Changing Landscape

December is peak list-making season, and I’ve been sifting through the major ‘Best Song’ rundowns to see how our Song of the Week picks measured up. This year, we decidedly leaned into highlighting new and novel over comforting and familiar. Across the best of lists for Pitchfork, Consequence of Sound, Rolling Stone, and Stereogum we hit on 12 different tracks (including the one I’ve highlighted for today’s newsletter, B A D I D E A from LA’s Militarie Gun). There are at least another dozen or so we missed on, because I had them saved for eventual use but never made the final call.

Our hits (where we overlapped with critics):

Our misses (great songs that we flagged but didn’t end up including):

Earlier this week, we followed up on some IFPA statements from before the Thanksgiving holiday as we continue to track ongoing changes from the OBX incident. Expect more reporting as the situation evolves; right now, clarity is limited, and timelines are uncertain.

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Yesterday, we officially announced the return of the TWIPYs for the 2025 edition, and yes, there are lots of changes! This year, we’re zeroing in on the commercial games categories and pairing the usual public vote with a special episode of one of my favorite podcasts, the BASH Pinball Podcast. Embrace the change! Look for ballots to open on January 5th.

Stern’s latest release, The Walking Dead Remastered, started shipping recently, and units are making their way to public locations and home collections. Notably, this rollout is happening while display assets still carry the “Pending Licensor Approval” label and before Stern has released any official gameplay media.

Based on photos I’ve seen circulating, one interesting detail people are starting to pick up on is that The Walking Dead Remastered appears to mark another phase in the gradual rollout of Spike 3 changes. TWDr seems to have quite a few changes to the standard cabinet design. Even Stern’s recently released service manual for the game seems to indicate there are changes present that need to be communicated to customers differently.

While admittedly not a tech person, what caught my eye most of all was the changes represented in the photo above. Coming from a Premium version of the game, it shows a larger cutout groove at the front of the cabinet, as well as a larger-than-necessary cutout for the flipper button mech, which itself appears slightly reconfigured.

The larger cutout groove looks designed to support upgraded expression light rails (like ones that can support external lighting as seen in TWDr’s LE trim), but what’s the larger flipper button cutout for?

Could we see expression lighting come to the flipper buttons in future releases?

As a dude who mostly works with words for a living, I appreciate someone who can run with a tongue-in-cheek copy bit. The Electric Playground’s latest non-licensed topper release is very obviously meant for Star Wars, but licensing being what it is, it has to be marketed as a product for your “home space-toy collection.” I laughed out loud when I read the product description. I think the topper looks cool, it’s offered at an attractive price point ($799), and I like the ability to customize further with figures or pins. If I had the ceiling clearance, I would definitely look at buying this for the Star Wars game I’ve got at home.

For those of you who enjoy pinball in all its forms, digital or otherwise, check out this new indie game, Super Pinball Adventure, from developer tombasche. It’s currently on sale for $3.49 on Steam, and I’ve confirmed it runs great on the Steam Deck. And after playing the first few levels this week, I’d say I’m casually amused by the game itself. It’s a light, puzzle-y pinball rift that’s great for short sessions, and I look forward to digging into a few more chapters over the weekend.

Not sure if this will turn into a regular column, but I like looking for stories outside of the pinball bubble that may impact pinball in some way now or in the future. A couple of stories seemed worth flagging this week.

I’m frequently on the lookout for stories like these, where creative IP that overlaps with the interests of pinball enthusiasts is licensed in non-traditional or innovative ways. Given the success of Chicago Gaming’s Pulp Fiction pinball machine, I found it interesting that Quentin Tarantino was able to negotiate a deal to bring Kill Bill characters (and extended media) to Fortnite. The signal this sends to me is that Tarantino IP is “open for business” and that it might be time for a pinball company to explore the feasibility of obtaining the Kill Bill license, as there could be strong audience/IP alignment there.

In more entertainment news, I could see Netflix’s acquisition of Warner Bros. having some downstream effects for pinball manufacturers, particularly on the licensing front, depending on how everything shakes out. My understanding of licensing is that it’s a very relationship-driven business, and larger mergers/acquisitions like these often serve to disrupt existing relationships or change the focus of business agreements as corporate priorities change. Many current pinball manufacturers (Spooky, Jersey Jack) have had success mining Warner Bros. IP for games. Will that continue with Netflix at the helm?

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