How about this, has anyone ever washed their underwear in their dishwasher?

Only if there's Carcass playin. If not I just hand wash in sink.

I was thinking STAR WASH.

Back on topic...I am first and foremost a JJP fanboy but Stern making games essentially alone for over 10 years kept the new pinball industry alive and led to the reinvigoration we are now seeing. And they have made some fantastic games in the process. Every manufacturer has their amazing games and their turds but I am very enthusiastic about the future of pinball. There are some great games coming out from multiple manufacturers and the number of collectors is rapidly growing. I thought TNA looked lame but now I'm afraid to play it as I might end up loving it. I think it will succeed where Whoa Nellie failed. Alice Cooper seems promising too. The Big Lebowski and Alien appear like they could be great games and hopefully their manufacturers get things together. Aerosmith and Star Wars are really fun games. Dialed In! and JJPOTC are some of the best games ever made. It is a great time for pinball and while all of you are part of that, Stern deserves some thanks and respect for what they've done, despite questionable motivation and actions at times. I guess I just don't understand wanting to see any pinball company fail.

Now I'm going to go play my Dialed In!, my GB, my WOZ and my LOTR and dream about my Stern Star Wars and JJPOTC on the way! I hope everyone has a great weekend of pinball!

I don't think many people want stern to fail. We just want them to stop the money grab and put a little more effort in design, manufacturing, quality, software, and value. They are still the largest pinball manufacturer but they are no where the best. Perhaps they don't want to be which will hurt them in the long run.

We don't want Stern to fail. But obviously you have not had a NIB game that you spent hard earned money not work properly. There is no excuse for a nib game to have multiple defects from non working cpu boards to damaged play fields when you ask outrageous prices for your game.

It was developed by Scott, using the P-ROC system. What you're saying is MMr is a Stern game because they assembled it.

Anyway, this isn't something worth arguing about - both Scott and Spooky are great, and I'm super happy Charlie stepped up and brought TNA to the masses. Assigning labels isn't important.

This !

I was a long time Stern NIB buyer, but there is a pattern with them. If they think it will be an instant hit (GoT, SW, BM66) they will just not put in the effort to make it great. Be it the artwork or the game or the software, they just are not passionate about making the best they can. JJP proves this by making some great games that ooze with passion.

Also the fact that I am still waiting on a playfield swap for a ghosted GB does not help. It has been over a year now. I feel treated bad by them and therefore I will not buy again, not even GOTG if they make that even though it is a great theme for me. I gave them my trust too many times already. They do not stand by their product.

I have yet to play a stern game from any era that wasn’t fun, even those not highly rated like wwf, mustang, csi, Wof, etc. the issues I have now and why I am very hesitant to buy a new stern game are the quality of the games and the spike system, which I cannot repair (easily). All games break and I need to be able to repair them myself and quickly. The lack of service rails in pro games, for example, which may seem minor, are actually a big deal to me.

I hope stern is reading this as some suggest they do.

Just say 'NO' 'til 1.0. Make the pledge.

Stern is only worried about future customers, not current/repeat customers. It's obvious. Money talks and when sales start to dip, that's when Stern will listen. Until then, good luck.

Stern does not even read these posts. And even more if they did they could care less about all the money we have spent on their shit product.

With their cost-cutting, poor QA, and abysmal communication Stern has achieved the impossible - brought 300 pinsiders together in harmony!

What are you talking about? You think your MET, ST and Acdc are shit? Really?

I second this. The good news is feedback shows there is interest in Stern's products. I own SM, IMVE, Shrek, POTC, XMLE, Tron, TSPP. I'm obviously interested in their products.

Hopefully they use this as an opportunity to see things from a different perspective.

Just say no till 1.0! Just say no till 1.0! I like that. Wise words from the gentleman above folks. You keep control of the transaction and your money has a power, which isn’t forfeited to Stern, or anyone else for that matter. Or, you can buy and leave it to faith.

So imagine if Stern made dishwashers. They'd be delivered with incomplete firmware, so the rinse cycle might work, but the wash and dry cycle wouldn't. Every few cycles the machine would reset mid cycle. If you were unlucky, the casing might be split on delivery and water would leak all over your kitchen. The stainless steel fascia might start separating after a few weeks, but you'd be told it's "normal". After a 12 month wait, you'd finally get a firmware update and the board that controls the water jets would get fried making the machine unusable. But instead of having a tech sent out to fix it, you'd have to ring customer support and they'd tell you how to open up the machine and fix it yourself. When a new model was released, instead of adding new features to make the customer experience better like most companies do, the Stern dishwasher would remove features - the start button moved to the back, the legs would be cheapened, the dish tray wheels removed.

This post was meant as a joke, but it shows how ridiculous it is that we still buy these games. Hard to imagine any other company delivering a product like this, except maybe extreme boutique products. Yet here we are paying $5000-$10000 for the privilege. And queuing up to do it. Sending in video applications I'm some cases.

Although I agree that their quality has suffered lately...that being said not all their pins are in the category of a "shit" product....MET, ACDC, and LOTR all come to mind....all three incredible games....

Took quite awhile before AcDc and MET code was at the point that made those awesome games they are though. Lots of early purchasers sold them before the code was finished.

I don't have a fancy ass dishwasher, So when the cycle is done I simply open the door, pull the top rack out and over turn over any beer mugs that might have a little water in them. Then unload an hour later. I had no clue people actually expect a small puddle of water to be gone at the end of a cycle, but I also don't feel like spending $3000 on a friggin dishwasher.

I do wash four wheeler and car parts in mine lol.

Wiring harnesses in mine.
A fancy Bosch model is $800 or so. Cheaper Bosch ones are $450-600.
Your cheapo Whirlpool’s and similar plastic tub noisemakers are $200.00-$300.0
They all wash dishes just fine. Kinda like a cargument.

