Nice AFM. So that's where it ended up.

But the big question that was overlooked was who bears the cost of that?

200 plus boards from early adopter beta testers all getting sent back simultaneously to the sole distributor Johns Arcade to rectify any software bugs that might have been overlooked in testing.

Could potentially end up being more costly than the magnetised ball recall.

Even BW with their 99% complete code on day one release found software glitches and bugs once machines got out into the field and had extensive play.

The last 7 days would have to have been one of the best weeks ever in the local Aussie online pinball scene that I have had the pleasure of watching unfold and I have been involved in this hobby for almost 25 years.

Looking forward to listening to a warts and all unbiased account of what has been going on in our local online scene fellas and keeping both the locals and our North American/European friends up to date on local events.

The best part is given the ripple effect I can assure you there will be more to come in the following week.

Episode 11 - An inconvenient truth or why a local Queensland arcade cancelled their TBAG launch party.

Paraphrasing from 55:00 onwards, " A lot of people have emailed me and said they have played the TBAG pinball machine and have said they don't like it but won't voice that on our local forums and also have specifically asked for their name not to be mentioned or attached to the criticism".

It would be interesting to hear some of the genuine feedback correspondence read out on air and the numbers involved without breaching confidentiality as it would provide a far more accurate perspective rather than the usual local cheer squad in the "official" TBAG thread.

Despite your assumptions I would surmise the real reason for the lack of genuine online feedback and unwillingness for those critical of the machine to have their thoughts publicised is that it is less about hurting Homepin's feelings and more about local pinheads protecting their forum reputation and fear of potential ostracism from the local online community.

If that is the case, then it simply reinforces how much of a handicap to hobby growth our local forums truly are given their cliquish commercially driven biased nature particularly to any international readers who will have no real opportunity to play this in person and will instead be relying totally on Australian based feedback which they presume will be objective and free from either fear or favouritism.

How quickly we forget when a local member provided the first piece of honest feedback on TBAG from the previous years Pinfest to the pinside forum and was threatened with banning from AA as a result.

PS: TBAG prototype number 1 is currently sitting in the backroom of a pinball dealer whose "employee" is the Admin of AA. This was because the prior arranged launch party at a different venue cancelled when they felt that homophobia and racial slurs weren't conducive to the clientele of their establishment.

Apparently this is all industry standard stuff, there are no secrets or surprises here. LOL.

Except for the Netherworld TBAG launch event which was supposed to be held last weekend and cancelled by the proprietors due to the offensive comments made online prior by the guest speaker. Its refreshing to see some Queenslanders are still willing to maintain a sense of decency and integrity over being a sellout in order to make a quick buck.

Any US collector who puts money down at this stage after seeing the gameplay videos and subsequently being told it is 99% complete whilst using another pinball designer's misappropriated operating system needs their head read.

On that note did we ever actually find out who the "well known American finessing the design" was? I guess if we haven't by now they sure aren't going to come forward at this juncture given the reception the prototype has received.

Speaking of design, you would think these design issues would have been discovered during the onsite testing phase of the half dozen prototypes that were sited in expat bars across China for months prior rather than at its Australian debut at Pinfest Newcastle October 2017 and leading to a less than favourable impression both online and IRL?

So many questions, so little answers.

Even though I have never met RD, after listening to the backstory and what he is doing on a local level for the NZ pinball community it is now patently obvious as to why New Zealand has a much more progressive and inclusive pinball scene compared to Australia.

And yes, I give full kudos to the Melbourne guys who are attempting to breathe new life and bring new players into your local scene as well.

Points earned for finally readdressing the domestic sacred cow manufacturer in a podcast.

Points off for handballing it off to the international guest to provide an actual opinion on it.

To his credit, last episodes guest analysis was totally on point in that regard - a piss poor attitude towards the world's largest pinball market will be one of several factors contributing to his inevitable downfall at least in the pinball machine manufacturing sphere.

How about thirty pieces of silver instead? More volatile and unstable than bitcoin.

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Cameron Silver - for a homegrown success story.

From Timezone Arcade Australia to Bally Williams pinball USA.

Nothing wrong with pinball drama when appropriate and I don't know why anyone would consciously choose to avoid it particularly as it seems to go hand in hand with the underlying machinations and commercial backroom deals of the pinball hobby.

Forewarned is forearmed after all.

As long as you aren't suggesting pineapple juice as the beverage choice. We have enough XXXXL matching black tshirt wearing drones as a result down here as it is.

I give you a middle of the road 5 for always taking the path of least resistance and being the sheep rather than a shepherd of the local scene.

That's why K man gets the vox pop for best podcast despite being banished from the biggest pinball forum on the planet.

P-insanity.

I enjoy listening to Kaneda because he isn't constrained by forum politics with his subject matter.

I explained that to you from the beginning.

At the same time though it makes logical sense for any prudent person to keep his ear to the ground on what is being broadcasted locally at the coalface.

I never even implied you were getting paid but thanks for clarifying publicly anyway. Down here though, hierarchical based politics tends to carry higher currency value than actual money. Weird huh?

Not to worry your tshirt is in the mail, I'm sure.

Can't really blame Kaneda for the ad nauseum Heighwayman topic.

He was one of the more prominent figures who maintained a level of scepticism about Mr Hydrofoil and voiced that opinion publicly from the beginning despite anyone saying anything that was less than fawning admiration being an extremely unpopular position at the time.

Funny how those persons who go outside the safety net status quo and do their own independent due diligence about some wannabe pinball startups are so often vilified in the short term, but turn out to be vindicated in the long run.

