My 2 cents worth. I believe pinballs are dirt cheap to make today with vendors having the power to buy cheaper from China then anywhere ever before. Just from what I've observed, the standards are not high for quality coming out of the pinball world. How can you be in the pinball biz for decades, having games that sat in bars for 25 plus years that today still work and have pretty decent playfields with minimal wear, and decent shooter lanes considering, no ghosting issues or toys that work less then not, to where brand new titles have ghosting, lane damage, terrible air ball action, and toys that don't work out of the box? Can you say guinea pig? I think that they've been cheapening everything for profit. How can old playfields be of better quality after decades?

When I look at what sterns put out in the last decade or so, I can't help but think they are coasting by, when it comes to creating games, almost every layout of their pins are the same. Minimal action/toys, and seem so similar. There's no attempt at creating. Sure I enjoy a fast game like IMVE, but I don't think it takes much to make a game that gutters your ball from a plethora of shots, and show no mercy or second chances. I find when I look at stern, and say, MB, or an array of older games, there's just way more to do, and keep your interest. Stern lacks ramps, toys, creativity, and when they make different toys, like for GB, quality seems to suffer.

After seeing what jjp does, there's no question who is more interested in advancing the hobby. POTC is beautiful.

One thing I hate about most new games, is the price. Way out of line for the technology, way out of line. They are the price of economy cars or damn near.

I just think that there should be more going into games. Why are we still playing on a piece of crappy painted wood, that cracks and warps, and is soft. We should have playfields made out of other materials that play good, but don't get beat to hell. The toys seem like the old, been there done that. beat the dead horse.

I think spooky is trying, but with pins like alice cooper, and zombie, even AMH, I don't know how you can make games with love or hate themes, and appeal to the pinball crowd as a whole. I guess if a game is truly evolutionary, and a blast to play, many could overlook music they may hate, or a theme they hate. Waiting for bigger things to come.

Maybe instead of relying on the old timers for new pinball ingenuity and creativity, maybe they need to actually hire some creative engineers and designers that take the toys and ball action to a whole new level.

In my opinion, most these new games are worth no more then any of the new ones were, made in the 90s. 10k plus, no way, not these old tired ideas reborn. I expect a hell of a lot more for that money. It took a whole lot more wire, electronics and work to get a pinball to function the way it did, now one 12x12 or smaller control board, half the wiring, and easier programing language to make it work in a wood box. Hell, why haven't they made pinball cabinets out of something not wood, there's some pretty great looking, tough, durable, reasonably priced material out there these days, that would be a hell of a lot better.

I'm not saying all stern have been boring, but far too many games look the same, and play the same, with no effort for advancing pinball to the future.

I'm not the answer, nor did I suggest that I could do the job, that's not my expertise. I work on medical lasers.

I believe though that I saw video of someone, I believe American, who was already planning production of what they say will be high quality pinballs in China. Don't recall pricing being mentioned, but would assume all around should be cheaper to produce. I can't say I like the whole everything Chinese thing, but, I'm but one person.