Latest / Pinball Minority Report / Festivals, Operators & Transformers | Ep. 4

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Festivals, Operators & Transformers | Ep. 4 · Pinball Minority Report

• Erika: is up everybody this is the pinball minority Report I'm Erika mpt3k: And I'm Manu. Erika: And we're two pinball addicts that are bringing you real stories, interviews, crazy pinball talk, everything that has to do with the world of pinball. Honestly, it's just a lot of fun. So, ⁓ Manu what are we talking about today? mpt3k: I'm glad you asked. We have talk about Golden State and Fanime, which we both attended. I'm going to talk a little bit about operators versus home buyers for pinball purchases. Just some some stuff I have on my mind and the Transformers. I mean, that just came out. Erika was doing the robot, which was. Erika: But your noise was just not the noise transformers make. But it's okay. mpt3k: And outside of ⁓ Erika, I heard you had kittens. ⁓ Not literally, but tell about it. ⁓ Erika: Kittens, my outdoor cat. She had kittens. No, I didn't have kittens, but somebody cat did. I haven't we have my parents have like an outdoor cat. Her name's Georgina She's very sweet. And she had four kittens. And they're about four weeks old now. ⁓ And is just flying so fast. They like open the eyes, you can hold them. And I'm like doing all things to like make them domesticated kittens. ⁓ because I want to have it so people can pick up and mpt3k: Okay. Erika: that you can touch their little paws 'cause that helps them like when you try to trim their nails and if you like touch their mouth right here and just like kinda get them used to like getting going to the vet and getting their teeth checked or injecting medicine or whatever. ⁓ so yeah, I'm just playing with kittens. So I'm not getting as much work done. mpt3k: Huh, right. I saw them. I was out there. saw them. I saw them when they were younger. ⁓ Erika: Yeah, you came over. It was so lovely to have you here at my at my parents' house. You got to see mpt3k: Erika has a I got to see the secret room. Which is not, I guess it's not a secret anymore. Erika: This the secret room, this basement. I'll do a tour. I mean, it's not too secret. It's like it's pretty cool. My dad built this like Scooby-Doo door that you basically have to like open to get into here. And ⁓ it's a mess right now. I do plan to like do some sort of I need to like do a full revamp in here and fix things 'cause it's it's not okay. mpt3k: It's so cool. I can see where the talent starts in the family. That's why Erika’s so talented, because the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Because your dad is insane with the talented stuff that they can do, and so are you. Erika: Thanks, Manu. Awww, that's so sweet. You as well. It's so cool to see. Manu's a father. I don't know if you guys know this. Manu's a dad and he's got two sons. mpt3k: Now, I'm single if any ladies want to. Erika: Karen, your wife is a treasure. Okay. I I love her too. You know, she's she I mean you have to share sometimes when I come over. Just so I can talk to her because she's she's just amazing too as a woman. I I'm really in awe of her and like she she does a job that is so important and means a lot to me as a woman. So ⁓ mpt3k: Yeah Yes, he is. Okay, all right, fair enough. She's an OB by the way, for the audience who's keeping track, OBGYN. Erika: Yeah, so she takes care of the ladies and mpt3k: She can cut you and then she can heal you. All right, that's enough. Erika: Yeah, all the things. All right. Well, I think that's enough about that. Let's get into what we were gonna talk about. So our first topic we wanted to talk about. Was we went to two pinball events. We went to Golden State Pinball Festival, which was in Lodi, California. then the weekend after that, we went to Fanime, which is in San Jose, California. Now, two very different events. One event is ⁓ about pinball, the other event is about anime. for of you that got a chance to go to Golden State, I hope you had the most fun time. ⁓ I know I had a great time. There's definitely a lot of involvement from the community. And I just want to give a shout out to like the whole Golden State team. Cause like honestly, the show was so fun. You guys run this so well. And I don't know. I I had a blast. And I just think that it's such a great thing what you do for the community. And that's what these shows are really all about, right? Like they're it's they're community driven. And I feel I feel so strongly about that because it's just like, mpt3k: Bravo. Yeah. Erika: These people are putting in a lot of time and effort and volunteering when they could also be playing, they could also be doing things, but like they want to make sure other people are having just an amazing amount of time and getting the opportunity to play games you might not get to play because you don't live somewhere or it's not close to you, or it's like a a rare game. It's like a prototype game. And you know, we had some Beetlejuices out there, which you know, Beetlejuice is sold out. So, like, if you don't play it on location or you play it at your buddy's house, like you don't really You don't get to enjoy Beetlejuice, right? And like same with Winchester. Like, um, shout out to one of my sponsors, Rewind Pinball, for bringing all the Barrels of Fun games. They are a dealer for barrels of fun. So, like, they brought Winchester, and opened a New-In-Box Labyrinth. And so they actually sold it at the show. So that was very cool too for them. I'm just glad that they were able to ⁓ get get that moving And yeah, just like it was a fun time. I did ⁓ Pinball University with Imoto and freaking Imoto is such a she's such a inspiration and she really she works so hard, like in the pinball world that like Marco Pinball, Imoto ⁓ she is she's a treasure for pinball. We are so lucky to have her. She wants so much for people to love pinball and to be ⁓ aware of like mpt3k: over at Marco Pinball. Yeah. Erika: the history and like how to fix your game. And she just like wants to bring people into this community so bad. And I just I I hope to be able to st emulate even half of like what she does. Cause like it's just I'm always in awe. Like honestly, I was a fan when I I met Imoto at this show actually like ⁓ yeah at Golden State. And I remember like when I was first getting into pinball. So here's a little story then I guess. When I was first getting into pinball, I mpt3k: ⁓ really, I go to the state? ⁓ nice. Erika: I had I had no I didn't know anything. I didn't know there were leagues, right? I didn't know there were events. And I bought my Lord of the Rings pinball machine with like absolutely like no knowledge besides watching a few YouTube videos. And Imoto was one of the first people I saw. Like she was the literally the first woman in pinball I ever saw. Because I was