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LBX Collective
The LBX Show #32 - Harry Potter Pinball, Marketing Red Flags, and more!
Sponsored by Intercard!
On this week's LBX Show, we explore the latest developments in location-based entertainment, featuring insights on facility openings, closings, and technological advancements shaping the future of immersive experiences. BW and friends break down everything from Area 15's massive expansion to the highly anticipated Harry Potter pinball machine from Jersey Jack.
• Area 15 in Las Vegas advancing with a $161 million, 20-acre expansion opening in August 2025
• Legoland partnering with Save the Children to provide free park access to vulnerable children
• Kevin Williams' Open and Shut segment covering Genda's aggressive expansion and new "VSing" concept
• NBA opening a 20,000 sq ft "retailtainment" store combining merchandise with interactive entertainment
• Jersey Jack finally revealing their Harry Potter pinball machine after months of teasing
• Raw Thrills releasing a major update for Godzilla Kaiju Wars VR, expanding from 2 to 6 levels
• Chuck DeMonte sharing four marketing red flags: generalists vs. specialists, poor communication, inadequate reporting, and lack of track record
Join us at upcoming industry events including IAAPA at Morgan's Wonderland next week and Bowl Expo at the end of the month in DC.
Tuning you in. Now to the LBX show with your host, brandon Wiley, brought to you by the LBX Collective, your community to connect, engage and inspire.
Speaker 2:All right, well, welcome everybody to the LBX show for June 8th 2025. I'm your host, Brandon Wiley, and we've got a great show lined up for you today. So we are going to kick it off with a quick news you should know and then go straight into open and shut with Kevin Williams to learn about all the interesting things happening in the latest openings and closings and all the trends happening there openings and closings and all the trends happening there. Then we're going to hear from Adam Pratt on Arcade Corner, where he's going to talk about some of the latest releases, like Alpha Ops VR and Harry Potter's the Harry Potter pinball release from Jersey Jack.
Speaker 2:This one's been highly anticipated and we finally actually have details and a little trailer about it, and so we'll get into that here in a little bit with Adam Pratt. And then, lastly, we're going to round out the show with a quick promo pro tips with Chuck DeMonte. He's going to just discuss the four red flags that you want to watch out for when working with a marketing partner. All right, all that being said, let's get rolling with some news you should know, all right, well, I am going to be hitting the road again.
Speaker 1:So.
Speaker 3:I've been on the road this month.
Speaker 2:This June am going to be hitting the road again, so I've been on the road this month. This June is going to be absolutely insane, especially considering it's capped off with Bowl Expo at the end of the month, which I will also plan on doing and visiting in DC. Don't know if I'll make it all for all the education, but definitely there for the trade show period of time. So if you are not going to go to Morgan's Wonderland next week in San Antonio, which is where I'll be with IAAPA, then we will certainly see you at Bowl Expo. So, all right, there's a lot going on with IAAPA North America in 2025, 2026. Obviously, if this is just North America, but there's lots of different events you can't see this slide very well. I'll be honest. You can't see it very well on the screen. So if you're just listening, it's all right. You're not missing a whole lot. But we do have a number of things coming up. Specifically, morgan's Wonderland in San Antonio is happening next week. I'm flying in Monday, heading out on Wednesday and tour with people who are going to talk a little bit more about the mentality behind what they've done there. So anyway, that is Morgan's Wonderland and that is a little bit going on with IAPA North America, all right.
Speaker 2:So Amusement Expo has also just announced that they are ready for speakers to submit applications. So Amusement Expo if you're not familiar, familiar next year will happen March 16th 19th and um, the education will happen. The 16th 17th trade show happens 18th 19th, right? So that's typically the way it works. But it is ready for you're, ready for a application. So look, if you're a subject matter expert, if you have an idea, anything you want to talk about. This is now the time to reach out to the organizers. They really are interested in learning a little bit more about AI in the amusement industry things like employee evaluations and best practices, promotions and marketing strategies and emerging industry trends. And submissions, they say, should also include a brief bio, what's your suggested session title and summary of the presentation, and the deadline for getting all that stuff in is August 29th, so you have a little bit of time, but they did just open up everything for it right now. If you want to learn more about it or just more about amusement expo in general and you're not familiar with it, you can go to amusementexpoorg it's amusementexpoorg and learna little bit more. There's no speaker fees provided, so, like if you're thinking that you can go and be paid to be a speaker. That's not the way it works for these guys, for these things. It doesn't work that way for IAPA or Bowl Expo or anywhere you want to speak typically, unless you're one of their main keynotes or something that they'll pay you for. Otherwise, if you're just one of their education session speakers, then it is unpaid. But if you want to learn a little bit more about that, go ahead and visit amusementexpoorg.
Speaker 2:All right, next up we've got a Lego group, so the Lego land and the Lego group is inviting families from Save the Children to a day full of play in Lego land. All right, so what does that actually look like? So, every weekend over the last, uh, the last month or so from may, and then this is the last weekend it goes through June 8th. So by the time you're listening to this, it's over right, but I'm recording this a couple of days in advance. So there you go. So this this last weekend, I guess, um, you know they. They were basically celebrating what they say creativity, fun and imagination.
