well, sort of

I attended a Chris Granner seminar at Expo where he was talking about pinball audio. He played the beginning of Premier's 'Rock'. I was a bit surprised to hear one of the Reactor tunes cranking away after you hit the start button. Sony ended up with the video IP from Gottlieb but my code survived at Premier long enough to make it into a pin in 1985.

a factoid that I will share tonight.....

ddt

Exactly... it's the 'train wreck effect' combined with people seeing it as entertainment.

The problem is people can't differentiate between entertainment and actual 'information' or credibility.

People are drawn to the 'shock factor' more than they are the idea of getting smarter about something.

so the guy who creates drama, is shocking, 'does the things others dont have the courage to do...', and is intentionally and obsessively provocative.. will garner attention and ears/eyes. Then people often fall into the trap of actually thinking everything these people say has equal credibility. They mix in something believable to get people on the hook, then mix in stuff that is completely opinion (informed or not) and conveniently blurr between fact and fiction. Those on the hook usually don't care to try to differentiate... and the spell is complete.

Then they just tune in again for their next dose of gratification and entertainment.

Mix in some positions that speak to hooking the audience as 'we are the same...' or 'we think the same things...' - and you build an association between the listener and the shockjock that is easily exploited to make people not just listen, but actually start to promote the POV you fed them.

None of this is new - it just takes certain skills to exploit properly. It's a formula as old as time.

The sad thing is when people listen to these POVs and take them as if they are somehow actually informed or educated opinions.

Who are you talking about? Howard Stern?

Everyone that employs this psychology... Sports Commentators like Skip Bayless, Trump, Chris K, Fox News pundits, Propaganda Machines, etc.

I don't know what they call it in the text books, but it's a common tactic. That combined with the "be friends with everyone, egregiously so.." tactic so that when you wrong someone else, you can quickly call on all your 'friends' to defend you from different angles. Ignore consequences and just kiss up afterwards..

None of this is new - it's just like most behaviors, the mob doesn't abstract the behaviors from the delivery.

You forgot to add /s.

I like Kaneda’s Master. Hope he doesn’t ditch him for good. I appreciate a good Kaneda rant, that’s when he’s at his most entertaining. It’s when he doesn’t have his facts straight and when he’s totally talking out of his ass that he starts to grate. When he’s not contradicting himself or being hypocritical, he’s usually on point.

In fact, I’m a little concerned he’s considering any of the feedback in this thread. That’s anti-thetical to the Kaneda experience. He should say fuck-all to Pinside and keep doing it his way. That’s why we listen.

There will always be demagogues and the ignorant and/or stupid people that follow them. A sad fact of life. The problem is when the followers know that their following a demagogue and follow them anyway. I don’t know what to call that, but it borderlines on misanthropic, masochistic or sociopathic IMO.

I love the late pushes for Post of The Year

I also like the Master segments. There's the spooky music & slow voice, like someone that's lecturing Darth Vader from above. The one Master segment I remembered was talking about going to Midwest Gaming Classic and playing TurboGrafx 16 games. Can't argue with that.

I think the "I snooped in on the factory at Stern and here's what I heard" movie clip segments, since they are genuinely funny. He takes some really wackjob movie lines & puts them in a totally different context.

Couldn't agree more, except I think it applies to ALL media outlets today.

Check out this article. It was written over 5 years ago.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/apr/12/news-is-bad-rolf-dobelli

If you missed it live, here's the YouTube video! David had some great stories to tell -- the Secret Service photo shoot backstory being a personal favorite

Audio version will be up in the podcast feed as soon as Podcast Garden gets its act together...

Tried head2head because it had been mentioned in this thread. Jack and Lyman interviews were fantastic tournament talk and laugh track could not take will be back for future interviews

If some of you are considering giving Special When Lit Pinball Podcast a listen we'd like to share with you our interview with Brian Eddy of Stern Pinball that took place a couple nights ago. Brian came in studio for the first podcast of his career and we had a lot of fun talking with him. We understand that our style may not be for everyone but we certainly enjoy offering content to those that care to listen.

Thanks to everyone that supports the podcast community and/or offers respectable advice/feedback.

http://specialwhenlitpinballpodcast.com/episode-28-brian-eddy-stern-pinball

Brian Eddy 1 (resized).jpg

Brian Eddy 2 (resized).jpg

I personally think that Kaneda does a fantastic job with his podcast. I love his honesty and feel like I can trust his opinion. He is Pinball’s Howard Stern and is a real talent! Go Kaneda! I am a proud member of the Special K Army!!

hook line and sinker...

Special When Lit has no tournament talk, either. And they're good dudes. And it's a super high quality show. Win-win all the way around

Just subscribed to SWL looking forward to listening to there podcast.