watching all these videos and it was a bunch of dudes and a lot of a lot of guys, right? And then Imoto was there and I was like, oh. Okay, who is she? this is cool. And then I saw like the Marco videos and how she was in them and like here's how to set up your first pinball machine. And I knew how to set up my first pinball machine because of that video. And then ⁓ I was at Golden State for the first time, I I I fangirled. I remember I was with my dad and I saw a Imoto and Kyle there. mpt3k: That's awesome. Erika: And I was like I was like, Dad, she's the girl from the she she's the girl from the video. That's that's Imoto Oh my god. mpt3k: uh You look you look down there’s Imoto I'm just kidding. Erika: Yeah. ⁓ just ⁓ just remember that it was and love her. We love her so much. And it's like ⁓ I like I was so shy. I like I've I've worked on movies and TV shows, right? And I talk to celebrities like they're like my neighbor or something, right? But like here I am meeting this like YouTube personality, being ⁓ okay, mean maybe I don't want to bug her No, I maybe I shouldn't say I don't I don't ⁓ I mpt3k: She's short, she knows she's I love her. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Erika: I remember I was like sweating almost, like trying to like the courage to to come up to her and tell her thank you, you know. And I ⁓ eventually did. And me and my dad, we came up to her and we were like, Thank you so much for your videos and what you do. And then they gave us some shirts. ⁓ gave us some Marco P T shirts. And I was like, I love this. This is so cool. Imoto is so awesome. And then like from there, like we just kept gett getting in touch with each other and seeing each other and We have our friendship that we have now. And hopefully she'll be she'll be here with us one of these days. We're gonna figure out a time. Yeah. But ⁓ yeah. So I think that when it comes to these events like ⁓ Golden State, it's all about community. And ⁓ I love what the the Marco Pinball University does. And I'm glad I I get to help out with it by setting up some cameras and bringing some people along and yeah, it's fun. then you ⁓ mpt3k: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Erika: Manu when it came to Golden State, were super helpful because I brought my Multimorphic Weird Al Yeah. And so mpt3k: That's right. I wish I could have been more helpful, how was it to this is the third Golden State that that your particular pin has seen. Erika: Yeah. So it's the third time this machine has been at Golden State. ⁓ the first time was when ⁓ I wasn't the c o owner of it. It just was debuting Weird Al as a pinball machine for the first time at this event. So that if you played it then, you played my machine. And then ⁓ the second time was last year where I brought my Weird Al pinball machine when also Portal was there brought by someone else, ⁓ by the spinners lit ⁓ crew. I one of the guys I can't his name escapes me at the moment. But I remember that he brought ⁓ Portal. And then it came this year. And it had a few things that happened, but for the most part my game played the whole show. it came to bringing my multimorphic to the show, it's it's a lot to bring a game to a show. Like game, ⁓ I say it all the time. This game, a multimorphic is heavy. They're like four hundred pounds. mpt3k: That's very... Yep. Erika: They're heavy. And so I moved this game. I'm so grateful with my assistant and my roommate helped me take this game out of our garage so that I could like bring it to the show. And so we like take it. The good thing is the multi-mic kind of comes apart, right? Like so I take take module out, I take the the monitor out, and then what the game is slightly lighter to put into a vehicle. ⁓ And then there we take it, we put it in the truck. Take it out of the truck, set it up at the show and ⁓ I mean it worked almost the entire weekend. I was just very few things that went wrong. ⁓ and they were all very fixable problems. And some of them were so s some of them I felt like were almost silly. I'm like, ⁓ like this is just like random ball stuck, which is why like this got this is happening. So it was nothing that wasn't I'm glad it was nothing that wasn't like not repairable during the show. mpt3k: Right. Erika: Um, 'cause you helped me with the first thing, which was my hamster wheel. Something with a hamster wheel and Weird Al stopped working, so balls would get stuck there. mpt3k: Yeah, and I'm probably gonna talk about this in topic too a little bit, but it's very important to, and it's not just a Multimorphic thing, it's very important to have techs available for every game at any expo. um So let's just put it out there right there. Yeah. Erika: Yeah, all all games have issues and problems and so it this it there's a little thing Yeah, like mpt3k: Especially at an expo, though, where it's just nonstop play. It's like a line of people. Erika, before we even had the game set up, there was a line. It was like four people waiting in line to just hammer on the game. Erika: Yeah. And so it it's it felt really cool though because I was just so excited and I had so many people thank me for bringing the game 'cause like these games, the P3 platform ⁓ isn't common, you know, like there are very few there's very few arcades that like host a P3 ⁓ and most the time you'll only find it in someone's home. Now I do understand like this like I said, this machine was like it's a big feat to move, you know, it's it's not easy. I I'm literally like, I need to get mpt3k: Right. Erika: strong for pinball. Like I need to like lift and like get get more muscles than whatever this is to like get the machine off the ground. I should do a whole mini series on like getting buff for pinball. Like geez. but yeah I had like f five little issues that happened that the hamster wheel and then I had a random screw sh like show ups in the there's a tube. There's like a PVC pipe that like the balls when they go out down the when they fall down the drain, they go down a thing and then they go down ⁓ a tube. And that tube was blocked by a random screw, which I still don't know where it was from, but I'll find out. mpt3k: Yeah, the ball trough. I mean, this is the. It was, I think was, it was fine mostly when you mostly because you didn't have a tech specifically. I wasn't available for the weekend. And even when we did Fanime, which we'll talk about in a second, ⁓ was hired to be a tech on Stern games. And there was an issue on a Stern game. So anytime you have an expo, you always have to have a tech, but I think, ⁓ Bravo for bringing. Erika: Mm no. mpt3k: The platform. The reason there was a line was because no one not a lot of people get to play Multimorphic with people. It's like you said. So Bravo once again for bringing it. To just let people play for free. Erika: Yeah. Yeah, no, I mean I'm I'm so glad I get that