Speaker 2:They obviously have all the great stuff that goes on at Legoland already happening, but basically, when they've got a special festival right now they just call basically the Lego festival. That's what's been happening for the last six weeks, and when guests participate in the festival they're invited to make a play pact. And this play pact is basically, I guess, a playful promise, they say that turns into a donation that gives children in vulnerable positions an unforgettable day in Legoland with everything paid for. So how do you participate? If you're at the exit of the park, guests can press a special play pact button. The symbolic press goes to save the children's work for children in vulnerable positions and ensures that these children can have a day of Lego land with their families. So this comes from a big initiative that has an existing partnership between Lego Group's social responsibility team and Save the Children. The day is, you know again, basically free for all the participants. So, like, if you're leaving, if you're one of the guests and you're heading out, you hit that play pack button. You aren't actually donating anything, but ultimately the Lego group is and putting it towards this event. The special family day in Legoland will take place later this year and will be coordinated with Save the Children. So there's not a specific date identified yet. But basically, you know, this is something that they like to do and it's specifically for children in vulnerable positions in Denmark. So this is using the Save the Children group in Denmark. Obviously, there's Save the Children groups around the world, but this one happens to be in Denmark. Anyway, I just bring this up because you know, obviously it's over and it's passed, but these are cool initiatives and things that we should be trying to do in our local communities, ways to give back in the communities or other organizations.
Speaker 2:Iapa has had a long time this program called Passport. That's their Passport program with Give Kids the World and they basically, if you have an FEC or you have an attraction or a theme park or a water park or a museum or whatever it is, like any of the constituents within IAAPA, you can actually provide free admission to anybody who has visited and who has stayed at Give Kids the World and so basically you know kids that are in those similar type of vulnerable positions. You can basically say, hey, yeah, well, you know, if anybody comes in and they show that they've stayed at Give Kids the World, then you get a free pass. So that's one really easy way to do something that doesn't even require anything extra work or other things that you have in your community, something you can just do right now through IAPA. That exists. It's a program that you can sign up for there, and so I'm sure if you just Googled IAPA passport, give kids the world or something like that, it'd be just fine. So, anyway, these are just great initiatives, things to give back to the community, that I'm sure many of you who listen to this already doing things in your community. But just one more cool little idea, very symbolic big button. It gives people, your guests, the ability to feel like they're engaged in what you're already doing within your community, so it gives them a connectivity to it as well. So, all right, good for you, lego Group, and good on you, legoland, all right.
Speaker 2:Last thing on news you should know is just a little update on Area 15 and their expansion. So it's coming hot and heavy here towards the end of their first expansion. This is a 20-acre expansion and it's going to open August of 2025. Now, originally they were talking about this opening in the fall of 25. So it looks like things are getting really ramping up here. They're dubbing this expansion zoned to the terminals and it includes eight buildings with a total of 300,000 square feet of retail, entertainment and F&B experiences.
Speaker 2:I'll touch on a few of those in a little bit, but one of the things that it includes is Burning Man's famous Boeing 747, which has now been installed and is being transformed into an event and nightlife venue. So you can see, here it's been installed. Obviously it's not super alluring yet, but this is this next slide. Here is a artist rendering of what they expect the venue to look like once it's fully up and running. The Boeing is like 150 feet in length, 60 feet in width. The Boeing is like 150 feet in length, 60 feet in width, and it's going to ultimately the whole fuselage is going to anchor the open air collection of art installations that Area 15 is going to be putting into this area. So when this initial expansion is done and ready to open in August, it's going to include 60 sculptures and 30 murals in this open air art collection as well. So pretty significant and, for those of you who aren't sure or weren't aware, like Area 15 really just started out as a 200,000-square-foot building for immersive experiences, and so now, between that initial building and parking spaces and now the additional 300,000-square-foot expansion and the open-air art installation, it would be about a total of 40 acres. This is just a start though, because they have here. We'll flip back here and make this a little bigger so you guys can see it, but ultimately they have.
Speaker 2:Obviously, area 15 was opened in 2020, district 2 is opening in August, and then they have their Districts 3, 4, and 5, which are about another. Between all of them, about another 40 plus acres and change so close to about 45 acres in an additional expansion beyond the 40 acres that they're currently on, you know, between District 2 and Area 15. So lots of expansion still coming. You know many, many things in play there, but what's open in District 2 so far is, or what's going to be open, included. Obviously we've talked about this Universal's Halloween Horror Night, so a year round Halloween horror experience and you know there's going to be 400 houses for immersive areas for live entertainment in there, and then the Museum of Ice Cream is planning to go in there. They're also doing another big flagship for Interstellar Arc by Felix and Paul Studios. It's basically their leader and pioneer in creating, producing virtual, augmented and mixed reality experiences. So this is supposed to be like a fully immersive, a mixed reality experience. So I think I'm going to wear a headset and then have this deeper experience there anyway. So this is about $161 million expansion that's been financed by the Fisher Brothers, and so obviously it's been a long time coming and excited to see what this is going to be like when it opens.
Speaker 2:And we were talking about Amusement Expo That'll be in Vegas next year. So get a chance. If you're not going to get to Vegas between August and Amusement Expo in March, well, you at least have your chance to check it out at Amusement Expo. All right, that wraps up our news. You should know Intercard is the only cashless system designed, developed and manufactured all under one roof. They introduced cashless technology to the amusement industry and have been leading the way for over 30 years. Cashless system from Intercard increase customer spending, guest satisfaction and boost revenues by up to 30%. Intercard is so proud to be serving the amusement industry and if you aren't already part of their global family of customers, they hope you will become one soon. All right, coming up next. Right now we've got Open and Shut with Kevin Williams.
