As far as the Pinball Network announcement goes: I love the pinball content that Zach, Greg, Dennis, and all the rest of the guys make, so I'm excited for this new venture; however, the way this has been done feels a little dishonest. I personally think Dennis and Zach should have just said they were leaving to start a new podcast/video enterprise, rather than acting like they were done without all ready having something specific lined up. It was great publicity, but also just a little bit manipulative. I'm not saying it was intended to be that way, but I do feel like my emotions were messed with a bit. Especially, because didn't the Pinball Supernova guy write that he was getting out of the hobby completely, and now he's got a new pinball show? Overall, I would have preferred a little more honesty and transparency. At a minimum it would have felt better if they would have all just said "Hey, we're planning something new together, more info to follow." Something like that would have been nice.

I'm not worried about the guys remaining objective. I'm not generally a cynical person, and I've seen enough from these guys to feel like I've got a good sense of their genuineness. Besides, I don't base buying decisions solely off of what an online reviewer says, and there are plenty of other people on Pinside and elsewhere who are happy to criticize the pinball industry all day long.

Thanks for clearing things up Dennis. I appreciate it. From an outsiders perspective, this appeared to be a highly choreographed set of departures and announcements designed to generate the greatest amount of publicity, even at the expense of misleading your audience a little bit. But it sounds like much of this was coincidence. I guess it's one of those things where you guys know what was intended, and what was truly going on, but to people on the outside it looked fishy. I think waiting longer to announce TPN might have actually have been better, as it would have given a little more distance from the departures and might have made things feel less "staged." But hey, what's done is done. I think everyone has learned something about how you do or do not launch a new media venture, and everyone has been given something to think about whether it be about transparency, or about diversity optics.

I'm looking forward to the new content, and to seeing how this will all work. Hopefully, Zach and the rest of you guys can take this all in stride and move forward in a positive way. I'll echo what I told Zach on Facebook. If you guys are able to, you should try and do a Women's Roundtable discussion as one of your earliest pieces of content on the new platform. Invite Lauren from Backbox, and some other ladies to come on and give their perspectives on the hobby. It would be a great way to come out the better on this, and it would give women the voice that they felt was missing from TPN's announcement. Also, see if you can get the Youtuber and Twitch Streamer "Mystery Pinball Theater 3000" on the network. He's an African American pinball player who has a good personality and who streams a lot of Pinball. I think he'd be a good fit. Cheers Den Den!

In fairness, I think Zach does a pretty good job of avoiding political or social commentary in his videos and podcasts. He does enjoy a humorous Trump impression, but who doesn't? Also, he brought Cary Hardy on board SDTM, and I'm pretty sure Cary is a Trump guy. Cary's left his Youtube "Recommended" feed visible from time to time when he's been doing new-machine coverage, and it's often full of pro-Trump videos. But that's all okay, because there's room in the Pinball Hobby for everyone, even people that disagree.

Also, I heard a thought provoking line today that relates to this topic. It went like this, "People who aren't worried about inclusivity are usually all ready included!" Made me think, and made me laugh.

To advance things, does anyone have a guess who the next TPN contributor will be? My money's on Imoto. She all ready knows a lot of the guys that have been announced to be part of TPN, and she's well know and well liked in the community. Plus, her relationship with Marco and other outside companies could explain a delay in her being able to commit. Since she'd have to figure out some contractual and legal stuff, in order to make a relationship with TPN work.

Any other thoughts or guesses?

Well done Sir, well done!

Well, in fairness I didn't know exactly what it meant either until a couple months back. But then again, I've only been in the hobby for 6 months, not 6 years.

Dang, I was close though! It was a girl from Marco, just not the one I thought it would be!

Triggered Warning:

How often you play pinball has nothing to do with whether or not you know what a "fan layout" is. I wish people would lay off that all ready; "fan layout" is such an inside-baseball term, and people use it without defining it. It's one of those terms that everyone just assumes that you know what it means. Besides, are you following K around checking how often he plays? He had a BM66 in his bedroom until a couple months ago. One would assume he played it when he owned it, and he lives in New York. Hardly a lack of places to play machines there.

Get some perspective. He's not my favorite person either, but he does offer an appreciable counter-perspective to all of the other pinball shows. I love how even though he's won two Twipys, people post on Pinside like everyone is in agreement about how awful he is. Obviously a lot of people on pinside listen to, and like his show, so I wish people would realize that they're in a "mixed" room on pinside, not a "we hate Kaneda" room. Bashing Kaneda is intentionally provocative behavior in my opinion.

If you really wanna bash K-man, how about mocking him for something he did that was actually dumb or showed poor judgement--ie. having to be physically removed from the NY Championships last year, due to inappropriate and disruptive behavior.

Triggered Post Over!

No, we need them to do the dishes, tidyup the garage, and drive around in our cars!

Oh, is he in the programming dept? I though he was involved with art or LCD work.

Well, I wouldn't agree that all of their reactions were vitriol; but I would agree that emotions from everyone (including those on the other side of the argument) were high that day. I think people have had a chance to calm down now, and hopefully everyone can learn a few things and move on. Clearly Zach and the rest of the crew were very excited about this new venture, and they couldn't wait to release more information. If they had waited a week, or even a few days, then they could have avoided a whole lot of mess. Since everyone joining the network were friends, and well-known members of the pinball community, it probably didn't even cross their minds that there were any issues with the optics. When I first watched the announcement video, I was just excited, and surprised, to see all the people they got together for TPN. It was only after it was pointed out to me, that I realized the group wasn't as diverse as would be ideal.