opportunity. I definitely know that I would I would probably highly recommend like if you are bringing a game to the show and you don't plan to supervise it for most of the time or like 'cause I was also at Pinball University. So that was like where I was like back and forth. And then I'm also trying to like enjoy the show a little bit. And like I maybe played, I don't know, like six games of pinball the entire weekend. So like I was doing everything I could to just keep making sure and I kept checking on it. Like it was, I was like, this is my baby. I kept like going back. And I have to give a shout out to Rad Junk. Rad Junk showed up to the show and I'm a big fan of Sam and like what she does with her channel. And like it was so cool to have ⁓ her and her husband play my game. also have to give a big shout out to Nick amusement ⁓ only. Yeah. Nick because ⁓ mpt3k: Nick Baldridge at yeah, he's the senior tech at Multimorphic. Erika: He just he saved me. of the issues that happened, it was mainly just ball stucks, right? Then once I fixed the ball stuck situation, the start launch button wasn't working on on Weird Al. So the great thing was I brought heist. I had a second module. So I actually brought two modules because I was like gonna switch them out through the weekend for people to get to play both. So I switched out, I took out Weird Al. Put in heist took me two minutes, which is amazing. It's like it didn't like it wasn't like a crazy thing. I put heist in, start button worked. I was like, cool, I'm gonna let that be because I gotta go back and record some other stuff. So I I do that quick fix and then heist plays like the rest of Saturday. And then like Sunday morning, and a bunch of balls getting stuck like in the back right orbit. mpt3k: Hahaha Erika: So someone was playing and they're like, there's no balls coming out. And then like I looked at it and there's just like a stack of balls too, like in the back orbit. I'm like, ⁓ they're all getting lost back here for some reason. So I was like, I'm just gonna take this module out, put Weird Al in, and hope that the problem with Weird Al, like, fixed itself. And lo and behold, it did. It fixed itself and I didn't have to do anything. ⁓ mpt3k: ⁓ Yep. The game and an expo gets more probably more play than like the factory puts on it. You have random players lined up nonstop. Erika: Yeah, I have I have videos. I kept taking pictures and videos. There was always like at least six people in line, like waiting to play it. Like it felt for me, it was like a cool thing. I was like, man, my machine we've played all weekend. Like people are enjoying it. Like that that felt really good for me to know that people were getting this opportunity to play this game. And ⁓ the last thing What happened was the left flipper. Had like a bushing break. And I was like, I don't have a replacement for this. But the thing is, some of Multimorphics parts are actually like 3D printed and sh can be can be 3D printed. Yeah. And so shout out also to Pinball Traders because they had a 3D printer. And what's so crazy is that Nick watched. mpt3k: can be, or can be pretty pretty, yeah. Erika: Someone's walkthrough. Someone, whoever did that walkthrough, I wanna thank you so much. Somebody posted a walkthrough of Golden State Pinball Festival and Nick watched it. And then Nick was like, Hey, I saw in a walkthrough there's a 3D printer there. Can you ask them? And I've I have like a little bit of a relationship with pinball traders. They are so lovely and they've helped me get into pinball shows in the past. mpt3k: Hey, there's a 3D printer there. Erika: I was so grateful. I was like, Hey, if I send you this file, could you print this for me? And they're like, Yeah, no problem. Just give me thirty minutes. mpt3k: It it literally takes like five minutes to print that piece, too. It's great Erika: Yeah. So he like set it up and then he he fixed it. And I knew there were only like four hours left in the show. Like this was where I like the crazy the crazy woman in me was like, I was like, there's four hours left in the show. I technically is it worth it? And I I was in the middle of I feel that Imoto I'm so sorry. I was in I like halfway in the middle of filming something for her and I was like troubleshooting this at the same time. So I mostly got to capture footage from mpt3k: ⁓ Part of you. Is it worth it? Erika: the event we were filming from Pinball University. But I did, I did leave to like go save this machine for those last four hours so that people, I really wanted people to enjoy it. And I didn't want people to be like, the multimorphic was broken the whole time. So I couldn't play it. Like that was something I really wanted to achieve. ⁓ Yeah. and the fact that it was so small too. It was like amazing. I was so grateful for Nick. mpt3k: There you go. I think I would have done the same thing. I would have done the same. Erika: I also want to thank Toyz Unlimited. They helped watch my game like the whole show. Cause like my multimorphic was set up like in front of their booth. And so they were watching people play, and then they'd be like, had a ball stuck, we helped you out, or we did this, and they were just so lovely. I've actually bought a pinball machine from them before. I bought a Hot Wheels ⁓ from them. mpt3k: ⁓ nice, yeah. Erika: And I have since sold that Hot Wheels to then ⁓ that money to buy this Weird Al that's that was another good one. So I was so I'm so grateful for the community. Like everyone came together for me to like run this game. And like even Golden State, they were ⁓ talking about like, hey, how we help you with your game? And like we're checking on it. We don't wanna we wanna make sure the right people are working on this. So ⁓ it was just like really good at the end where I felt like, ⁓ my God. It was like it felt like that moment in like Star Trek when the guy's like, ⁓ I can do that. I can do that. I could do that. So I had that moment when I like got this thing 3D printed and I put it in. And Christian from they haven't opened yet. Indie Darling. Christian from Indie Darling. ⁓ he came out to help a little bit and like he helped me like decipher what Nick told me about like how to fix the thing. Yeah. mpt3k: Indie darling. He has a P3. He has a P3 also. Erika: everyone came together. The game worked for the last four hours of the show. ⁓ I got that like within ⁓ 30 minutes, 45 minutes, that whole fiasco of my left flipper like breaking, and then people being like, ⁓ left flipper left flipper doesn't work. And I'm like, I was like, what do I do? 3D printed. He 3D printed it. I don't put it in. And I like, remember stressing. My partner's like, just slow down. Like fi you'll fix it. I was like, I was like, I need it to be up and running for the show. mpt3k: So that was Golden State. Talk a little bit about Fanime. That was my first