IMG_1713 (resized).JPG

All in fun. Hope it turns out well.

He will know very soon.

I wish JJP had got GoT and GB licenses and Stern had done Hobbit and redone PotC.

Since I love Hobbit, I'm very glad Stern did not do Hobbit.

I really haven't had much fun playing WOZ and Hobbit so far, but I try to clear my mind of any preconceived judgments before I play any game. I don't want my views to lock in where they will never change and I have to be stuck on to them or else I will lose or admit I was wrong or something in my mind.

I really never give up in on anything because I may like something later that I am not big on today. Oh my views have changed over the years and will likely change again. When I started I thought I would only buy $2000ish BW games and just cycle through them periodically. Well then IM got a rerun, so I bought that NIB for what I thought was "crazy money!" and I kind of like Sterns better now. I also like 80's Bally's better than 90's BW's now also?! Things change for me and will change again. I could even see selling a couple of my new games for a Bally or two. Who knows? This open minded stuff is all a good thing. It is for me at least.

So I am going to a Buddy's house play DI tonight in a home environment. I will going with an attitude of "what the hell do I know about pinball?" and give it a good shot. Even if I don't like it I am not going to give up on it and never play it again and dig in that JJP games aren't fun.

This all just works for me. Don't take this the wrong way, but - It doesn't seem like a bunch of you are having a super great time explaining "how right" you are about your locked in views on pinball. Well unless PS opinion drama posting is fun for you.

I'm very happy they didn't make the Hobbit.....its a great game....Stern games are VERY low quality compared to JJP or CGC, and their customer service is a distant third compared to the other two companies..

I'll give u collector but not the home buyer or enthusiast, I'm pretty much gonna be sticking with Stern Pro's from now on, 8500 to 10K plus is just too much, I just want to play the game for 3 or 4 months and move on, I stopped collecting because it was ruining pinball for me, like this site could ruin the hobby for someone, you know "ur game sucks, my game is the best" and all that crap, now its like the old days of arcade pinball, go everyday almost and play those 1 or 2 pins and looking forward to when the operator swapped them out for something new, the only thing missing is the thrill of skipping school, oh and the hash bots, memories pressed between the pages of my mind................................

Well said....for myself I am perfectly fine with a $7K game or a $10K game if I know I'm buying quality, and from a company that stands behind its product....Stern's recent quality is clearly sub standard, and their customer service is a DISTANT 3rd....that being said they are the only game in town in the $5K range, and most operators don't care much about coding as the average player who throws quarters into a machine at a bar doesn't give a rats ass about how deep the code is. That being said they have made some great games that I own...Met, ACDC, LOTR, TWD...but in the future I will NEVER buy a NIB game from Stern until they change their ways...not holding my breath...

If people want more evidence for why Stern machines aren't really selling in EU, aside from lack of features, lacking code and poor quality, you just have to look at the level of price gouging.

A WOZ RR, a DI LE or a PotC LE all cost less than any of the new Spike 2 LEs in Europe.

SW Premium, BM'66 Premium & Aerosmith Premium cost the same to buy as standard DI and JJP PotC.

Can you imagine if Stern Premium prices in the US were raised to parity with JJP's base level, and LEs beyond JJP LEs? No, I couldn't either. Sales would collapse.

Houdini, which should be way more feature packed than any Spike 2 game, and likely be of a higher build quality, is slated to cost ~€3000 less than a Spike 2 LE. Or in $ terms, the Spike 2 LEs will cost ~$3500 more.

I did not know that. Why is the pricing that way? Do a few Stern distributors control the pricing? Stern just charges more for EU?

Those stern prices you pay are 10% or more higher than here in the US. Good for JJP and not good for Stern. Bad for consumer choice.

Price discrimination and price gouging. Plain and simple. There are different distributors for different countries, but the prices are all similar.

It's why Stern have had the dirty trick region locking for ages - all Stern machines ever produced are 100% compatible with both 110-120V/60Hz and 220-240V/50Hz, but SAM and Spike North America market machines play dead when the MPU board detects 50Hz power. You need a hack board or a frequency converter.

They want to be free to charge whatever they want, without the fear of too many people importing privately (they've also threatened to withdraw machines from sellers in the US who supply EU or AUS/NZ markets too).

CGC have a high mark up in EU too, though not as bad as Stern, and at least they don't region lock their machines.