I mean everyone was overly worked-up the day of the announcement. While it would have been nice for JD to talk to people first, the point of his post was that from the OUTSIDE it looked like a boys-only club. And that was apparently the reaction of a lot of women in the hobby too. If you listen to Lauren Gray's Backbox reaction episode, she talks about how much the TPN announcement video hurt and upset her, and how it brought up a lot of emotions for her. Which clearly was not TPN's intent at all. (Lauren's reaction episode is actually not a big rant, and she expresses that she knows the TPN guys are good people, and doesn't hold anything against them) The guys at TPN clearly didn't realize their video would trigger any bad feelings or cause upset.

In the end, it is what it is. As long as everyone can learn a little from this, and then move forward in a positive and thoughtful direction, then things will be fine. Because a lot of elements of the discussion actually are worth having. Looking forward to what comes out of TPN, and I hope they don't let all this stuff slow them down or dampen their spirits. Good luck guys, I'm rooting for you!

(PS. Don't forget to checkout Mystery Pinball Theater 3000 on youtube or twitch. He's streams a lot of pinball, has a good personality, and he's a person of color. So he'd be a win-win-win (said in a buy-buy-buy tone of voice) for the network.)

Wow. No disrespect or anything, but I'm truly amazed that was your reading of her podcast episode. Did you listen to the whole thing? Because she starts out a little heated (and TBH, a little overly dramatic) but by the end I think she has some good things to say. I mean at no point does she say that she wants a diversity quota or anything like that. I was ready to be annoyed at her reaction, but honestly it was more insightful than I thought it would be. Oh well, its interesting how two people can listen to the same thing and have entirely different reactions and takeaways.

I do agree with you that it is just Pinball at the end of the day, and its supposed to be fun. Still, for some people Pinball is a passion, a career, and a huge part of their self-identity. So its understandable that they could get worked up over it!

Hmm, let me formulate a response on this one...in my opinion, the reason the initial lack of female representation was an issue was because it wasn't just a new Pinball podcast that was being formed, but a whole Pinball Network. A new venture designed to grow and enhance the pinball hobby. And getting more women and minorities involved in the hobby is a great way to do that. Given my background, I don't often think about gender or race or inclusion, because I'm usually well represented in whatever topic or group I'm looking at. In fact, I very often get annoyed when every piece of entertainment media has to be judged and picked apart for its representation. So I don't now, nor have I ever, considered anyone in the Pinball Network to be racist or sexist at all. These are some of my favorite people in all of pinball for goodness sake!

But I can at least recognize that purposefully including more women and people of color is a very good thing. Its not something that needs to be a loud or heated issue, but it is worth thinking about at least a little bit. So I'm on TPN's side, but I can at least understand what the other side is on about.

Mmm, yummy! Loves me some Doritos Locos Supreme personally.

I mean having empathy for other people is a good thing. You don't have to kowtow to every person who gets offended or has an agenda, but you can at least listen to them when what they're saying has some actual value. In this case, there was genuine opportunity for improvement in the way the launch and announcement of TPN was handled. Personally, I think the announcement was rushed, and I'm still mildly annoyed about all the podcasts shutting down right before TPN was announced, and about how orchestrated and misleading everything felt. But I'm not annoyed enough not to be excited about TPN, and Dennis has assured me that a lot this wasn't as planned out as it looks. So yeah, I'm looking forward to what TPN has to offer. And I'm looking forward to all this drama getting left behind.

Oh, it was quite the thing or so I hear. There's a closed thread about it somewhere here on Pinside. I wasn't there, so I'm not sure exactly what happened. He was spectating the championships, and then some stuff went down, and things got physical and I guess at one point he threw a drink in someone's face. Eventually, Crazylevi and security had to drag him out to the elevator and out of the venue.

And this was after he had supposedly turned over a new leaf in the hobby. I personally think the incident was a big factor in why K-man's ban wasn't lifted by Robin. But again, I wasn't actually there, so others could probably provide a more precise rundown. Crazy stuff!

Oh yeah, I can only imagine the kinds of things he did to get perma-banned. My understanding was that he was the definition of an internet troll back when he was on pinside. He still likes to pop in on other creator's streams and stir-the-pot. Sometimes he's fine on the stream chats and a reasonably positive presence, but a lot of other times he's obnoxious and trolly, and has to be put in "time-out." My point about what happened at the NY Championships was that this bad behavior took place after he had all ready started supposedly changing for the better. And so even if K had spent some time trying to conduct himself in a gentlemanly manner on his podcast, and trying to prove that he could behave online, then the incident at NYCPC showed that he obviously hadn't changed enough to warrant any sort of reinstatement. Provisional or otherwise.

But its tough, because I enjoy that he tends to offer a counterpoint on his podcast, and he does get some scoops, and I like that he's hard on the manufacturers. I hope that maybe he has finally started to become a better person, but I don't know him personally, so who knows. Also, he makes it sound like Brenda and his dog are the only family he has. So obviously some bad stuff must have happened in his life for that to be the case. So I don't know.

Its natural that he's still talked about, since he's still a part of the pinball media, and he does get scoops and interviews and stuff. But yeah, I wish people would move on from constantly bashing him, and talk about more relevant things.

Latest episode of Eclectic Gamers Podcast is up. Dennis spends about an hour talking about the TPN launch, going into a lot of details, and giving his take on what happened from the inside. Well worth a listen.

https://soundcloud.com/user-465086826