Fanime, so I don't know why I'm asking you to talk about it. Erika: Oh man, Fanime Your first Fanime Well no, no. Now we I wanna hear your first impressions though. Before I talk about my Fanime 'cause I've been dude, all right, I've been talking this whole time. Let's be honest. All right. We gotta switch to you now, because this isn't the Erika show. This is the mpt3k: Really? Well, I'll tell you this though. I'll tell you this. It was my first time. I don't think I would have ever gone without ⁓ you asking and rewind hiring me to tech the event. But I had a blast. I was there maybe an hour and I was like, this is probably the one of the coolest expos I've ever been to. I absolutely now, you know, Pinball aside, I was incredibly impressed at the the people who were there. They were absolutely 100 % into their costumes. Their cosplay was really important to them. Well, what I thought was cool was that there was an etiquette there of like. You go up to someone, say, I really love your costume. It looks great. They say, thank you, whatever. And then if you want to take a picture, you say, do you mind if I take a picture with you? And they'll say yes. And there's this whole kind of it's there's there's there's no creep. I mean, every place has a creep, right? They're creepy people everywhere. But the majority of the people that I met there were super cool, super nice. And I, I felt underdressed after a while, like. Erika got me to wear a stupid Pokemon outfit. OK, but I was even my own brain went, wait, what am I doing? It was on Sunday and Erika came and had the Pikachu blow up outfit, which was amazing. And then I think Adam was like, hey, Manu, you just just put the jacket on. And I'm like, all right, just put the hat on. Just put the gloves on. And I was like. Erika: It's not stupid you dressed like Ash Ketchum, okay, he's the most important one. Yeah. It's just a vest and a hat. It's easy. mpt3k: I finally feel better, like I felt better when I when I was working. I don't know, Erika, it was amazing. just I loved it. It was terrific. It was terrific. Pinball aside. Erika: Yeah. Yeah. It was so fun because I remember when I wanted to get some clips of playing Pokemon pinball as the Pikachu and with you. We did split flipper. And I r I remember there was this one guy that I could hear and someone's like, ⁓ are you are you in line? He's like, Nah, dog. I'm actually just here to watch Pikachu play this pinball machine. For real. That made me smile so I was in the costume and I was just like, ⁓ my god, this is so cool. He's like, and his voice was so deep too. mpt3k: We did. I think we got it. For real? ⁓ wow, that actually happened? Erika: Nah, dog. I'm just here to watch the Pikachu play the Pokemon pinball ⁓ mpt3k: It was. So so that you guys know like the rewind brought Pinball, I think we mentioned it last last week, but the last last show. But we want to bring about two Pokemon pros and a Dungeons and Dragons pro. Erika: Yeah. Yeah. So ⁓ Rewind Pinball. they are a dealer for Stern and Barrels of Fun. I was so grateful for Adam to agree to doing this for me. ⁓ it was ⁓ Sort of like a selfish thing too, because I was like, how cool will it be to bring an anime game to Fanime? Like Pokemon Pinball is the first and the the most like correct game to bring. Like it was and ⁓ I did look at the stats because we did run, ⁓ so some fun stuff about Fanime is that we did run these like high score tournaments. So Saturday and Sunday of the show from nine AM till eight PM. mpt3k: Yeah, 100%. Okay. Okay. Erika: you had the opportunity to get on the leaderboards for both games. Now, I do understand, so if you're a bigger pinball fan, you understand that Dungeons and Dragons, having a top score tournament and like logging in with your levels insider connected, it's not that's typically for tournaments, for what I understand, you you don't log in to to Dungeons and Dragons. So mpt3k: Insider Connected. Yeah, you would, you, we, if you want to be like, if you want to be fair, you would turn off, ⁓ leveling up. That's okay. Yeah. Erika: Yeah. If you want to be fair. So I felt bad about that. I I didn't think about it when we were bringing it because I was like, ⁓ this is like a great game for this community as well. Cause like cosplayers, Dungeons and Dragons, you know, and then I was like, ⁓ so I mean you could have logged in on your like third ball or like afterwards, so that right, you're playing without any stats. ⁓ mpt3k: Yeah, Dungeons and Dragons, just so people know, will take your current characters ⁓ and your level progress will affect your score. Erika: Yeah. So maybe some people that kept coming back and like their scores weren't getting higher and they were like, what the heck, man? I got just two hours ago, I could get this. I was like, so ⁓ I did realize that later. But people still had like such a good time. My favorite, Manu, my favorite thing about doing this was seeing people be so excited for their scores. People were like, ⁓ I'm on the board. I'm on the board. So like we put up these TVs. Yeah, thanks to Insider Connected. These people were like, mpt3k: Yes. Well, thanks. Yeah, thanks to insider connected at Stern. Erika: Hooked there's this like huge new shift for some of these people. Like, wow, I think I'm a pinball person now. Like, I really want to do this. And I tell them about pinball map. If you don't know about pinball map already, this you need in your life. If you are going to be in pinball at all, pinballmap.com is or the app. The app is even better. Like, just use the app. And then wherever you are, you can find out where there's pinball. Like you can do all sorts of things with pinball map. I highly I it is the number one app I think every pinballer should have, like hands down. ⁓ and yeah, I just felt it felt so cool to bring pinball to this community. Cause they a lot of people talk about how they've never pinball before. And how they haven't played, they didn't know. And some people heard about there was like a mix. There were some people like, ⁓ this is Pokemon Pinball. I saw the video for that. I didn't know that this could like be real like this. You know, like people thought it was just limited to the seven hundred and fifty and they thought they'd never see one. So yeah, I just it made me so happy, dude. Like honestly, I was like being Pikachu, I was walking around, but I was I was so tired though, because I was coming off of Golden State and I had like two days and then I was prepping for a job that I did like a day after Fanime So I like burnt me out. I was working too many hours. But yeah. mpt3k: feel like I feel like it did a great it was a great thing to have pinball there because especially what it was competing against in the arcade area there was the all the dance games from every era dance dance revolution step step para para ⁓ the washing machine ⁓ dance