Hmmm, the 40/40/20 - LE/Prem/Pro rule for domestic sales. Interesting.

Doesn't take a mathematician to work out total sales when LE numbers are preallocated from Chicago.

From 77 ACDC LE in 2012 to 33 GBLE to 18 Batman LE in 2016. AS was in the teens in 2017 and GOTG sold "less than expectations." Maybe we need a year on year sales bar chart?

RRP goes up, sales go down but profit per unit increases and simultaneously implement a sales strategy to kill off the operator market segment entirely.

95/5 Home buyers/Ops sales ratio and no one sees where this is heading long term?

If it ain't broke don't fix it - say it again for the record. SMH.

Banana republic - Used by then Federal Treasurer Keating as a warning for the future of an industry when too much unwarranted importance is placed on one segment of the market resulting in its overall demise.

A movie about an artificially designed social construct intended to keep it's population in a state of compliant subservience?

Has to be one of the AA overlords.

Well they do belong to the self declared pinball capital of the Southern Hemisphere after all, right?

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Snubbing Brisbane as a location for the Australian arm of the SHPC was the high point of the podcast for me particularly in light of recent pronouncements and the subsequent nomenclature of the event itself.

Serendipitous or deliberate? Works for me either way.

I am very pleased that the inaugural event will be held in Auckland and was equally pleased upon hearing that the subsequent Australian arm will be held in Sydney since I was expecting to hear a different city read out for the latter.

The events I hold and have held would never get local IFPA sanctioning (nor would I want it anyway) due to domestic pinball politics.

We all have different objectives in the direction we would like to see pinball traverse so in the immediate interim I'm quite content to keep doing what I am currently doing though in introducing new entrants and those with no local forum ties to the hobby through sales and subsequent social gatherings.

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Scatman LE.

Joel is on here under the Lastgamer pinside account. Most pinsiders would be very interested to hear a livestream from his place.

Other "forums" not so much.....

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I'm sure Chrisco subscribers and ozbargain users would overlap very well in a Venn diagram though I doubt a $7000 pinball machine would.

https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/360251

Paying retail is not a bargain and paying over retail is a chump's game.

Interesting history on the Coatesville mansion above -

Kim Dotcom ran his mega download website operations from there for a number of years leasing it from the Chrisco founders until he got raided and arrested by the NZ constabulary for piracy and copyright infringement at the behest of the US Government.

Now owned by the Mowbray siblings of the Zuru toys empire.

RD - have to be up there as one of NZ's most expensive private residences?

The worst part is that quite a few down here who had played the machine knew it was a boat anchor a year ago and at the time either said nothing or gave it misleading false praise to those in the Northern Hemisphere via pinside.

On that note.

Worst TBAG shills on pinside in the last 12 months with a where are they now follow up.

Hard to believe that only 9 months ago it was being touted to international members on pinside from supposedly unbiased local reviews as being one step away from perfection.
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Given the landslide results, it certainly is telling about segments of the Aussie/NZ pinball scene when a machine has to be released onto a Northern Hemisphere international stage in order to get honest reviews and feedback not influenced by local forum politics and their at that time pecuniary interests.

Good thing it is so easy to spot local shills on pinside and write off their opinions as centred around misguided forum loyalty and therefore worthless.

You can always go through their back catalogue.

I recommend episode 8 when Homepin was introduced to an international audience and see how much the narrative at the time meets the reality of 2019.

The rise and inevitable fall of banana republicanism.

One step away from falsely claimed perfection to one step away from genuine insolvency.

Most people outside of the two local Australian forums (i.e. 95% of the Aussie pinball community) knew Homepin was going to implode at some stage and screw over any preorder people in the process years ago so this whole shocked and surprised that it failed narrative currently being played out to the global community is disingenuous.

It barely requires repeating at this late stage but for the record he had previous non-pinball related business ventures doing the exact same thing of taking preorder money, creating excuses as to why the end product can't be completed, then ignoring original preorders and chasing new money in order to stay afloat. Those businesses ultimately folded. Everyone I have spoken to within the local pinball community who have no local forum loyalty ties knew of this information years ago.

That's why TBAG only received such a miniscule amount of overall preorders to begin with with nearly all of them being AussieArcade sycophants whilst being fed what was obviously a bullshit narrative at the time to protect a commercial sponsor.

Contrary to what was suggested in the podcast but it isn't jingoism that is the problem with the online Australian pinball community. It's toadyism or more specifically parroting everything the local forum purple circle tells them to swallow and automatically regurgitate without using their own common sense.

If anything the whole saga surrounding Homepin is a long overdue wake up call.

Never thought after 9 years that Darksoul's plodcast record would be broken.

No, I skipped it based on the content cue sheet.

That must be why so many of the six year old Aussie preorders are dumping them for a loss on ebay AU recently after only having them for a few weeks of ownership.

The global pinball community has spoken and spoken truly - this machine is the rock bottom worst of the worst.

I understand that Mister 100 machines a week is now desperately chasing greenbacks to stay afloat but no amount of local propaganda is going to induce people to take another bite of that shit sandwich by trying to convince them it's a down under version of a PBJ.

Don't forget the plastic lockdown bar as well.

The two parts of a pinball machine you tactilely interact with and they screw up both.

Going to be a tough sell this time around on pinside without the local AA lapdogs providing fake reviews and testimonials.

I doubt the Northern Hemisphere pinball community is going to fall for this again regardless of down under banana republican propaganda.

Kudos to Joe (notably from the US) for being upfront and calling it out from the beginning of his new position as cohost. If only that had happened all the way back in episode 8 it could have saved all those years of bullshit being played out on an international stage.