Also, more than 10%. With 20% VAT (which you don't have in the US), a Spike 2 LE is ~$12,300 (or more) in EU. Even without the tax, that translates to ~$9800. The shipping and customs clearance on container loads of games from Chicago to destination port won't cost more than an absolute maximum of $200 per unit. You can then count on about another $100 per machine to get it to the distributor. So the gouging is pretty terrible. Well over $1700 above US prices. Houdini at the moment has about a $350 markup. PotC standard the same. That's fairly acceptable, given that rent and taxes tend to cost more in EU countries. The Stern prices ... not so.

Are you buying used pros? How much is a NIB costing you up here? Arent they over 9k with tax in Canadian dollars?

Good question.

Pinside owners map shows from these sample games:

Ghostbusters LE/Premiums: 577
Ghostbusters Pro: 319

GOT LE/Premium: 296
GOT Pro:172

Star Trek LE/Premium: 562
Star Trek Pro: 390

So even though one can make a good guess that Stern Pros outnumber their production of LE/Premiums by quite a bit (I'd say they make 3 or 4) the ownership ratio amongst the biggest collection of home buyers in the world is slanted the other way.

So Pros do not dominate home collectors.

And don't forget to add that Stern's GOT is one of the best pinball machines ever made also, so I'm not really convinced that JJP would have made a better Game of Thrones anyway. People can talk sh*t all they want about Stern, but the truth is they have the best designers and coders in th business.

JJP makes nice games, I won't deny it but they are asking foolish money for them. Stern makes great games as well. Both companies have had some quality issues. People seem to give JJP a free pass on their playfields that were bad but they want to nail Stern to the cross for it. If people are going to bash one company then they should bash the other ones faults as well.

well, according to the Pinside Top 100 (certainly not gospel, but i know of no better metric to gauge general consensus) GOT currently sits 7 spots behind Hobbit, 17 spots behind WOZ, and 28 spots behind Dialed In. So it's actually fairly reasonable to suggest JJP would have done a better job, since every game they've released is currently ranked higher than GOT.

rankings are subjective, of course, and if GOT is the greatest pinball machine of all time in your opinion, it's not like you're wrong.

has JJP had recent issues with playfields? i remember early-run WOZ games with issues, but as far as i know, it was addressed and resolved years ago.

There have been several DI that have clear coat and art chipping at the hole under the left ramp. Not terrible but it has happened to several. They should have shipped with protectors initially. It doesn't really appear to be a faulty clear coat issue though, more of a design issue.

8K so you can figure out what Pre/LE or JJP are costing, even if our dollar was even with the states maybe a Pre model Stern if it was a must have, or a JJP standard but thats the limit.

th (resized).jpg

Stop please.

I acknowledged it is subjective. And like I said I don’t know of a better broad ranking system if you want to know in general which games people prefer.

According to the pinside top 100 all of these AFMr owners that apparently are playing AFM for the first time now all agree it is by far the best game ever made. Funny how people that spend 8K on something suddenly find it to be the best.

I'm not sure why all of the hate for GOT. I agree that there are no compelling toys and the theme could have been integrated better and the video mode is the worst ever. But, it has one of the best light shows ever, some fantastic rules and code work and in really fun to play. That game can just explode once you get it going. Best game ever, definitely not. I would consider it a pretty darn good game though that I feel in underrated.

People using the rankings as if they mean something.

I agree it’s a very good game. No hate. In fact, I hope to add one to my collection some day.

Most people seem to think every JJP game is better, though.

Not entirely true. The problem is that Stern delivers to distributors directly in the US. Over here there is one extra step, the importer. They get the machines from Stern and they sell it to the distributors. They also get a fair chunk of the pie and that is one reason why the games are priced much higher over here. It also does not help that there is a very little number of distributors so they do not have to compete with eachother. We never pay less than MSRP just because the distributors will not do it.

JJP does deliver directly to a distributor which in turn delivers it to other distributors, but they can ask the same price as the main distributor that gets them from JJP.

Please correct me if I am wrong on this, I am sure it works like this for a number of countries, not sure if it is true for all of Europe.

You don't say!

download (resized).jpg

Stern delivers product to distributors in EU the same way JJP does. If there is an importer other than Stern / JJP then it is the distributor. I think you're getting confused about distributors and resellers. Both also exist in the US.

Stern and CGC are just setting much higher mark ups than JJP and AP.

Ok different name, but we cannot buy from the distributor, only from the reseller. I know who the Stern distributor for Belgium is and they will not sell to anybody but their resellers.