fusion yeah every single rhythm and cool game ever and to see the rewinds booth ⁓ Erika: Dance games. Washing machine ones like Some of these people go hard. mpt3k: full and busy, non-stop was pretty dang cool. I pinball, right? I think, I think Pokemon had 10 seconds of downtime. To see people just jamming on their stuff was terrific. Erika: Barely. It was It was played all weekend. There was there was very few times where I saw it with nobody on it. Like it was I wanna say like I never saw it with any nobody on it. The only time I saw nobody on something was because when unfortunately Dungeons and Dragons went down from a single cord mpt3k: Yeah, that was a shipping thing. I was ready to dig deep and go to town and I looked at the play field and I saw that the trough little Molex connector just slipped off and I plugged it back in and back up and running. I'll talk about that in the operator's area real quick. But yeah. Erika: Backup. For sure. Yeah, but otherwise, like I think Fanime was really successful. ⁓ Adam did, we were selling the games for a show price. Adam did end up selling a game. So that was also really cool. I also had like a newsletter sign up for people. ⁓ so we collected a few emails to see just like, hey, if you want to learn about pinball releases or if you're interested in buying a game. It it just felt so good. Honestly, it felt like I was doing s something to really bring joy to people. And that that made me yeah, I don't know. That felt that felt really good. Hope that it made you feel good too, with bringing pinball to the people. mpt3k: Yes, I am Scrooge McDuck, but it made me very happy. was really happy to be there. And I bought a lot of cool swag, so that was good. Erika: ⁓ yeah, I was gonna say I bought I bought some posters. mpt3k: We both had a great time. I'll do it again. Yeah, yeah, Fanime was cool. You guys should go too. Erika: ⁓ sick. Yeah. Fanway was sick. Yeah, definitely. If you're in San Jose and you want to enjoy people and cosplay and I mean the game area to give perspective though for like the gaming area, the the gaming hall is what it's called. It was is a whole hall. It had so many other things going on in it as well. Like you could watch from our booth, people were like playing Tekken on this big screen, or people were playing Mahjong. People were mpt3k: It was a whole haul, yeah. Tekken tournaments, Ajaan tournaments, playing Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokemon, Magic. Erika: Yeah, there was all sorts of Yu-Gi-Oh!, Magic the Gathering. People were and so we were actually thinking like how fun it would be to maybe even stream a pinball tournament or maybe make it a bigger I don't know. We'll we're we're gonna look into what what next year looks like for Fanime for us, ⁓ the games all got almost a thousand plays, both Pokemon. mpt3k: Wow. Erika: We're at nine hundred something plays each. And Dungeons and Dragons probably be because it was down for like that amount of time. ⁓ with I was Manu was not ⁓ on site yet. And so I was like, I don't know how to fix this problem. now that I know, I'm like, ⁓ that would have ⁓ that would have taken me two seconds. Like ⁓ but I wouldn't have known where to look. So Manu fixed it and then the game was up and running. But also Dungeons and Dragons I feel plays a bit longer, so mpt3k: What was the number on Dungeons and Dragons though? you had digressed. Do you remember? 700? Okay, yeah, look at that. Erika: Dungeons and Dragons was almost seven hundred plays. Yeah. Pokemon didn't go down. ⁓ just stuck balls. I don't know. Did you fix anything on Pokemon? mpt3k: No, I think so. Erika: The one thing I do want to add on about Fanime though ⁓ that people some people didn't know how to play pinball. ⁓ I actually had to create like I created this like visual to tell people like how to play pinball. And through the weekend I like kept updating it and changing it and I got to like a solid point towards at the end. But it was just kind of interesting to me that people were just like pressing that top action button and like waiting for the flippers to flip. ⁓ ⁓ People were putting in multiple players on games and ⁓ it was yeah. Manu, when you started Saturday, you turned it so only two players per game, which was mpt3k: I turned that off quick though. I made it so that you can only play two players. Do you still have that ⁓ document? Be nice to offer to people, I guess. Erika: Yeah. yeah, I made this thing on like how to play pinball. ⁓ And some people were like, ⁓ my god, that was so helpful. I didn't even know. And I had one guy come up to me and like, You make me feel old with having to tell people how to play pinball. ⁓ And I was like, I don't know, dude. Cause the most the most painful one that I watched, there was someone that mpt3k: You will make me feel so good. Yeah, right? I guess. Erika: grabbed the plunger and shoved it back in. mpt3k: ⁓ huh. ⁓ didn't notice that there was a spring. Erika: And they did it multiple times until I was like, please. Please. No, don't you know the ball? Like, don't you feel the pressure? Like, just let it go. And so this person was just like grabbing it and just shoving it back in. I was just mpt3k: Please stop shoving the butcher in the cake! you World's greatest lover. Erika: Yeah, that one was that one was hard to watch. But but otherwise, that was that was ⁓ Golden State and Fanime. A lot happened. A lot happened. So it was a lot of fun. Thank you so much for coming with me, Manu And ⁓ yeah, man, like you have stuff about pinball to talk about too, right? We're talking about some crazy operator stuff. You were telling me some stories earlier. mpt3k: Brown chicken brown cow. It's just that I just wanted to bring this up. I thought it'd be interesting for people to hear there that there are. I've made an observation that there are two types of. Buyers. For pinball as as there are maybe for arcades and stuff like that. ⁓ It comes down to operators versus home buyers. And what your intent is for your game. What do you crack it open as a coke? Erika: ⁓ this is gonna be exciting. Crack open a cold one for this. The Diet Coke. Is it Diet Coke? It does. I need it sometimes, you know. This is for Jamie. I picked up a Diet Coke. ⁓ actually I I normally have Diet Coke or Coke Zero. I don't I don't judge. mpt3k: Does have caffeine? Yes! That's what I'm talking about. Operators and home buyers. And the reason I even this is the reason this came up today is because. ⁓ I, ⁓ I help kind of fix games and stuff at Free Gold Watch currently in the morning. We ⁓ Beetlejuice from Indie Darling. Christian brought his Beetlejuice into. to route it for a little bit. And the reason I'm kind of naming names because I love what they did with Beetlejuice, feel like sometimes I feel like we were trying to be a little too ambitious with pinball design. Now, this doesn't come