What's with the gratuitous and awful chick pic? We don't need or want that.

It would be cool to get the next announcement soon so we could hope for something at Pinball Expo. If it doesn't happen in the next couple of weeks, I doubt timing will work out well for that.

I really, really hate this "we're not going to make enough for everybody" tactic. I feel like Stern has been building up good will lately, but this is a total dick move. Artificial scarcity is something we could probably do without in pinball.

I prefer that companies don't be dicks to their customers, but that's JUST ME, apparently. KaPow sucks. Get them out of here. The moment Joe K. returned to pinball many people saw some sort of shenanigans coming. I think it took all of 30 seconds for some industry vets to weigh in with some sideways comments about the guy. Artificial scarcity is a total jerking around of customers. Joe made it very clear in the interview that the game's scarcity will be intentional, and he's actually happy and proud about that. What a guy!

There's a difference between the different trim levels on a game and just making the game overall scarce on purpose. You can buy an LE, but it doesn't give you anything more than the premium other than art and finish. With the Beatles, they're just going to make fewer of everything, just to cause a constraint. The LE over a pro or premium stuff is opt in by choice, because you can always buy the premium on the open-ended run, but limiting the run to create a collectible aspect to it is toying with consumers. They're essentially forcing you to buy it right away or miss out.

And why do they care about an inflated secondary market? It's purely an ego thing so Joe can thump his chest and say, "well MY game goes for $2,000 more than MSRP a year later. Isn't that neat?"

The SLE was pretty dumb with Batman, but the LE and Premium were there, so it was still an opt in luxury choice. Doesn't seem like there's any option for the common collector here. I would hope they would reverse that an offer a premium model that has reasonable access to it.

Their production numbers are totally dependent on what they can make and deliver within the time period they're aiming for. They don't want people waiting beyond a certain amount of time to get their games. TNA is their only open ended run game, but I have to imagine they'll start putting holds on taking orders when the queue gets longer than they're comfortable with.

This is all still different than LE/SLE stuff. Joe's comments make it clear that they're artificially constraining the availability of the game as a whole. That's lame. The SLE on B66 was sort of dumb, but it didn't put anybody out. This inevitably will.

Starting a Facebook group to follow Martin's progress through Pinburgh. We'll post updates for every game and try to have a man on the ground to report on a per-ball basis.

We're watching, Marty. We're always watching.

Nope, just casual observation. No pressure!

Did anybody take Martin?

Dude is crushing it though. Martin is doing amazingly well. I mean, wait, we all expected this.

This won't go to his head, will it? Is it going to be a thing now where he introduces himself as "Martin, Pinburgh A Division Player" now? I mean, I would, be he shouldn't.

Thanks for doing this. I know all too well how much work tallying open voting actually is. I actually did have Jim Belsito and overthought things and switched him out at the last moment.

I think he should come back, but I'm not going to beg. I have dignity over here.

Enjoyed that one with the LoserKid guys. Guys scooped announcing my Wonka LE purchase on your show before I could even mention it on my own. Haha.