Speaker 3:Let's roll. Hey, big hello and welcome to Open and Shut. This one is equally as crowded as the other ones, though the direction is interesting, where we're seeing some of the trends going. But it's still a crowded market with some interesting closings at the end. But let's get straight into it, shall we? So, as always, pause the video if I go through too fast, and welcome to the recurring gender part of our presentations. Another facility opening up. This one is heavy on the capsules, along with the cranes and the amusement. One of the aspects that I'm noticing is that they are now applying a colouring process to their brand, so it is easy from a distance to see how much of the entertainment aspects that these facilities have. So they're keeping relevant with core branding and we see a new entry from.
Speaker 3:Genda into the sector, entry from gender into the sector. We reported recently their partnership with a karaoke operator company that they had brought into the fold and we get to see the fruits of their labor with a brand new concept facility opening called vising.
Speaker 2:V-Sing maybe, yeah, probably V-Sing.
Speaker 3:V-Sing. I think this is not the first time that we've seen karaoke turned into competitive, socialising or social engagement. The key elements here are a performing stage, a high level of hospitality, lots of cocktails from the audience surrounding the stage and a voting app system so people can actually vote on who they think are the popular singers or give their opinions through an app. It is a nice package. From the video, I think it's an interesting concept. We will see how it does with the first Tokyo facility opening. I can point to two other competitive, socializing style karaoke venues that have opened up one in London and, funny enough, one in New York that went through a troubled birthing and haven't really rolled out. So we're hoping that this Genda version of it hits the right note, part by part.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, the guys at Genda are just opening things at a blistering pace. It's absolutely wild to see the various concepts and also just the repeated concepts they just keep pounding open every single week.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they have an agenda to try and establish and call product brands. They have focused very heavily on trying to sort out the Geico package to make that relevant for both international and home territory application. This is in their competitive socializing. They also have another competitive socializing concept and we are waiting to hear about a brand new mixed-use leisure entertainment concept that they're working on, which we're not meant to know about. But again, these are the developments that if you want to stay relevant in the market you have to diversify to this level.
Speaker 3:Moving on and we come to what I would call retail attainment. Our friends at the NBA have been merchandising their property across a number of brand applications and we see the first of their MBA stores opening. It is a retail environment, lots of merch, lots of specialized products, but also there's entertainment. There are interactive entertainment, engagements there, gamified elements. So turning this into a retail attainment experience 20,000. It is very reminiscent of what we saw with the Nike store in Chicago, which also had a level of gamification in it.
Speaker 3:I would argue this is very similar to what we were discussing previously from what we've seen from Sega with their type of event, and I I would even hazard a suggestion and say that this is also in the Namco. Cross-store Retail attainment is going to be a component of the future of the retail experience, but it is a double-edged sword. You have to be mindful that also the NBA experience that opened up in Orlando suffered a very painful 12 months before it was closed down. So sometimes you have to work out what is the level of entertainment and what level of retail experience that you're trying to achieve. But again, it's interesting to see how it's out again to see how it's out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is. Do we know? Is this a separate developer licensing the NBA brand? Or is this actually, you know, nba coming out and trying to test with their own, their own retail attainment concept? We don't know this, right.
Speaker 3:No, we don't know at this moment. Okay, hopefully, once we find out if someone has purchased the IP and is rolling this out as so, hopefully, once we find out if someone has purchased the IP and is rolling this out as an ongoing, or whether this is part of the NBA corporate, then it will give us a better idea of how much they're prepared to stand by.
Speaker 3:We haven't got any reports on the next facility. So the New Jersey is the first one and it's quite a large one, 20,000 square. So it is reminiscent of what we saw with the NBA experience that Disney tried to develop. Moving on and we have Hawkins Theatre is a chain of movie theatres and they have opened their first Hawkins Backlot, which is this entertainment venue, arizona, 75,000 square. So it is quite a large mixture of bowling, arcades, attractions, darts, supported with F&B and screening rooms. No slouch here, but I would argue this is the first of what will be a rollout of a number of backlot concepts, once they have proven that this one is a winner. Hawkins Theatres have quite a few facilities dotted around that particular region and a lot of opportunity for them to build upon interest in cinetainment, as it were, and to jump into the crowded waters along with Evo and Cineplex and all of the other companies that are developing a chain of entertainment operations that are companions to their theater business.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, this has been a long time coming. Obviously, harkins is local to the Phoenix market. I grew up going to Harkins theaters and they were really the main dominant theater player for a long time, but they really began to fall by the wayside, obviously, as things like Fat Cats came into the market and then other more boutique theaters that offer the sit down eating as well, and so they struggled to keep up. They were just really the big stadium style sitting theaters, and so it's good to see that they're finally finally moving forward. The Backlot, I think, has been on the docket for like three years. They've been talking about this, and so it's good to see it's finally open. The problem that they run into, I think, is that majority of their Harkins theaters just don't have a lot of extra space next to it or nearby that they can take over, so they have to rip out. Theaters do lots of leveling and construction involved in that change, and so it is not a simple thing to simply convert existing theaters to mixed use entertainment.