down to a Beetlejuice uh issue. It comes down to operator and a home buyer issue. Because I took a step back, Erika, and I said, well, why am I being critical? Because I'm about to be critical. But why am I being critical about this particular uh title? And it's because I'm seeing it from an operator's point of view. Okay. So I felt it was important to make this distinction and some people know this already. And so it's nothing new, but there are two types of buyers, right? There's a buyer to own and a buyer to operate and make money. And they are very separate. What, what do you consider yourself, Erika? You probably a buyer to own, buyer to own. Erika: Fire to own 'cause I I don't I've thought about operating pinball machines and ⁓ I plan to learn how to tech a bit more in the upcoming weeks actually. I've been given an opportunity to. But ⁓ at the moment, yeah, I don't plan on operating any games. mpt3k: Right. So, so I'm a little bit of both. I tend to drift more into the operator right now because I'm being very technical about pinball and I'm fixing pinball and I'm I'm geeking out on homebrew and stuff like that. Right. So homebrew is more on the technical operator side because they're literally building a pinball machine. So they want to they want the hopefully they want to build their game so that they last so they. Yeah. Erika: Soon to be operator then, 'cause I am planning I have my kit there. mpt3k: Yeah, so you're drifting into that territory too. So I wanted to make a distinction of what owners like and what operators like. So what owners are looking for owner being a collector owner of being someone who's going to buy the game for the house, which Stern is heavily promoting. I know if you've noticed in their marketing or their games, they're heavily promoting buy one for the home, play one on location. Well, the buy one for the home is the first is the leader line for them. I want for the home and play one on location. Erika: Yeah. mpt3k: Mostly probably because the market has shifted since the 90s to, I can own one of these. I'm going to buy it even though they're 10, 11 and $12,000. Erika: I think the stats someone had said was like seventy percent of like Stern's games go into the home now. That feels like crazy numbers. Like thirty percent are going to arcades, which means like how many I gotta do some math, find out how many arcades there are. Let's go let's go to pinball map, see what they can tell us. mpt3k: Isn't that crazy? There you go nice nice callback So so for owners I have a list of what owners like so owners tend to like strong uses of a license if it is a license Just usually it is a license game strong use of a license ie Beetlejuice Excellent music and sound and presentation right because they want it to look pretty and nice in their house They want to be able to impress their guests or whoever Erika: Yeah. Yeah. This game is great. I absolutely have a blast playing it. mpt3k: ⁓ well, so far, Beetlejuice is checking each one of these boxes very strongly. ⁓ Deep rule set with lots to do. Check. OK, and this is anything. This is like Beetlejuice, Harry Potter, ⁓ Transformers, Pokemon. Maybe not so much Pokemon, but a deep rule set. Maybe not. It'll get there. Yeah, yeah. ⁓ Attractive lighting package. And then finally, it's like good. Erika: getting there. It'll it'll get there. It'll get there. I believe. mpt3k: good player appeal and a quote, wow factor. It's all about art. Erika: Franchie's art. It's so pretty. Yeah, art, Franchi's art on it is so pretty. Just mpt3k: Franchi Yeah. Yeah. Franchi is art on Beetlejuice so to take Beetlejuice as an example, everything checked on there. A home person would absolutely love this game. It's a home run the same way a Harry Potter. I'm going to put both of those. I'm going to put because I. I ⁓ say I tech both. Yeah. So Harry Potter, once again, same thing. Great of license, excellent music, sound, deep ruleset, attractive lighting package and a and a wow factor. Erika: You tech both. mpt3k: So the home user is set. The operator, on the other hand, looks at a different set of checkboxes, one being serviceability. Okay. How difficult is it for me to fix a problem when I come in in the morning and someone last night found an issue? There's software stability. Anytime the software has a problem, your customer Your paying customer has an issue, whether it be an issue with the game or whether issue with the game rules or something didn't seem fair or whatever. That's affecting your bottom line. Location configuration. How difficult is it to get this machine around in your wherever you're putting it? What configuration does it need to be in? And then there's uptime versus revenue. Am I making enough money to justify the amount of time I am servicing this thing is, is it down mostly or is it, is it running and I don't have to think about it. And this is something for operators who operate games away from their like location, right? They're there. They have games at a local bar or something like that. And they leave. And then something happens and the local bar turns the game off and then doesn't tell them. You know, and then they're not making money now. So. Erika: Unless if you're me and I'm just putting in random quarters. Like, ⁓ game's down. Here you go, buddy. I got you. mpt3k: In my ex. Yeah, let's hey, maybe. Maybe we well, we got the people who go, maybe if I put more quarters in it'll work. Don't do that. Don't do that, guys. If the first few quarters don't work, stop putting money. It's going to make you more. Erika: Exactly. Yeah, stop putting money in. Don't put the wrong quarters in too. If they need tokens, put their tokens in. Don't put the wrong stuff in. Don't screw people over. Yeah. mpt3k: Yeah. Don't, don't find your own thing. So, ⁓ Beetlejuice is probably an example of a game that's beautiful, wonderful, everything as far as serviceability. It's, it's a difficult call for me specifically because I am in every single game I have had to, we've had Beetlejuice and this is only indicative of the Beetlejuice that Christian gave us that it's the only one right now, because I've seen seven of them run at Golden State and they were all fine. But it's not just an issue of if something's going to break because everything is going to break on a pinball machine. I literally asked Mark Seiden about remember when we were at the Avatar thing and he goes, there any questions? And I said, yeah, what's going to break first? And he said, he said, he said, well, everything is going to break. Like he wasn't even sugar coating. He's like dealing with a steel ball running around ⁓ your game, your game every play. How easy is it to get to the fixes, though? ⁓ thing that I one issue that we had on Beetlejuice it was very difficult for us to to navigate the underneath of the playfield. Extremely difficult. There are wires