thing you do to a pommel machine.
Because then nobody can watch you play.
Right?
And so...
Well, I was taking pictures of other machines
while I was playing the one I was on earlier today.
Yeah, so that's one of the little things
you've been playing around with.
We're kind of messing with people about layout.
It's the try to make people interact and mingle.
And we purposely leave the spaces between the games
so people can stand next to the games and watch.
And especially on a new title,
you want to be able to point at the play field and say,
hey, look at this thing.
You're shooting this thing up.
And be able to make eye contact with the person who's playing.
And it's slowly...
And the other cool thing it does is it keeps long lines
before me at the games.
You have to go mix.
Yeah, absolutely.
And you guys did a great job of it.
Yeah, so I'm encouraging everybody to copy us there.
We want everybody to space the games out.
Yeah, copy everything we're doing,
because then that also keeps me busy.
And it benefits everybody.
Yeah.
Thank you so much for sitting down with us, sir.
Thanks for having me.
And we're going to try to come back
and see you guys when we get out.
Please do.
You're always welcome.
All right.
It's quite around here, though, which is nice.
Sure.
I just want to sit here in the quiet room.
I don't have any great time.
I'm going to take a nap right here if you want mine.
Hey.
Hope we're not providing the nap.
That would be a little awkward.
I don't know.
It's more done here.
This is the decompression table.
I'll sign me up.
Ooh.
I don't need one of this.
I see one of those in my every day.
It's mostly your voice.
It's very soothing.
It's my NPR voice.
You got something you want to talk to you, I think, sir.
There's a problem right here.
All right.
Gentlemen, thank you for your time.
Thank you for sitting down with us.
All right, let's wrap this thing up.
Shall we don't have a seat?
Yeah.
These guys.
Oh, man.
What a great time we have had today.
Two hours ago.
Oh, yeah.
That is the quickest two hours we've spent in a long time.
By the way, can I actually forget about that?
I think you might have maybe once or twice.
You forget about that?
I want to say I had fun playing you doubles in pinball a couple times.
I know.
You know, pinball's a new world to me and I'm loving this.
It's one of my favorite things in the world.
Everyone's warm.
Everyone's welcome.
Everyone wants to help everyone.
It's really enjoyable.
Don, do you what's going to happen is I'm going to play the fantastic
Faith Ford in a big game of pong.
It's on.
I'm going to play a game against her.
She's going to kill me now.
Yeah.
The laser eyes are out.
And hope is going to be watching us.
It's going to be 15.
Hope and faith.
Are we going to have to change it?
Is it on like
retro pong?
Does that have a nice?
Well, it's a pong atari.
Just saying, you know.
It's a pong.
I know.
You can't say it's on like don't get caught in your playing pong.
It's on my pong.
Pong is on.
It's on my pong.
You got to throw another couple of words.
It's on my pong.
Otherwise it is a bump in the road.
You know, three years ago,
Doc called me out of nowhere.
And he was like, hey, there's this thing in first go.
Do you want to go?
And I was like, oh, what is it?
And I looked it up and I'm like,
oh, this looks like it could be a thing.
And so Doc and I came up here
and it melted my brain.
And so then we came back the second year.
And then I got a call from a friend of mine
who knew somebody who knew somebody that ran the festival.
And said, hey, let's go do the podcast.
And they had us back again this year.
Have you ever said yes?
And we have a backdrop.
This is the first time we've ever had a backdrop.
And it's and it's classy
because we're a classy show.
On occasion we are yes.
And I'm also impressed on the crowd
for this being St. Patrick's Day.
Yeah.
We haven't had any rowdy goofies.
But it's also been a really strong crowd too,
which I think has been great.
And the vendors are everything.
This thing is running a smooth glass from my standpoint.
And it's just crowded outside of my own technical issues.
But they're really manored on waiting in line.
Yeah, it's great.
And this is one of,
that's why this is one of my favorite shows
that we do every year.
Because it's so easy.