Speaker 3:This isn't a simple promotion process. You're quite right. This was first announced in 2022. I think that rendering that I'm using here is from it is still happening on their website. Oh dear, it isn't easy to parachute in a location-based entertainment components to an existing theater operation and also it's difficult to cannibalize your existing business to go through the building process. So it's swings and arrows. I would argue that they need to do this to stay relevant, but again, until we've been inside the backlog, we need to see how relevant this is or if they've just gone for the spaghetti moment regarding adding as much entertainment as possible.
Speaker 3:Gashapo I have been talking about the capsule vending revolution same time as the new wave crane machine revolution that's been sweeping North America. The Gashapo side takes a new step forwards, with our friends at Bandai Namco partnering with Happinet, our friends at Bandai Namco partnering with Happinet, who operate about 137 of their own unique capsule stores. Now they've partnered towards bringing over the Gashapon Bandai chain of operations. They've opened their first one in Texas good old Texas and I think this is part of quite a considerable rollout. I wouldn't be surprised also if this relationship doesn't see the upscaling of existing capsule venues to this level of engagement. I am going to move away a little bit from getting too much in the weeds of covering the gashapon business. It's really Vendertainment and it's not my core focus, but I think it's important to see that our friends at Bandai Namco are focusing on expanding this part of their business, along with their Namco cross stores, along with their other amusement entrants, along with their other amusement entrants Carrying on the baseball. And we come to our friends at Continue this is a topic that we'll be touching upon in Sound On, which is the next generation of entertainment venue.
Speaker 3:Well, not next generation, but apply to the business operation, which is free play amusement sites. So our company here in the UK, torton, have found a retail unit, stripped it, populated it with amusement machines and they charge an entry price and you play on all the games for as long as your entrance ticket allows. Again, we're not quite sure how they're monitoring this ticket. Are they giving you a swipe card that allows you to play on everything for free for a period of time? Are they operating the machines? Are they throwing people out? Are they not throwing people out? Whatever the operation, they're going for a free play model. This is now their second facility in this chain and they're hoping to roll out as many of these sites as possible. This is an arcade running on free play, and that brings a lot of questions to the table about the value of the business.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the one thing I'll just quickly share here, because I thought this was interesting on their site is that they actually post the. So this is, you know, continue Retro Gaming Lounge. They actually post the high score. So if you'd send, if you send your selfie as proof and the number one and you basically use to send a selfie of yourself, then they will actually post your name and your score on their website. So this is the first time I've seen this come across. I'm sure it's not new, but it's a unique approach to building a little bit of a community around their arcade.
Speaker 3:It's a good idea, it's a strong community and, as you say, it's social media, so it does build up a competition amongst the audience. I've always wanted to do that automatically through the machines. There's a system that I've been looking at for a particular project we're working on where it will do this. You know, very similar to how your laptop works with the laptop camera and all of that. But again, kudos for them for actually applying this and we hope to see some record scores up there. Moving on.
Speaker 3:And our friends Game Town, part of Game City and the other quite large European chain of what I would say upscale arcade facilities city arcades. They announced their first location in Denmark. It is an important move for them to roll this chain out to as many capitals as possible. They have about 50 venues in their operation. They have multiple versions of this. They have a relationship that we've touched upon in the past with Centre Parks, where they've actually dropped arcade experiences into the resort facility.
Speaker 3:But again we are looking at the next stage of amusement application, which is a much more comfortable, much more socially engaging environment compared to what we are normally used to, with the traditional arcade city arcade operation jumping in, and this is one that we've talked about in the past Fidi, which I keep on reading as Freddy, but Fidi, diner and Arcade. It's a Japanese operation, but mimicking a 1950s diner approach, highly themed, very attractive. When I last talked about the first opening of these facilities, you got the thumbs up from all of us as bringing something unique and colorful to the table. So much so that they're now opening their second facility in the chain, again in Tokyo, and there are rumors that they have quite an ambitious rollout plan for further venues.
Speaker 2:And this is part of the Aeon Fantasy build-out as well. So this is like some of the F&B components of their larger fantasy rollout. Is that correct?
Speaker 3:That's how I read it yes, yeah, okay, so it's a larger chain that already has a presence in the territory and this is one of their new concepts. They also have another concept aimed at a younger playing audience, again very heavily coloured, very heavily stylised, I think, very attractive. It reminds me of Ed's. If anyone has spent time in the UK, in London there's the Ed's Diner, which is also part of, I think, a large chain which offers a 1950s diner environment burgers, the unique condiments containers and Elvis Presley constantly blaring out of the Muzak systems. But this definitely takes it to a new level.
Speaker 3:And then we have Flight Club. Our friends are opening up their latest North American facility, 7,000 Square. They're pivoting slightly. I'm noticing from the design layout and the way that they're handling their decor that they're going for both the player bays, but they're also going for semi-private hire bays for groups. So they're really that kind of guest experience. We're up to 27 facilities now internationally and the company looks like it's on a roll or on a throw. I should say. If we're talking about darts, they're not the only game in town now. So again, they're trying to grab the high ground before they have to compete too heavily with competition. Then we jump into the shuts and we have another one of those facilities that seems to have been going forever Solvay, let's see their alley's been going for over 100 years now in business. The current owners have had it since the 50s. The issues here are that, due to ill health with the current owners, they're moving on owners that they're moving on.
