Word on the street is they’re redoing the artwork anyway since no one’s buying them right now as it is. Or more specifically, not more than 100 have bought them. So, I wouldn’t feel too bad about calling out that slap in the face bit.
Just what I’ve heard. Standard competitor disclaimer.
That just warms the cockles of my heart to hear. Big Juicy Melons wasn’t a home run huh? Can’t imagine why! Thanks Keefer!
I would love a genericky space theme that had contemporary and future space vehicles and concepts. Like Space Shuttle, Skylab, or Flight 2000.
Hey @kayluh, what’s an international subscription to Skill Shot run? (mail to Japan).
I’m so jealous of your scene. We have… 3 locations in Tokyo with more than 1 machine. 
That’s pretty odd, considering Tokyo has a TON of arcades everywhere and is one of the last places in the world to have a lot of arcades. But I guess the domestic arcade machine market fulfills all the demand it needs. From what I’ve seen, there’s very little imported machines in arcades in Tokyo.
[quote=“KCB, post:37, topic:595, full:true”]For the operators that don’t really care about pinball…well for starters, we don’t have any of those anymore as they long since stopped operating pins in favor of pretty much anything else.
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I’ve sent you a list (which I think is actually pretty long) of places with multiple machines that are in pretty beat-up condition. The operators of these premises certainly have been holding onto their pinball machines.
My best guess is that, unlike redemption machines or vending machines, they don’t have to restock them and that they originally thought pinball machines would be a source of money that needed no frequent trips to maintain. I’m sure all of these Simpsons Pinball Parties and Family Guys have been around since Stern released them and that the operators have regretted buying them since. But they still want to turn a profit out of them and thus keep them out in public. That being said, redemption machines are EVERYWHERE around here. Even family restaurants will have a claw machine or a Key Master machine near the entrance. Maybe some of these operators have since turned to redemption machines.
Having listened to Episode 15, I’ve noticed something: Most to all of the operators featured on this podcast have their machines mainly in bars. Is Seattle’s pinball scene deeply connected to its bar scene?
I don’t know how L.A.'s pinball scene was like when you lived in L.A., but it’s presently not at all connected to bars around here. With a few exceptions, like 82 and Lake Alice Trading Company, the general public sees them as pretty much the same as any other arcade machine and are most commonly found wherever arcade video games would be found. (I’d like to mention that, because of their association with arcade gaming, both of my parents considered pinball as strictly children’s entertainment. My mom was around when I was watching the streamed coverage of PAPA this year. She looked over my shoulder and told me, “I thought this was for children, but all I see are adults playing.”)
Hey @DHS!
I talked to Gordon about a Japan sub and he’s down to do it. PM me your address so we can figure out the cost. Our zine content gets posted on skill-shot.com as well.
Thanks for the interest!
If the intention is that all the content is up on skill-shot.com, it’s mostly impossible to find, or at least to figure out which 'zine it’s from. The covers are up in the ‘zine’ section, and the news&gossip article gets posted to the blog, but the rest of it is either hidden somewhere or unmarked.
I’ve PMed you.
I hear you on that. We publish everything from the zine on the site eventually, but unless you have a copy of it, or have seen it, that content won’t stand out to you. Because we also publish lots of other content about local tournaments, events, and what have you. The “zine” section just displays all our covers.
In no way would I discourage you to get a subscription, but worse case scenario, the articles make it to the site.
And with that, by the way, Episode 17 came out last week.
Hey guys,
With a lot of credit going to this forum, our latest episode has an in depth look at how to play Stern’s newest release, Game of Thrones. We recorded with our friend Heather who is a huge fan of the books and show, so we tried to keep the spoilers sequestered to a certain time frame. There’s also three new games that Graham came up with to play on this episode specifically.
Check it out:
Hello again!
For our latest episode, Graham and I did another cross cast. This time with our friend Jesse Mercury from the year 3000. Jesse does two incredible SciFi podcasts (SciFi with Jesse Mercury, and SciFi on Trial), and is also really into pinball. So the merging of our two worlds was a given.
We ended up talking for over 2 hours, so to spare your attention span, we split the shows up. The first half is on Jesse’s podcast and can be found here:
And the second half will be coming out on our channel this Wednesday. There’s a fair amount of both pinball and SciFi talk on both hours. On Jesse’s we talk mostly Star Wars, and on ours, we talk a lot of Star Trek and Terminator.
Hope you like them!
Star Trek! OK, I stayed with you for all the GOT talk last week (snore!), but I’m sure the Trek will more than make up for it!
Why, what’s wrong with Game of Thrones?
I haven’t caught up yet–I’m at Episode 16, or at least, I just finished it. I have to admit, all the talk about Seattle leagues got me completely lost, not only because I’ve never actually visited Seattle (but I’ve passed through), but I have no frame of reference to multiple-location leagues. I felt like the new kid dropping in on a conversation between old acquaintances. Nevertheless, what I WAS able to pick up, regarding scoring systems and the reasoning behind them and how new locations join in, was interesting to hear.
I know I’m in the minority of listeners in that I don’t live in Seattle nor am I familiar with its geography though, so I don’t know how necessary it is to give some context and history of stuff like Monday Night Pinball and the teams that participate in it. However, it’s something I would appreciate.
Just not into medieval kinda stuff. If it’s got spaceships or whatever, I’ll give anything a shot.
Love hearing about Seattle pinball, for the record.
I think what @MrMCarlson means is that he’s not a fan of the IP.