And everybody's amazing.
And it's, I get pinballs,
one of my favorite things in the world.
And to be able to see all the cool new stuff that's here.
And sometimes we get to see,
you know, tables being unveiled,
which one's going to happen here in 26 minutes
for the new Alice Cooper table.
Ooh, that's getting unveiled at four o'clock.
Okay.
And for the show,
some tricky kid would have stopped by,
but he had some stuff he had to take care of today.
He just got engaged,
so we want to say a model top to him.
Make sure you're checking out the DJ tricky kid podcast.
He does a really great job.
He's a part of a show that we were part of a couple of years ago.
That's a great DJ.
He's actually going to be interviewing the Beastie Boys DJ
at this evening.
He'll be doing a set at Lava Cantina.
So you want to,
if you're going to in the Dallas area in the tonight.
Right down the road.
Right down the road.
He's going to be out there tonight doing a show.
He'll be interviewing him.
Lou Ferregno is here all weekend.
Great job, Don.
Getting him on the show.
Oh, he was cool.
And he did an amazing job with us.
The people from the National Video Game Museum are here as well.
They're shuttling people back and forth.
If you want to go check out that,
that's a really cool thing.
I enjoy the National Video Game Museum very much.
And we need to book a return visit there.
Absolutely.
Did you get all that stuff signed?
Get all what stuff signed?
No, that's the magazine from the dude.
I know. Did you get in the sign?
No, I'm good.
Why not?
I thought you did the artwork.
We had an artist, Don Boy.
And here we are in the ditch again.
Thanks, Don.
Nice job, Don.
All right, so just to recap,
I thought he was the artist who did it.
No.
Okay, I was wrong.
For a while.
Just to recap.
Well, the next time we're going to be back in the studio,
will be WrestleMania Sunday.
So get ready.
Is this going to be a long night?
Yeah.
Long night.
They also did announce next year's WrestleMania back in New York.
They're going to be at the Met Life Stadium again.
Is that New York or New Jersey?
New York New Jersey is what they call it.
So there's that.
It's up that way.
Yeah.
All right.
So we do the plugs and get out of here.
Go play some more pinball.
Yes.
Okay.
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We haven't even mentioned it today.
www.theclubhousepodcast.com.
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That Rob Irvin that is supposed to eat our VIN.
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Jen Rome home on Instagram.
Hey guys.
I'm at 808.
One song trail.
You know how it is.
I'll be hanging out.
I'm going to play some pinball later.
Come over and listen to Dark Side with me about the Met Belt midnight.
It'll be cool.
And I'm far on Don.
Go two ways of beginning for yours at the end.
And also email me at Don at theclubhousepodcast.com.
You can email Don and we can come do this.
What we've been doing for the last two hours will come do for you as well.
We love doing live remote shows.
Bring it out the Empire.
Have it dignitaries and guests on.
We love doing that.
You can email me.
Questions, comments, concerns.
Tell me to go pound sand.
I am Rob at theclubhousepodcast.com.
I am Chad at theclubhousepodcast.com.
Charlotte Parker is on Pinterest because we're morally obligated to say that.
And watch Monday night raw this week.
You might see a couple of people you know.
Charlotte and I are going to Raw and we are sitting down.
No brother.
Keep your eyes open.
USA on Tuesday or Monday night.
Tuesday night we're not going to be there because we don't have Smackdown tickets.
I would talk about jewels and face but they're right there.
They're at the festival too.
Our normal show every Sunday night.
Seven Eastern for Pacific is your one stop shop for all things pop culture.
But also make sure you're subscribing to our show on your favorite podcast app.
So you can get everything and you can listen to it at your leisure.
Tell us you were classy.
I want to go play pinball and meet people.
So until next time for Don, for Jenok, for Chad, for the Empire, for all of our guests.
So we cannot think enough for being with us today.
My name is Rob.
The clubhouse is closed.
We really should get a Brittany Palmer appearance.
I think that would push things over the top.