Speaker 2:Uh, it's only 14 lanes um, so it's expanded to 40. Uh, full 14. Yeah, it was six and then it was 14.
Speaker 3:It was a big expansion, yeah, and I'm sure it was. It wasn't cheap either. Uh, because it's gravity, uh bowling system and you know, expanding those puppies you need to have an iron degree or metallurgy degree. The issue is here. It is clearly a community bowling environment. It doesn't have a website. It is purely a labor of love and, sadly, the individuals that love it are now having to move on due to the current situations.
Speaker 3:It and now having to move on due to the current situations. Whether someone else is going to come along and look at this as an opportunity or as a going concern or, more likely, this facility will close down and then someone will build a more purpose-focused community bowling system with the latest tech and without the hurdles of having to embrace an over 50-year-old gravity bowling system, is up for debate. I just wish the current owners the best of health moving forwards and I hope the community finds a solution for what must be a well-loved icon in the area. Well-loved icon in the area, a lovely well, not so lovely, but a tantalising glimpse at the problems and the issues. Not in California, the Portland facility has been only open for just over 12 months.
Speaker 3:It started as a free play arcade, a labor of love by a local man who decided he wanted to get into the amusement sector and open a facility, populated it with machines, found the right building, marketed, promoted, opened the doors and has not generated the audience take-through that he needs to continue, and so has had to throw his hands up and is in the process of closing down. The snapshot he gave us was that he needed 500 pounds a day to keep this facility operation, and the only thing that he was generating was, at best he was generating about 200.
Speaker 2:And just to be clear, he needed that on just the weekends even, right yeah.
Speaker 3:So a day over the weekends, even right, just the weekends. Yeah, so a day over the weekends which would be treated as the most you know best opportunity days of your business. You know Mondays and Wednesdays are going to be dead and the rest of the time you're going to crawl through on hands and knees through broken glass. Just because you built it doesn't mean they'll come number one. Just because you're passionate about it doesn't mean you should do it number two and number three it is clear that no sanity check was given to this concept. No one from the industry or with experience in the market was involved in this, and it is also a poster boy example of the difficulties of running free play amusement machines. But again, I don't want to get too ahead of ourselves because we're going to be going into this in a little bit more detail regarding the dangers, the pitfalls and the opportunities of free play operation in the coming sound off.
Speaker 2:Yeah, one thing I'll just mention about this specific venue. We're not going to talk necessarily.
Speaker 2:I won't go into the free play dangers that you mentioned or alluded to, but this specific site only had 27 games as part of the free play model and look, I mean that's fine, I guess it's a pretty small arcade if you were a part of the play model and, look, I mean that's fine, um, I guess, if it's like it's a very, pretty small arcade if you were a part of something else and then if you're completely standalone, that's a really small arcade. And so your dwell time, I just don't know. You know he had three hour sessions available for you know. One hour sessions for 10 pounds. Three hour sessions for 27 games for three hours.
Speaker 2:I don't know who's going to be there for for three hours, for you know, with 27 games especially if you're having to wait for multiple games, because there you might have a number of people there, and then the F and B was just light, whatever you could. You know snacks like prepackaged snacks, and drinks out of the counter and vending basically, you know essentially vending snacks, and so you're not going to get people sitting around having food while they're also burning their three-hour playtime either. And so it's very clear why this specific location struggled.
Speaker 3:It's clear and it's not hindsight. It's not 2020. You know, if I had been given this proposal at the beginning, we would have listed quite a few of these points and some other points that weren't touched upon in the article. The locality was an issue. I didn't even look at the selection of machines, but again, I'm sure that they were picked because they were popular for the owner. More than that, they were suitable for the target audience. Either way, it is a very salutary lesson regarding, you know, trying not to make these projects a labor of love but make them a labor of business. But even the big boys can make mistakes. But even the big boys can make mistakes.
Speaker 3:Uh and our friends at mcdonald's have decided that their brand new concept, which they rolled out in 2023, their cosmic uh facility, which is was a small operation, fast food and heavy on unique beverage and ice cream operation finally they got their ice cream machines to work has been cancelled. The project they started to open a number of these facilities. They had started also to look at specialist construction, because these are very small and very unique build sites and it looked like they had been developed for automation. So this could have been a unique opportunity for McDonald's to have changed their fast restaurant model. Either way, the company has seen a downturn in its core business and has decided to, because of the situation of the economy, to step back and to focus on its core business. And has decided to, because of the situation of the economy, to step back and to focus on its core business, and the victim of that has been this particular project.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this one is, frankly, not surprising. We're talking about this on one of the LBX Daily shows one of our first LBX Daily shows, talking about Cosmix. When they were first opening and looking at their food menu definitely snacky type food, more than just snacky dessert food, more than like actual substantive meals. You wouldn't go there for lunch or for dinner or even for breakfast. Frankly, you would go there for your quick bites, things to eat on the road.