Yep - that's one of the things I like about it too. Good podcast and they're from my former stomping grounds.

I gave ‘Special When Lit’ a listen tonight. Good stuff. Good production value.

^^^ most recent episode... Brian Eddy!!!

Thanks for posting link to bro do you even talk pinball with David Thiel. That was one of the best interviews of 2018. Liked the format of talking thru his games in chronological order and giving example snippet from each. Nick and Kevin are on my listening radar. They really know how to loosen up their guest and capture behind the scenes stories.

Thanks man - finally got the audio version up on the podcast feed earlier today too, now that our hosting provider is back in action. All the links to subscribe are at http://www.buffalopinball.com/podcast

I'm in this group. I have a lot of commute time and it doesn't bother me if I don't finish a single episode in one go. I just come back to it later. A single H2H episode covers 2+ days. Fine by me!

That interview was on-point!

I was hoping you'd ask who did the writing for the callouts and such for MM, the humour in that game is so well done.
Any ideas?

I know that Tina Fey did some voice work on that game. Not sure how involved (if at all) she was in the creative process.

Thanks for listening and for the feedback.

It was written by Scott Adsit and Kevin Dorff who were members of The Second City improv troupe, which Tina Fey was also a member of.

Well that explains it. Hire those guys again please!

Yeah they need to hire a bunch of young, hungry, comedic performers again. They're cheap and best case scenario they break out and it's a selling point later.

Deadpool was written by Brian Posehn and had some notable voice actors. So maybe they're realizing that investing a little money into the writing and voice acting can pay off. Then again, Deadpool didn't set the world on fire because it wasn't funny/adult enough. It's wild that Medieval Madness is more raunchy than Deadpool.

Yes. DP was a miscalculation on the source material IMHO. Should have an adult mode.

I tend to think that it's ridiculous to expect all new pinball games to be completely asexual in nature. Look at any other popular media (Movies, TV, god help us music) and it's filled with sexuality and sexual themes. Why does pinball have to be this antiseptic wasteland of banality? That's not its heritage and not every game needs to appeal to every player anyway, they already don't so if it fits the theme, then why the heck not?

Just as some follow up to this, still not sure exactly what happened but our host (which I know c2c also used, Podcast Garden) has seemingly just lost our episodes. As I tried to get some answers and update some things for our RSS feed with our current logo etc more stuff seemed to have gone wrong...long story short I say screw that site, moving everything to SoundCloud.

Sticher has already been updated. Last few episodes are already uploaded to SoundCloud and more will come over the next few weeks. Apple iTunes subscribers should be taken care of as soon as they approve the new RSS feed.

Feel free to jump over there and start following again, our newest episode will drop this week. 27dnast thanks for the heads up on the whole situation.

https://soundcloud.com/user-707700754

Impressive that K's recent series podcast was able to interview Dave (CEO), who seemed knowledgeable. However, it is NOT Dave Peterson, the primary stern investor that "redirected" Stern Pinball in 2009 and present CEO. It's no history lesson, more of a reflection of understanding of the present industry and how Stern is a private equity company which has more feasibility in terms of ebb/flow survival in terms of an economic recession and loss of sales. The same cannot be said for other pinball companies other than JJP, but this company had to be propped up twice already, so a bit of gamble IMHO. It also was a reminder for pinball novices that Gary Stern does not control the company anymore (or make theme/license decisions) and has not done so for nearly a decade.

Stern never had a problem with this before.

-Family Guy has tons of sex jokes and dirty language (ex. The South vows to rise again, the North vows to not give a shit).
-Playboy is...well, Playboy.
-Metallica has "Jack-F*ckin'-Pot!"
-AC/DC has boobs, booze, and butts.
-South Park is accurate to the show.
-Sopranos is constantly yelling "GIVE ME THE F*CKING MONEY!" & has a stripper pole toy.

All of these games have settings so if you want to make them more family friendly, you can...but the default/adult settings keep them true to the source material.

So, it's pretty odd that Deadpool went for PG as a standard.

I'm sad to say there's no way any of those games would be released as they were in today's climate.

They just re-ran ACDC and sold it fresh off the line as a Vault this year, so there goes that theory.

It has nothing to do with the climate. Deadpool 2 just came out in "today's climate". It's just how the licensor wanted the game's content to be, that's all.

I think Oktoberfest could have gotten away with being sexy and fun with the right talent, artists, and tone. There's a difference between sexy & sexist/creepy. Elvira is still coming (hah), right? Proof that sexy and innuendo is still OK if done well.

Good point! I will correct myself and say I don't think they would risk releasing a new title that may possibly offend.

Dupe

Kman is so full of shit. You know it, he knows it and that is why people listen. It’s also why no one will ever take him seriously. Not that he cares.