It’s a difficult balance to strike with appeasing our local community as well as staying relevant to those outside our bubble. Thanks for listening even though you’re not connected with Seattle Pinball directly. We try to cover a lot of different ground and make it so the show is interesting to all sorts of people, but we understand that we can’t win them all over each episode!
SciFi is coming your way tomorrow!
This seems like a good place to ask - what’s a good way to get into the pinball scene here? Should I just go to one of the Add-A-Ball tournaments? Anyone ever do any meetups for new people?
Monday Night Pinball would be a great place to start. Get on a team for the next season and you will meet a ton of people really quickly.
Addaball for sure helps. There’s usually 40 people there for the tournament on Wednesday nights. Just go out and play. Check out skill-shot.com for the calendar of events in the area and start meeting people!
Episode 19 is out in the world. Give a listen. Battle With the Kraken, Skill Shot Pincast #19.
All right. That’s absolutely fine. I’ll probably form a more completepicture in my head of what these must be like as I continue to listen.
I’ve caught up to Episode 18, and I have a coupleof things to say regarding codenames: The pattern I’ve seen is that Stern’s codenames tend to be very indirect. Either the word is passingly mentioned somewhere, or it’s very tongue-in-cheek. Hence, I don’t think Codename: Toys will actually be about a toyline or a franchise based on a toyline. If anything, it’d likely be closer to something like Aerosmith, a reference to their “Toys in the Attic” album or song.
I do have more detailed guesses on what Codename: Shark could be though. They’re all wild guesses, and I don’t think any of them have that strong a chance, but here’s what I came up with.
Watchmen
There is occasional mention of a “raw shark” with in the “Tales of the Black Freighter” story-within-a-story. Some readers theorize that these mentions are analogous to the character Rorschach due to their similar pronunciations and obstacle-based nature of both the shark within “Tales” and of Rorschach. “Tales of the Black Freighter” was omitted entirely from the Zack Snyder movie; if it is Watchmen, it is possible the codename was chosen to reinforce that it’s based on the comics, not the movie. The Watchmen comics was first published in 1986, making this year its 30th anniversary.
Something on The Discovery Channel, possibly MythBusters
The Discovery Channel has an annual Shark Week; it is possible Stern will release something based on a show on the Discovery Channel to coincide with Shark Week. MythBusteris the obvious choice, as the series is ending in 2016. However, there may still be some friction between Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman and pinball overall due to the collapse of Skit-B. Other possibilities are the survivor-type shows, Survivormanand Man vs. Wild, both of which involve dealing with and keeing away hostile wildlife, like sharks. The Discovery Channel has also set up the Sharkopedia for this year’s Shark Week.
Yu-Gi-Oh!
There is a character in Yu-Gi-Oh! ZeXaL named Shark. Well, that’s his nickname anyway. He is a supporting character in that series and one of the primary duelists. Naturally, he uses a deck full of shark-related monsters. Going earlier, in the original series, one of Yugi’s earlier opponents was a fisherman named Mako, who is not only named after a shark, but has a few shark-based monsters too.
Pokémon
As of the time I’m writing this, Pokémon OmegaRuby and AlphaSapphire are the most recent major releases of the series. It’s a remake of Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire versions. How it relates to the codename is that Sharpedo, a Pokémon themed simultaneously on a great white shark, a mola-mola, and, of course, a torpedo, is the signature Pokémon used by agents of Team Aqua, who are the villanous team in AlphaSapphire and an allied team in OmegaRuby. Due to their importance to the organization, the remakes gave Sharpedo a Mega Evolution. (Team Magma’s signature Pokémon, Camerupt, was given one too.)
Naruto
A major adversary in Naruto is Kisame Hoshigaki, an S-class fugitive from the Village Hidden in the Mist. Not only does he have a shark-like appearance, it’s in his name (“same” is the Japanese word for “shark”), and his sword, Sharkskin, can drain chakra (life force) out of anyone it touches except the user. Naruto had just ended in 2015, and there are presently a series of theatrical releases in Japan (with limited releases in the United States) serving as an epilogue.
One Piece
This is the biggest longshot of all due to the immense popularity in Japan but relative obscurity in North America, and as a result, the licensing fees I’d bet would be astronomical and not worth it to most American companies. However, the odds are not zero, so I’m putting this out there. One Piece is a pirate-themed anime and manga (comic book) that sells ridiculously well (it recently entered the Guinness Book of World Records under best-selling comic book series written by one author at 320 million copies sold), so this is something that could potentially be very lucrative, especially if Stern wants to sell to Japan. One of the races in this series is fishmen, humanoids with human-level intelligence and have features of sea creatures. Naturally, there are a few shark-related ones. Jinbe is based on a whale shark and is an ambassador of Fishman Island to the World Government. Hody Jones, the leader of a terrorist cell, is based on a great white shark. Jones has two shark fishmen working under him: Dosun (hammerhead shark) and Daruma (cookie cutter shark). In an alliance with Jones is Vander Decken IX, based on a Japanese bullhead shark. Shirley, a fortune teller who predicted the destruction of Fishman Island, is based on a shortfin mako shark. And then there’s Megalo, a non-fishman shark who’s Princess Shirahoshi’s pet.
Skill Shot Pincast Episode 20
In this episode we have Germain Mariolle talking about the inception of the Seattle Pinball SUPER LEAGUE and it’s inner workings. We also get to hear his pinball origin story and pinball globetrotting (from France to London to Tokyo to Seattle) and play a sports themed version of Last Pin Standing.
Enjoy!
This is an amazing amount of guess research!! Well done. I’m sure one of them has to be right!