everywhere. There's like rails that don't you can't say there's there's there's there's some issues. Erika: Some point. mpt3k: It's not to say that it's a bad thing, but it's a thing that will stand in the way of an operator making money. As opposed to say Harry Potter, where if you look at, if I look at, and once again, I'm saying this is my personal opinion. I'm not trying to cast aspersions on any manufacturer. I think it's a brilliant game, both Beetlejuice and Harry Potter. But when I lift the play field on Harry Potter, it clearly looks like ⁓ a former operator has devised it so that everything is serviceable. and easy to get to. There's a big difference. And this is this is not an opinionated thing. This is a this is not this is not a subjective idea. This is objective. If you live both, I will even give Turner a huge, huge ⁓ thumbs up because, you know, Turner at Chris Turner and the Turner pinball. I yep, you can yeti. ⁓ Erika: Yeah. Yeah. Yukon Yeti. Merlin's Arcade. And Ninja Eclipse. mpt3k: Yep. And Ninja Eclipse. I specifically asked Chris, can I look in under the play field? He said, yes, he lifted the play field and it was the cleanest, most accessible thing I've ever seen in my life. And I was like, this is going to be a pleasure to work on. If everything breaks one day, I can get to everything. Okay. And it means a lot to an operator. So. Beetlejuice is amazing. We've had basic pinball issues with it. But a couple of the things I found extremely difficult to get to, like the drop target underneath Beetlejuice himself was a nightmare. And the fact that they use so many components that I don't think they should, but it's not up to me. I'm not the engineer. They're all easily fixable, but they're all very easily breakable. So. Erika: Yeah. mpt3k: I'm just maybe I'm Erika Maybe I'm grumpy old man right now, but only have but so much time to work on a game in the mornings. ⁓ games never us any issues and they're ⁓ like Addams family. That game is what 40 years old? That game is ridiculously old and it never gives us any issues. I think sometimes manufacturers will getting a little. ⁓ Ambitious their designs. Erika: Yeah. Means mpt3k: But on the flip side, you have to wow. You have to wow people. Erika: Wow, people have to do something different. And I mean, ⁓ yeah, I I have only lifted up a a handful of play fields myself, right? So, like lifting up Lord of the Rings, that's something I've done. I've lifted up play fields for these guys. I got some EMs behind me, right? Some of these and those are those are tough too. It's like, woo! But they had them they're they're just like really I mean, all together. They had to make sense. They were going down the line. And I mean mpt3k: You have to do something different. Yeah, those are tough. Erika: For the spooky crew, from my understanding, ⁓ they've been like constantly improving and and working on their designs. Cause like from my understanding though, it's like each spooky game, when you lift up a play field, you could they've been like changing out parts. You kind of have to like ⁓ it's an it's like a new thing to learn almost. ⁓ but I I don't I don't don't specifically own a spooky game. ⁓ I haven't. I almost did. I almost owned Halloween at one point. I was like very close to trading. mpt3k: They are. They are. Erika: For a Halloween, but yeah, I I mean that does sound frustrating. I do understand, man. Like you're just trying to, you're trying to operate your business, you're trying to make money. You're not in your home where you'd be like, that can be down. I can work on that this weekend when the kids are doing something, you know. Like you're like, hey, you're keeping this up and running. ⁓ I'd be interested to hear too, where ⁓ because I just ⁓ listened to Electric Bat and Beetlejuice is their top earning game. I wonder if they have any tips or tricks on what they mpt3k: It it's doing it's. It's all it's it's doing fine. At the shop, it's not in the best location ever, mostly because we didn't put it in the best location ever because we need to test the waters. Right, we need to feel it out and see is this is this going to be for the most part that specific game? And once again, I got to say, if anybody from Spooky is listening, your game is amazing. It's amazing. But as an operator, I would like say, hey. Erika: They do to keep the maintenance. mpt3k: Maybe next time, put a Molex on this coil so I don't have to clip your zip ties, de-solder a thing so I could take a component off and put it on my workbench. Maybe give me a Molex in between those connectors, right? For the price, I feel like you'd be doing the operators a big favor and the people on Pinside wouldn't be so crazy. Erika: Pinside. mpt3k: when they complain, because the complainers love to complain. Some quality of life issues on the on the under the play field will do operators a lot of good. If you're a homeowner, you're probably playing your game two, three hours a week. So you probably will belay these errors and physical issues for a really long time. But for a place like an expo or a place like Free Gold Watch in San Francisco, where they get hammered, we're going to see those. And I'm going to feel it as an operator if I have to de-solder a thing to move it to the workbench, that's going to affect the bottom line of the entire shop. Plus, if a game is down, it's less about not earning the money. It's more about the people who come in and see a game with an out of order sign and they're sad because they can't get to play the game. Right. We had NBA fast break out for one day. And I know people felt that and it's fast break. I know people are like, aw, where's fast break? Yeah. So. Erika: Yeah. When's it? When's it gonna be back up? Yeah, that's a that's a tough thing. Pinball maintenance, man, it's ⁓ it's tough. But that's ⁓ I've never thought of it much from that perspective. And I'm really I'm really glad we get to talk about it here. You get to bring it up and talk about what it is like teching on games and what you would prefer. I'd be interested to know in the comments too if you guys wanna I'd I'd be say I'd be happy to make some a little bit of open discussion about like what games you feel like could be more operator friendly or I don't know, I think it's it's it's important like if you're gonna fix a game and if you're gonna make things like I remember Eric when we went to ⁓ and Eric Meinur I can't say his last name. Yeah, and so I remember him talking about how he was like an operator, right? And that he's like, I can't have something have more than like three or four screws. don't want things to mpt3k: Eric Meinur who's a lead designer of uh Harry Potter. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Erika: to be super crazy to take out. Like I want it to be boop, boop, boop. And like, here's this thing that comes out and here's this thing that comes out. So I do, yeah. mpt3k: Yep. And, and, and he, he wasn't kidding though either. It wasn't just all talk. Cause the first time I lifted the play field and I saw a, an end of stroke switch on a molex. I email, I texted him at that moment and went, dude, thank you. Thank you so much. And here's the thing. Spooky will get there. They will get there to the point where their design on top and their design on bottom is going to be. Spot-on But if you don't mention it they don't hear it and It sometimes it gets it's slower to uptake if you don't mention it ⁓ So Erika: Yeah. Definitely. The game's great. I absolutely love it. And ⁓ I hope that I hope that these ⁓ the fixing challenges that they whatever you fixed, you now know how to do it too. And you can just like kinda just go in there and transform. Just like our next topic, no mpt3k: game is really fun. and transform transformers. OK, I think we have. We have a second to talk about transformers. We're running down the line, but. All right, one out of 10 transformers, you didn't get to play it, though. You didn't even get to go to Stern like me, me neither. Erika: Yeah. Yeah, we're getting close here. I I didn't get to go to Stern. We didn't go to Stern. I the thing is with going to Stern for these games, so the the amount of headtime I have for them, like I do understand, like you know, that they they have their schedule and like they can only give us so much time ahead. And me doing these trips, ⁓ I spend anywhere from four to six hundred dollars to make these trips out. mpt3k: Yeah, it's a little expensive. Erika: a bit expensive, you know. I'm not like a I'm now freelancing again. So my life is my finances are very different. ⁓ I've not at the stable job I was when I started my channel. I was at my job for like three years and laid and then ⁓ found another and then quit that and now I'm doing freelance full time because ⁓ I ⁓ like that. ⁓ So I've very I've been getting a lot of I've been getting a lot of work which has been nice. but yeah, it's tough to make it out to these events. Like I have the time. It's just like the funds. And this time I didn't have the time because it was like right before Fanime. And I was like exhausted from Golden State. And then I'm like, ⁓ I know it was Transformers. Like I remember hearing rumblings about it. And I was like, you know, as much as I'd love to do it, I'm not a as as if you're a fan of my channel, if you've been following me, I'm not a very timely. mpt3k: Sure. Erika: releaser of my videos. And so I was like, I'll play Transformers when I play Transformers. ⁓ I'm I also feel I'm not a Transformers fan. Pokemon, I was like, ⁓ my God, I gotta be there. But like Transformers, I don't have this feeling. The game though looks spectacular and I want to play it 10 out of 10 for sure want to play my emotions towards it. I'm super happy for Elizabeth. I'm super happy for the team and like mpt3k: Yeah. Erika: ⁓ with Elliot, you know, like that's so cool. Actually, fun fact, I have Elliot's autograph in one of my old phone cases. ⁓ if you ask me about my phone cases, I now get them signed by designers and things. So ⁓ I got yeah, yeah. Little fun little fun fact about me is ⁓ I'm an I'm a pinball nerd. mpt3k: That... All right. I love it. love it. I'm going to do this just for the folks who may not be keeping score. Erika Transformers more than me see eyes. Stern's newest game. uh It was the game designers by Elliot Eisman which Erika is best friends with uh software by Elizabeth Gieske. It's Gieske, right? Gieske, Elizabeth Gieske and Mike Kesavat ⁓ It's it's Elizabeth's first lead game. Erika: ⁓ love John Wick. ⁓ yeah. mpt3k: They did some software on JAWS. So it's exciting to see. ⁓ God, I hate saying this, but I feel like I have to say it. I hate saying it. exciting. It's exciting. It's exciting to see a woman's ⁓ work in a pinball machine, which is a shitty thing to say because there always should have been women working on pinball. ⁓ I think the perspective that Elizabeth, you know what, when I saw a music by Jerry Thompson. When I saw the stream for Transformers. This was one of the first times in a long time for me to look at a stern and say, holy smokes, that looks fun. I don't even I'm not I've never really cared about Transformers. I didn't rush home to see it when I was a kid. I was like an inspector gadget kid. I didn't run home to watch Transformers. I'll get you next time. Erika: Yeah. Of course I do it. Probably Pink Panther too, huh? mpt3k: Yeah, I think that but watching. Jack and Elliot and Elizabeth play. Transformers on that stream and the excitement that was in Elizabeth's eyes and the actual the actual like proof on the play field. It proved to me I was like this looks fun. I didn't care it was transformers at that point. It looks fun. Erika: No, I'm I'm excited to play it. ⁓ I haven't like I like we both didn't get to go. I also know they had it at the Northwest Pinball Show, but I guess shipping didn't happen in time, so they only had the one limited edition Transformers there at the show to play. So I do I my my heart feels heavy for the opportunity to play all the games and not get them out in time ⁓ for the show. But ⁓ I'm glad that there was still a game at the show and apparently Elizabeth was on it and she was talking to people all mpt3k: ⁓ wow. Erika: all weekend for it. ⁓ yeah, I I'm excited for this game. I mean, I love new pinball day. Like it's a it's a fun time. I know Stern's gotta gotta like be making those games. They gotta run the line. They got their business. And yeah, it's a exciting time for pinball. This year I think there's a lot coming ⁓ is going to be really exciting to see. And I I I don't want to talk about more pinball stuff coming out, but yeah, we'll maybe see some really cool things. Transformers is one. I can't wait to play mpt3k: Cool. Erika: On location. So mpt3k: You don't know what that sound is though Transformers or back in you guy all the old people are going man. ⁓ you nailed it I'm choking over here Whatever Erika: Yeah, you you just sound like Yeah. I always You got it, dude. It's just like ⁓ my gosh. Manu, thanks for chatting with me. ⁓ and thank you guys for listening in. If you guys are enjoying the podcast, thank you for tuning in. And yeah, feel free to let us know too if there's ⁓ things that you're interested in hearing us talk about. ⁓ we do have some planned interviews in our near future. And ⁓ feel like some more fun pinball things we'll be bringing to you guys. So yeah, stay tuned and ⁓ Is it is it me or you this time that does the ⁓ outro? mpt3k: uh I'll do it. I think it is me. Okay, I'm so professional. Thanks for listening to the Pinball Minority Report. Check out our socials. Search YouTube and Instagram for Erika’s with a K. Erika’s Pinball Journey, the Mystery Pinball Theater 3000. Thanks and see you next time.