Speaker 3:Eat on the road, move through fast, uh, but also had specialist drinks, which they felt from their studies and their research that the drinks aspect was going to be as popular, uh, as the snack foods as they were offering, uh, they learned a painful lesson and, like all corporations, they experimented with it and then they've decided to cast it aside when the going gets tough, moving away from, shall we say, the food and the facility business to the media side of the business. The latest virtual reality B2C news media site, mixed, is an interesting site run by a German group. It has been acquired by another media online service that will keep the archive and stop the news reporting side of the operation. The reason I bring this up is it is a previous home for the Virtual Arena service, which you can get through the LBX now, but we used to do the Virtual Arena through this service and I wanted to bring this up because it is interesting to show how the changing in the algorithms and the search applications going across the internet over the last two years has decimated news feed and how it's important to be mindful of where you get your information from, not from an AI source, but also that you're mindful that it is becoming an endangered species Available research news out there, and you need to hold onto this with both hands.
Speaker 3:You would expect me to say that, but I am very mindful that a number of the services that I have written for over the years, especially on the online side, have ceased to exist because it has proven too difficult for them to continue to support free and independent news coverage without some advertorial level. And when they're gone, they're gone. Their archives disappear, and I'm grateful to the LBX community to keep our archives going and to share that information, even though the algorithms seem to be pushing against it and even though the AI tools seem to be stripping all the data from our archives. And while we're talking about that, for all of you that haven't signed up for the newsletter or the news resource, there is the URL that you should be mindful of on a regular basis.
Speaker 3:We have a brand new stinger coming out and we're now supporting this with the entertainment social arena newsletter, as well you can listen to the audio or you can read it if you're old school, but I just wanted to make that clear that use this information while you can.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I will say the archive the Singer Report archive and the archives of the virtual arenas and entertainment social arenas that we've published on the LBX Collective site isn't going anywhere. So if you want to go to lbxcollectivecom and obviously subscribe or just read or listen to any of those publications, they will always be there for you. But yeah, we don't need to go into or talk about the issues that news publications and news media are going to have in the future with the shift in AI-generated news summaries, but it definitely is going to change the future business model if these news stations and news media want to continue to remain viable and if they haven't sorted themselves to be independent of these vagaries.
Speaker 3:You know we can see these storms coming and we have prepared ourselves. We hope to be fully supported and independent of this. But advertorial is something that I'm seeing more and more as a danger regarding the media, and sadly, according to some of our well-placed sources, we're due to see another shake-up in the trade media coverage for our sector. So this is difficult times for some, indeed Anyway that's it from me.
Speaker 2:All right, excellent, well, another great opening shot, kevin, see you on the next one.
Speaker 1:See you on the next one. To help brands like yours stand out, radius can boost your foot traffic and build a loyal customer base. Plus, they're offering a complimentary local market analysis to show you exactly how they can help you grow Curious, visit Radiusco and ask about your free market analysis. That's R-A-Y-D-I-U-S dot C-O.
Speaker 2:All right, well, coming up next, we've got Adam Pratt with Arcade Corner, and I'm super excited to see more about this Harry Potter pinball machine, and so let's get rolling.
Speaker 4:Hey everyone, it's Adam with Arcade Heroes for the Arcade Corner here at the LBX Collective and we've had a busy start to June, and well, I guess busy end to May, busy start to June is probably a better way to say it. But I've got plenty to cover here, so let me just get started. I'm going to be showing some videos, since that's where they mostly apply to just keeping the volume down so as to not get dinged by certain things that go after copyright, even though this should be fair use. But this first video is of alpha opsps VR Strike by 3MindWave and being released here in the West through Sega Amusements and Kaizen Entertainment. Now this game was shown at the Asia Amusements and Attractions Expo in China back in May with a different cabinet design. However, that is being handled by Wallop and that's just for the China market there. But the gameplay, as far as I'm aware, is all exactly the same. But overall, the look of this one is pretty similar to what we had seen at IAPA. There have been some enhancements and such to the software and it's definitely running smooth as butter. Uh, but uh, this one is actually going to start shipping out in July. It originally was going to be shipping in May. Um, but due to the uh, the trade issues call them that, it did get delayed. But this trailer was just posted to Sega's YouTube channel and so you can check it out there with sound if you'd like. I will double check and see if they might have bumped up the release, just because usually when Sega posts something on their YouTube channel then that means they're releasing something pretty quickly. But at least last time I had asked, it said it was July. I don't know what the price is on that one. Of course, always ask your distributor on it. I think I did remember hearing somewhere in the neighborhood of 30k. But, yeah, just ask your distributor.
Speaker 4:And next up is a big surprise, or not? Okay, sorry, let me rephrase that or just delete that from the record, strike it from the record. But finally, after way too long of a tease and I'm guessing it's just because of the licensing that was behind this but jersey jack pinball finally revealed harry potter, which they've been doing for. Uh, you know they've been teasing this for a very, very long time and of course, I guess the rumors on it have been going for many years, but they didn't officially confirm it until earlier this year. But generally speaking, once a confirmation comes along, you tend to get all of the official info soon afterwards Maybe just one or two teases, not dozens, and so there's lots of jokes happening of people saying this is teaser 10, only 29 more to go and then we're going to get there. But it didn't go that extreme.
