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Brat Pinball Summer
Best Pinball Podcasts of '24 (so far) | TRON Tutorial | Sweeper City Recap | Haggis Updates | Song | Links | More!
Colin Alsheimer
August 01, 2024 • Time to Read: 17 minutes
In partnership with
This Week in Pinball we’re going full brat.
This Week’s Pinball Agenda:
Song of the Week
Sponsor of the Week
Pinball News of the Week
The Best Pinball Podcasts of 2024 (so far)
TRON: Legacy Tutorial
Sweeper City Pinball Championships Recap
Haggis Updates
Links of the Week
Poll of the Week
Song of the Week
It’s always a little bit funny to see artists you’ve followed for a long time blow up in pop culture. It’s rarely something that happens overnight. When I was much deeper into my music phase, I had known of Charli xcx initially from her writing work on Icona Pop’s “I Love It” (2011) and early singles like “Nuclear Seasons” (2013). She always seemed highly regarded in music criticism circles but had never quite reached the level of fame of some of her contemporaries.
Now, we’re talking about brat summers and it seems Charli xcx has broken through to the next level of pop fame.
360 is well done in its own right, but what solidified this as the “Song of the Week” choice for me was its meta-commentary on so-called it girls, complete with a slew of cameos whose significance goes over my head, but I’m to understand are important.
We have 51 days left in summer. Make it brat.
Sponsor of the Week
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Pinball News of the Week
The Best Pinball Podcasts of 2024 (So Far)
You may have thought we had hit the saturation point for pinball podcasts last year, but 2024 would like to have words with you. There are new entries to the category (BASH Pinball Podcast, The Flipside Pinball Podcast, WAP Pinball Podcast, Phantom Tilt Pinball Podcast, Wizards & Warriors Pinball Podcast), some that started at the end of 2023 that are now hitting their stride (Wormhole Pinball Podcast, Wedgehead Pinball Podcast), revivals of long-dormant podcasts (Mappin’ Around with Scott & Ryan, The Jersey Jack Pinball Podcast) and a brief supergroup team-up that flamed out (The Silverball Syndicate). Plus, all the returning favorites.
In 2023, we did a round-up of the best pinball podcasts, and it ruffled some feathers. More for who was left off than who was on it, but that’s how it goes with these things. When everyone gets included it’s called a directory, and that’s not what this is.
Because it’s the time of the year for mid-year rankings, I thought it’d be fun to follow up our 2023 selections with a list of the best pinball podcasts of 2024 (so far). The ranking factors are entirely made up, but were I to have official scoring criteria, it’d include elements like consistency, production quality, entertainment value, expertise, diversity of opinion, and a slight hint of meta-commentary. I’m also trying to keep it to 10 selections, which is harder than you’d think.
Since this is the brat summer™, and Charli xcx has our Song of the Week, I’m also ranking these in order of brat level. Charli xcx describes being brat as:
“You're just like that girl who is a little messy and likes to party and like maybe says some dumb things sometimes, who like feels herself but then also like maybe has a breakdown but kind of like parties through it, is very honest, is very blunt, a little bit volatile.
Yeah like does like the dumb things but like it's brat, you're brat, that's brat.”
Pinball Nerds Podcast
Is anyone having more of a brat summer than Orbital Albert? From an infamous Stern rant to podcast supergroup fallout to interviews with Chris Franchi and breaking Haggis news. Orby is brat.
High marks for consistency, entertainment, and meta-commentary. Who doesn’t like a redemption arc?
Kaneda’s Pinball Podcast
Kaneda is proto brat. We’ve had our personal issues, but it’s water under the bridge now. Kaneda’s Patreon Chat, however, is definitely brat.
High marks for consistency, entertainment, and diversity of opinion (what can I say, I like having my perspective challenged). Earned points this year for having a self-deprecating laugh over a big rumor swing and miss, being one of the first to call out Haggis’ business practices, and broadly keeping a portion of the community interested in pinball even when things are slow.
Don’s Pinball Podcast
I get the impression that Don was brat when he was younger. Now he’s like recovering brat. The kind of brat who learned some hard lessons and approaches things differently because of them. Parties through it even if there’s nothing particularly challenging to party through.
High marks for consistency and entertainment. Very much appreciate the humor-first, big tent approach to how he engages with the industry and the community at large. His team-up with Retrocengo in the WAP Pinball Podcast is also developing well.
Electric Bat Pinball Podcast
Little messy, parties through it, very honest. Rachel and Cale may not give off outward brat vibes but I’d say they are spiritually aligned with brat. Their podcast has been one of my favorite listens since it started, as they bring a unique perspective to the discourse as hybrid industry insiders, media creators, and successful operators.
High marks for expertise, diversity of opinion, and production value.
BASH Pinball Podcast
I don’t know how old Matt and Don of BASH Pinball Podcast are but they may be the most age-appropriate brats of the bunch. Given their music production background, maybe they’ve even embodied brat at times. Regardless, this new for 2024 podcast kicked off with a bang in April, and they haven’t really looked back.
High marks for production quality, entertainment value, and diversity of opinion.
The Pinball Show
Long-time favorites The Pinball Show with Zach and Dennis may not strike anyone as being particularly brat, but when you think about it, they are often more brat than not brat. Call it a hint of brat.
The creators of The Pinball Show make one of the few podcasts that I try to listen to almost as soon as it hits my feed, and they get high marks for consistency, production quality, entertainment, and expertise.