The distributor for JJP is Freddy's pinball and there we can all buy a game directly.

Price is more or less the same, and there are distributors and resellers in the US.

Has nothing to do with the gouging in EU and select other overseas markets. It's from the top.

I really thought you were joking, but then read the rest of the post. Guess not ... Jesus man, really? And yes, I have played it. Stern has some really good stuff - but not that one. (Yes I have played it enough...and I am a GOT fan)

I have not played it that much but didn’t care for the upper PF overmuch when I did play it. One thing that really bothered me was I’d play several games all around the same not really trying to do anything special because I don’t know the rules but one game I’d get 5x higher score because of some bonus multiplier I didn’t even know how I got. Someone said I must hav hit the battering ram x number of times.

I don’t think that’s a great game code if you get massive points for doing something on accident.

The distributor gets the pros from stern for 4100.

No I'm not joking, even a little bit. I think the game is a masterpiece. It has great code, it's fast, and the shots are awesome feeling. It also has one of the best light shows out there. GOT Pro is one of the best bargains in pinball.

In the US. That's not what they sell them to overseas markets at ...

To each his own

They sell the pro for 5200 to 5100 shipped here. Some are able to still get a nib for 4800 shipped. What does the pro go for there?

What have you got for EU sales figures on Stern vs JJP/CGC? I'd be interested to know what you've heard (presumably from distributors or others with some basis to assess this).

Forget it, Pinside is very jaded these days, if you pass up on a game and can't get into because of theme then that's foolish but when u write it off due to art or lack of toys then it seems perfectly justified.

I don't have any figures, but just judging by the number of people I know, and hearing about friends of friends, almost no-one has gone for SW, many were planning to buy before it was revealed, and they're in stock in most places. The few that touched BM'66 mostly regret it and almost none seem to have sold after the initial couple of months of it being on sale. Having spoken to a few sellers / distributors, they seemed less than happy with sales. One said they expected to sell more Metallica & AC/DC VEs this year than SW & BM'66 put together.

Aerosmith seems to have done a bit better. Probably would have done very well if the price was more reasonable and Stern wasn't such a tarnished name generally, after the last couple of years of problems.

Haven't spoken to a JJP or CGC seller.

I'm actually very excited for you - one day you're going to play the AMAZING games that were made before 2015, and your mind is just going to be BLOWN. I can't wait!

I mean no disrespect, but the irony of this post made me laugh. You own a Hobbit. I sold my fully-paid interest in Hobbit to get a GOT LE. Greatest decision I ever made. I actually agree that it's a great pin, as do many of the guys who compete at the highest levels. Just ask 'em.

I was thinking the exact thing. I will say that GOT isn't all that approachable for the average player. The rules are complicated and the shots feel a little different and everything is really crowded in. It's a super intense game to play for me. You have to really grind through a little until it opens up and really explodes. I think some people just prefer the light hearted B/W experience. I like both though and find it a little strange how so many people think each game has to be a certain way to be good.

well said and very true, SW fits the same mold and yeah there's room for both styles of gameplay.

I started playing pinball in the 70's, I own 2 older games right now and have owned other older games in the past. I have friends with older games as well so I have played most of the games that are out there.

When I first got into owning my own machines, I wanted only the games that I grew up playing. I met people in the hobby that owned all of the newer Stern ganes and started playing them and I just like them better now. I still like the older games but I just don't think they are as fun as today's games.

No need to take shit from a guy that loves TH, especially RH

I don't see the irony. I didn't compare Hobbit to GOT - but I have no issue with doing so to be honest. I think GOT is fine, but remember the context. He said "Stern's GOT is one of the best pinball machines ever made" - end quote. The irony, if any, is that we sometimes hear that about Hobbit.

Some people like the Hobbit some don't - same with GOT. I was just saying I do not think GOT is one of the best Stern let alone one of the best ever made. For the record I don't even think TH is a keeper for me. I don't think I will have a 'keeper'. I can only get 1 or 2 (maybe) pins for my home game room. So I will VERY likely sell TH and get something else. Maybe a GOTG, maybe a JJPOTC, maybe a MB. So, no disrespect to GOT pin fans - but I much prefer TH over GOT. If you don't that is cool. Thank goodness we have options though.

what do you consider massive on GOT? You don’t fall ass backwards into billions. Maybe a few hundred million if you get lucky, but that’s peanuts.