Speaker 4:But there's a really well done trailer for a promotional trailer that Jersey Jack did. That's on YouTube that you can find. That's like the most money that I've seen any pinball company put into a trailer. The video that I have on my screen right here for those that are listening, is of the gameplay, although, as I'm saying this, there's not really anything going on except for the lighting effects. But it's a very impressive looking machine and they put a lot into it. I think that, for anybody who is a Harry Potter fan, that you're going to be pleased with it.
Speaker 4:Of course, the question for us operators is will this make money? Sometimes, yes, these games, depending on the design, depending on the IP that's being used and how the theme is applied, they do exceptionally well for pinball. But there are a lot of instances where now, I've invested in a lot of different pinball machines over the years and most of the time there's no difference, and so, like they'll do fine for the first year or so and then they drop off to some other rate. But could Harry Potter buck the trend? You know, like I know, godzilla and Cactus Canyon Remake are two games that I've heard from different operators that buck the trend. Could Harry Potter do that Possibly? I mean, I can't say for sure until I play it and until I hear other operators talking about it, but you know, it certainly looks to fit with. Like they've applied the theme, they've applied the license exceptionally well, and so there's there's that just the other problem that I have with pinball and this is regardless of the company these days, because pinball is all pretty pricey now and this was before any tariffs or anything is that the, you know, inflation had been driving things up, because when I got started in this business a pro model was around $5,000. Now pros are sometimes 7,000, but can even get up to 8,000, which is where premiums used to start at.
Speaker 4:For Jersey Jack, yeah, they've always had higher prices because they've put more into their machines, but I would say, or the um, the arcade edition that they're calling it now. I mean, jersey Jack has gone through different names over the years, but they've decided that they'll use Arcade Edition for their lowest tier. That one is $10,000. And that's hard to ask for on a pinball machine when there's no earnings. And then that's another frustrating thing when it comes to pinball in general is that they just never share earnings. They don't do location testing, they don't do earnings testing or anything like that, and maybe it's because all the pinball companies feel embarrassed or they know that these things don't perform really well, or that the places where they would perform well are not indicative of how they'd perform everywhere else. I don't know.
Speaker 4:But still, as an operator, for me, when you're asking me to spend $10,000 on anything, I need to know what its ROI is going to be. And if the ROI is going to be a decade, that's not something that I'm really going to be interested in buying. I'm going to want to go and buy something else. Of course, again, that might be why they don't want to advertise that stuff, but if it does do exceptionally well and roi is, say, a year or two, then I think you would want to advertise that. All right, uh.
Speaker 4:And then, last but not least, uh, fine, another thing that's been teasing for a while, since really it was released back in the beginning of 2024, was that rothrills had been promising since they released Godzilla Kaiju Wars VR, that it was going to have a total of five levels, but when it came out it only had two. Now, even with only two levels, by every indication I've heard that it's outperformed expectations, that it's one of the top earning games in the industry. It's certainly the best earning VR game that's been out there, but a lot of operators have been asking me over and over and over again when is the update coming? When is it coming? When is it coming? Have you heard anything yet? And for the longest time I've had to say sorry, not really.
Speaker 4:Or for a time around IAPA 2024, Rothreals did show off the software and they were saying, oh, it should be soon. But I think through testing, they decided to keep tweaking it and polishing it until they got it to a level where they felt that it was absolutely right. And, of course, if you've played Godzilla Kaiju Wars VR, you know it's an intense game, lots of fun, one of the most over the top shooters that's out there, and I think Rothfield's really nailed it there. For those that are watching this, this footage here is from Amusement Expo 2025, which also was I don't know that it was this is all 100% the software that has ended up being released. I think that there was still some more polishing that they put into it, but still should be close enough. But they've changed the scoring. They've added, not just brought it up to five levels, but it's now six. There's a final battle where you fight off all the different bosses and, from what I was told, that Amusement Expo is the most challenging piece of software that Rothwell's has ever produced, that even their QA guys had a difficult time getting it, and I wouldn't be surprised if they might have toned that down because it's like maybe this is too much, but either way, that is available now for free.
Speaker 4:So if you already have a Godzilla Kaiju Wars VR system, contact your distributor. You can get the update and it will improve not just the. It won't just add content, it improves the game. It adds some fixes and polish also to the headset calibration so that it doesn't have some of the problems that have been encountered out there. And then I also, since we're mentioning raw thrills, I'd also point out that the Top Gun, maverick, has been released. It is shipping, and so if you have been wanting to get your hands on that one. You can now. If you've already placed your order, then you probably already have it. But if you've been kind of waiting to see, then because Dave and Buster's got it first as a timed exclusive. But those are shipping. But that gets you up to date and up to speed with what's going on in the arcade industry for this week. Thank you for watching and we'll catch you next time. Are uh?
Speaker 2:okay, sorry, oh my gosh, all right. Well, uh, my computer is uh moving a little bit slow, so sorry about all that in the background. Anyway, um, yeah, for those of you who have not watched and probably haven't, because you're just maybe hearing about it for the first time on the show, the harry potter, uh trailer for the jersey Jack pinball. It is actually really good. I thought about playing it it's about two minutes long playing it on here but then I was like, well, people who are listening to it may not find it as interesting, but, yeah, absolutely a big fan of this and yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker 2:I do like the way that Jersey Jack has repriced their, or basically the pricing structures that they have. They have their collector's edition, they have the regular edition and they have their arcade edition, and all basically declining in some features some extra add-ons, some marquee components that go on the top, as well as then, obviously, some gameplay and some other things, but basically the collector's edition being the most expensive and then the arcade edition meant to be the one that's going to get banged on, played the most, et cetera, et cetera. So I wish that I had space for for some pinball. There's a number of different pinball machines that I would love to have.