I'm really beginning to feel left out because I don't have dishes.

I do have a plastic spork, if anybody would like to discuss that.

How many tines?

Oh really? Let me just start with Metallica Premium NIB! CPU board not working, separate fuse board NOT working, defective snake mylar, mystery scoop not working, Snake jaw installed wrong, coffin box not working. I am new to pinball and every game so far (4) NIB that I have bought have had some issues. Met Pre being the worst! No, I don't think the game play is shit at all. I think they are great fast playing games, but in my opinion and experience the build quality is far from good. My first game was a Kiss that I got in the early 1990's. This game was USED when I acquired it. I never experienced even remotely close to the many issues with that game as I have with NIB Stern games.

Stern is the Walmart of pinball now. Twelve years ago, I would never make such a statement.

Not me, I am in line for the good stuff.....JJP PoTC

What is GOTG

I've never had issues with NIB Stern's, but I am losing a lot of confidence in their quality and value. I used to be a Stern LE buyer, but my last LE was GB LE and I backed out of a SW LE. The value and quality just isn't there anymore. Look at Star Trek LE, WOW. since then :-/ However, JJP PoTC LE, WOW! Thats where my 2018 pinball dollars are going. Might pickup a Stern SW on the secondary market if code is ever completed and the machine isn't falling apart.

Yes, Bosch is so quiet that is shines a little light on the floor to let you know its running.

It's deeper than that, but I won't bore you with the details.

Guardians of The Galaxy

Thanks for asking!

Mine is rather fancy as it has a total of 5 tines, which provides far superior penetration and stability than a 4 tine spork. This one has three standard tines at the center, and two outwardly curved tines on either side.

Quite a masterful piece of workmanship if you ask me.

EDIT: Never mind, I broke it.

That's just ridiculous and what happened 12 years ago?

you should stick to JJP or CGC pins...their games are built like tanks....although ALL pins have issues eventually....a lot of moving parts

Amen.

game of the greed?

Man your experience is not typical. Sorry the odds worked against you on those somehow and glad you got those good players worked out.

Seems like you would have learned after like the 2nd game you bought. You should switch companies that you are buying your pins from. I heard that Sterns competitors never have any problems at all.

His experience is typical for many, I personally know others that have had issues with just as many games in a row, they don’t go come on pinside to tell, but it’s happening.

And I know alot of people who never have had any NIB problems.

I think the poll in the GOTG thread says a lot, I know the numbers are higher now, but 119 are not buying any more stern games? That really lets you know that Stern has some unhappy customers.

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Not neccessarily, anybody can vote on a poll. They have more unhappy customers than other pinball manufacturers but they also sell far more games than anyone else also so it just stands to reason that's going to happen. Sterns quality isn't where I would like it to be and I won't deny that for a minute, but it's also not nearly as bad as some people let on either. Hopefully they are learning from their mistakes though and striving to be better.

Games not working out of the box, splitting cabinets, ghosting on brand new games what do people "let on" about that? Perception is key and if they are not happy than who are you to down play it? Their QC sucks at best and this is clearly evident. You are obviously a Stern fan boy 119 people speaks volume and they do sell allot more games because they rush them out with unfinished code and lack of QC.

It seems like B/W folks would like Sterns beacuse they enjoy constantly fixing and tweaking their pinball games.

We have a friend in our pinball group with a dozen 90's pins who constantly asks all owners of newer Sterns how much ghosting we have on our PF's and who many other problems we have and thinks Stern sells a crappy product. He was totally fine with buying a 90's pin recently from from a collector who had a DMD problem "that just started the day before you showed up?!" and he spent hours and hours and then more money fixing the issues. He never bad mounted or complained about the seller or anything. He kind of liked the challenge. He would not want to deal with Stern and some Stern buyers would not want to deal with my buddy's issues.

I think we are all "fanboys" of pinball which is crazy within itself.

At least B/W games are fixable! Stern won't give schematics for their lousy Spike system. Even if they did, the soldering skills and equipment many of us have acquired over the years is useless since they're now using tiny, surface-mount components. Not only that, but the Spike node boards are not all interchangeable with other Spike games either. Add to that splitting cabs, crap clearcoat, and incomplete code... I'll stick with 25+year old B/W games--or even better (to me) classic Stern games. Seawitch, 9 Ball, Meteor, Stargazer, etc... Those are the only Stern's i expect to be able to play 20 years from now!

I'd like to see them improve the quality of their games, but until there's any solid evidence that they have, i wouldn't consider a newer Stern and easily understand why others won't either. Why risk it? Even if you get one that has good cosmetics (and stays that way after several hundred games), you're still going to be waiting for the code to be completed. BM66 anyone? I still can't believe they pulled the whole SLE stunt and still haven't completed code on it (or any variation of BM66 for that matter). That alone is enough to make me question their dedication to home buyers. Add in the aforementioned issues, and it's a no-brainer. It's crazy, their games have gotten less reliable, build quality is diminished, and the prices have gone up! Quite a stunt!

In pinball history there must have been some periods of folks saying "the way these games are made they will never last!" issues. I don't know if examples because I haven't been around long enough, but the older games live on. Maybe this was never a question or issue before.

I am a fan of Stern games and i won't deny it. I think they make alot of great games, TWD, GB, AS, GOT, MET, AC/DC, SW, ST, TRON, KISS, etc etc etc. What's not to like about those games? For some odd reason, people fail to hear me when I acknowledge that they have some Quality problems that they need to address and I just don't understand why people are like that. The only thing i am saying is, things are not as bad as what a select few here let on. I have 4 very solid Stern games that are great and I have many friends with Stern games that are great and reliable as well. I have slammed Stern plenty on here believe me, but I look at the whole picture also unlike you do.