He spends more time reading Pinside and preparing for his next “show” than anyone here including Odiner and his 44k posts

He does a really good job of repeating what he reads on Pinside. Seriously, he does an excellent job

He is a “hyper Pinside reader” and overall fanatic.

He would love to buy “Predator” just to stick it to Hilton he says.

Well he already did that with MG and got F Ed. I wouldn’t make that same mistake again K.

When you only have room for one pinball machine I’d keep the BM66

So keep trolling, I'll expand my podcast reviews.

I disagree with you on that. What specifically is he full of shit about... I mean objectively? Can you give examples? It seems popular on Pinside to rip on Kaneda’s podcast, but the resentment seems to be based on emotion rather than a sound refute of what he’s saying.

Most of what he shares is based on sound logic and reasoning. I rather enjoy his podcasts and how he looks at the industry through a marketing industry lens.

I think you will find it's not resentment. it could possibly be frustration from pinheads as he can at times taint the hobby with drama.
It's the way K'man comes across to people as well.

Fine it's okay for Chris to have his opinion on everything in the pinball scene. Even if being blunt Chris sometimes does not know how to have manners and show some respect. As I said before he is right most of the time just not always and I can understand why it's easy to disagree with some of the shit, and yes it is shit. Fortunately my memory is poor .. Examples can be easily found but I'm no going back to find them.

Everyone is different and we can all interpret things differently

I find his alter egos so silly but entertaining as he can just slip into them without realising, Chico

Anyway I'm sure special K will continue to get the attention he seeks

He's in the top 5 for Twipys

I think KPP’s latest podcast should be entitled, ‘Kaneda loses his shit’. Why that guy continues to target Keith Johnson and JJP baffles me. $10 bucks says it’s because they declined interview requests and now they are a target.

Listen Kris, here’s the deal with Pirates. It’s a phenomenal game; players know this, and non-owners know this. Your unwarranted targeting of this title is getting ridiculous. Think of JJPOTC like SFII. The more SFII evolved, the more characters got introduced. And learning new characters, techniques, and strategies were a huge part of playing SFII champions edition, alpha, and capcom vs SF. That’s how you need to approach JJPOTC. Learn the basic structure of the game (which is way easier than you make it out to be), then pick a character or two and stick to them until you really start picking up the pieces and peeling all the layers the game has to offer much like all the SFII games.

Love the show and keep up the hard work; you offer a lot of insight in the hobby but when it comes to JJPOTC, I think you are out of your territory. And if you’re speaking of quality issues, there’s a new top tier pin in the neighborhood in Iron Maiden, go peek around in that issues thread and see how those owners been doing and that game has been in production much much longer. It’s pinball man! Don’t take it so personal. This isn’t Heighway or Dutch, JJP are one of the good guys.

Peace
SKB

It’s going to fall on deaf ears buddy. Kaneda will continue to site how he doesn’t want to have to read an encyclopedia to play a pinball machine. Haha. The game needs to do something magical with the ball to be good, remember dude!?!? Hahaha

Just play the damn game and after you’ve got the hang of the shots, if you like the game enough to learn more, do it. That’s how it works. Anyone can enjoy any game without knowing a single rule. He doesn’t understand Pirates at all, so he shits on it. Pretty standard for him. Now after he buys it, it will be the greatest game ever.

Is his latest episode worth listening to or is it just another Stern worshipping session? Only got a few minutes into it...

It's complete and utter garbage, like most of his non-interview opinion pieces.

“Sound logic and reasoning”

That’s a joke

He talks out of both sides of his mouth depending on what the “hyper posters” on Pinside are saying

He’s got diarrhea of the mouth and constipation of the brain

He hammered Yeti and Primud because Yeti won’t be his friend now.

If you have been on Pinside long enough to remember what he did, how he acted and why he got banned then you understand what “utter garbage” means

Keep trolling me. I’ll provide my own in depth podcast review

Could have stopped there. No need to specify further.

I'm not trying to troll you, genuinely I really enjoy his analysis of the pinball industry from a marketers perspective. I don't agree with his comments on many Pinside users, a lot of that commentary is unnecessary and subjective.

@iceman44 I think you and I were both in on an Alien and had some good conversation on that thread... There's no ill will intended from me, so apologies if that's the impression I gave.

His whole gig is to crap on people. You try and reach out and be nice to the guy but he can’t help himself

It’s why no one of any consequence in the industry will even talk to him

I clicked on your podcast 10 times Kman. Merry Xmas!

Not at all Jones. We r good! I’m talking about him trolling me on his podcast and talking out of his ass like he knows ME, or anybody else for that matter.

He preaches about get a life, do this do that etc. outside of pinball

Look in the mirror Kman, it’s pathetic