Wedgehead Pinball Podcast
While I have never had the privilege of visiting, Portland’s Wedgehead (the bar/pinball arcade) strikes me as being brat. And by the transitive property of brat The Wedgehead Pinball Podcast is also brat.
The podcast has been going strong since kicking off in 2023 and hosts Alan and Alex do an impressive job of working original content veins like operator spotlights, episodes devoted to games that are sorta brat (Hook, Sharkey’s Shootout), and not a lick of content creator or manufacturer drama.
High marks for consistency, entertainment, expertise, and diversity of opinion.
LoserKids Pinball Podcast
Sorry, Scott and Josh, but you are not brat. With that out of the way, I get the feeling that if you had kids that were brat you would be all aboard the brat bus. Which makes you an ally of brat.
LoserKids have long been one of my favorite podcasts for their perspective on the hobby and interesting conversations with a range of people in and outside of the industry. They’ve kept their feet on the gas this year with the likes of George Gomez (Stern), Rob Berk (Pinball Expo), Keith Elwin (Stern) and they even managed to pull together a last-minute TWIPY awards show!
High marks for consistency, expertise, and meta-commentary.
Wormhole Pinball Podcast
If this list were ranked a different way, Wormhole Pinball Podcast might be at the top. But unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), I don’t think there’s any part of the Wormhole Pinball operation that is brat. But host Jamie probably has a lot of friends who are brat, so that’s good enough for this exercise.
Wormhole has been cranking out high quality interviews with a range of personalities from the hobby since their inception in 2023, and I feel like those interviews are only getting better over time.
High marks for consistency, diversity of opinion, production quality, and meta-commentary.
Pinball Profile
Brat is a spectrum. On one end of brat you have the Pinball Nerds Podcast and Orbital Albert. On the other, Pinball Profile and Jeff Teolis. Try as I might, I can’t make the connection between Pinball Profile and brat. It’s too wholesome, too polished, too level-headed. These are also the attributes that make it one of the best pinball podcasts year after year. Pinball Profile celebrated its 400th episode recently and Jeff’s ability to have engaging conversations with all corners of the community (regardless of stature) is unmatched.
High marks for everything.
New TRON: Legacy Tutorial
James McFatter is back and brat with an in-depth tutorial of Stern’s 2011 release, TRON: Legacy. In it, he covers all major components of the game’s ruleset that will help you improve your scores or simply explore areas of the game that you haven’t seen before. For example, until reading this guide, I didn’t know how vital end-of-line combos could be for high scores!
Sweeper City Pinball Championships 2024: Learning the Ropes of Card
Matt Owen gives us the low-down on the first-annual Sweeper City Pinball Championships in his quest to get a handle on the tricky card qualifying tournament format. Along the way, he manages to take 4th place in the Classics tournament while getting some brat quotes from fellow competitors like Carlos DeLaSerda.
More Haggis Pinball Updates
I thought more was going to come out in this mess and it has. Early this morning news of the creditor list was released. It’s mucky. Lots of people and organizations are out a lot of money, to the tune of $1.7 million USD. 86 individuals, 3 distributors, 4 employees. Damian has himself and his other company Hartsco down for $659k (USD) of that total, which mostly aligns with what I was expecting.
My plan is to review some of the materials I have and update our Timeline piece with relevant info as needed. But that’s not happening before publishing this newsletter. Feel free to read last week’s newsletter in the meantime.
Second Sponsor of the Week
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Links of the Week
Bowen Kerins released a brat tutorial for Frontier.
Pinball Brothers announced they started shipping ABBA games (not overthinking it but ABBA is probably brat).
Stealing a link from another pub I read (GameDiscoverCo), as it’s an interesting analysis of Star Wars fandom. It also points to a way I’ve been looking at wishlist pinball themes in our Hype Index. Which is if part of the play on the product side is triggering buyer nostalgia, look to the IP your target buyer was exposed to from about the ages of 5-15.
Stern is doing a giveaway for a John Wick game! Enter through 8/7. Details here.
Nudge Magazine (sponsor) has a cool piece on how to identify, isolate, and charm rogue pinball providers.
Don’s Pinball Podcast interviewed Bug from Spooky Pinball - look for their newest game in December!
Poll of the Week
Which pinball podcast is the most brat? |
Last Week’s Poll Results
If money were no object, would you start a pinball manufacturing company?
🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ Yes (31)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 No (63)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Maybe (10)
“Already did…”
“There is no demand for more pinball companies. To found one now would be the height of hubris.”
“I already have a design I've been working on for a homebrew so I'd start there. I would pay Roger Sharpe to get me 3 decent licenses. I'd make 100 units of the first license. No deposit required since money is no object, so no one would be out anything. Once #100 was out the door I'd re-assess whether to continue with the other 2 licenses or call it good.”
“It's a romantic idea and would be a great thing to do, but I'd want the best designers, the best parts, the best artists, the best EVERYTHING! So I can only say, maybe (at best).”
“It would really depend on the space, licensor rights, and if people want to contribute to the job. With franchises now part of the pinball theme, the licensor has the right to make edits. Also, I feel that there shouldn't be any micro-managing with co-workers, unless something really bad happens to the machine. Quality control is important too; I've had some cases where a machine gets rushed and sometimes there are serious bugs. The space would have to be enough where the electronics, cabinet making, and coders would work together. ”
“I don't have the background knowledge, regardless of the amount of money. Plus, I perceive a certain amount of market saturation right now. If money were no object, I would instead invest in an existing company that I truly believe in their product, like the P3 platform.”
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