Speaker 2:It's one of my favorite things that to play is pinball. Actually, I'm not great at it, so I'm not super good, but definitely do enjoy my share of pinball. All right, well, we have some promo pro tips coming up here and I was hoping that the bumper I was hoping that I could kill enough time here that the bumper for promo pro tips would upload because it didn't get captured on Chuck's original thing. So since it's still taking its sweet ass time uploading here, then I will just go ahead and stop wasting everybody else's time and roll right into Chuck's without the little bumper. So I apologize for that. Guys, here we go, maybe.
Speaker 1:Maybe, maybe, maybe. When you're hiring a marketing agency, working with a marketing partner or even an internal team member, marketing member so the first thing is they are generalists. Right Now, a lot of people, when you're either going to hire if you don't have a budget, or even us growing this marketing company, we were generalists at first. Okay, uh, it's not necessarily a bad thing for all situations, but, as an established location-based entertainment brand, I think would benefit you to have an expert in these areas. Okay, um, you know, and now you can have expertise in a few different things. For us, not only do we only service location-based entertainment brands, so we decided to be experts in that industry. We're also experts in the strategies we execute. So you could, however, have an expert in, let's say, just Google Ads or just Facebook Ads, and they do Google Ads across all different industries, but they know Google Ads really well. Now, I would argue there's still even a lot of differences there. I don't necessarily love that, okay, but they might have so much experience doing that strategy that they've seen all the things Right. But you know, for example, you know, one time we were doing Google ads for lead generation for a specific industry and we just were not getting results Right. I found somebody to come in and consult us who literally does lead, who did lead generation, just for that industry specific, and the next day they were getting results Right. So, although I was unbelievably and still I'm unbelievably confident with you know how much we know about Google ads for this particular industry we were not able to drive the results. We used to know the little nuances that you should know. Okay, so you know, having an expert in these areas is is really important and really valuable, Right, you know so often said, like you know, you get what you pay for, right, so a lot of times the extra money that it's going to cost to get this specialist is going to be worth it. They're going to help you drive the results. Okay, so that's red flag number one they're a generalist and they don't necessarily have expertise in the industry or specific strategy you're trying to do. Number two they are terrible at communication. Okay, you know they don't respond to emails. Well, sms, you don't know what's going on. There's no communication about tasks that have been done, where your strategies are at, how are they, you know, producing results and all that other stuff. Okay, you know our clients email us, text us, email, call us, right. So we're very much available, okay. Now, if it's an internal marketing person, that's different. You know it's very important to know, like you should know, the difference between internal marketing and a marketing agency or more. Or you know, freelancer or something like that. There you know the the agency or freelancer is not going to be available 24 seven. Okay, that's not realistic. They're going to have other clients, they, you know they got other things going on, okay, but they shouldn't be decently available. You with you, okay.
Speaker 1:Next thing is reporting. So we are huge on reporting. We want you to know the results that we're driving, how we improving, right, if you, what you measure, you can improve and work on right. And how do you know, uh, what's working and what's not, if you're not reporting it? So we do very in-depth reporting month in and month out. They should be doing that as well and providing that to you, right, if you feel like you know you're not getting the right reporting or you're still unclear with the results, that it's you know driving, you know that's a problem, right? So reporting is really, really important. Make sure that you're reporting.
Speaker 1:And then the last thing is track record. So you know I don't need somebody or you don't necessarily need somebody to have all these million case studies and all these different things, but you should be able to tell just by speaking with them. They have experience and they have a track record of doing this and they know the little nuances and like um, just little things of of what success would look like on a certain strategy or within a certain industry. They just you could tell by speaking with them. They know what they're talking about. Okay, and so that goes to their track record, right? So, um, you know, have they done this before? Have they, you know, run these type of strategies before? What is their experience with those strategies? So all of that, you know, is really, really important. So, again, if you're going to be looking for a marketing partner, and or if you have one already, if they have issues in one of these areas, might be time to think about finding somebody new. Hopefully that helps you.
Speaker 2:Thank you card, increase customer spending, guest satisfaction and boost revenues by up to 30%. Intercard is so proud to be serving the amusement industry and if you aren't already part of their global family of customers, they hope you will become one soon. All right, well, we got the bumper at the end, so that uploaded just fine. So there you go. You had it All right, okay, all right, well, that wraps up our show for this week.
Speaker 2:Just as a quick reminder, we've got SoundOff number 77 with Kevin Williams coming out on Tuesday, june 10th. So just a couple of days. Another great SoundOff there, and there's also a new virtual arena coming out this next week as well. So last week we introduced the new publication. Last two weeks a new publication, entertainment Social Arena, that Kevin has written. Issues number one and number two are out. You can definitely subscribe to those or grab those on our website at lbxcollectivecom, or you can then subscribe and then you'll get any of the future things, including the virtual arena that comes out this next week. So all right, well, that is a wrap for this week's LBX Show. This is Brandon Wiley signing off. Stay tuned and keep kicking ass.
