It is true that code is never actually finished, it's more about a measure of completion of an intended feature set... that's what Stern tends to lag behind on.

1) Microsoft and Apple operating systems do ship with completed code. In other words all functionality is there from the get go. 2) They also release bug fixes and security patches for many years afterwards but rarely new features. New features are for a new major OS release, which would be the equivalent of an entirely different Stern game.

+1. "Limited editions" and even more limited runs of Premiums that stop before the code is complete make this, at best, conflicting advice from Stern.

Wow, I've only read half the thread, and based on the general reaction, Stern has a long way to go. Yes, there is tangible progress made by Stern, but it's apparent they have a longer road ahead than they believe. Talk is cheap...."show us the code!"

I don't think the thread is about competition... Stern has a tendency to leave code unfinished, or best case scenario take 1.5 years to finish so by the time someone says "yes this is a finally a good game" Stern has sold out of LE's, stopped producing Premiums, and in some cases has stopped running even Pro models. It's a shitty way to do business, and they are trying to fix it.

The question left is simple: "show me the code!" XM unfinished, IM has a few blatant leftovers that that Stern didn't even bother addressing when they came out with the VE, etc, and so forth. When we see games coded by someone besides Lyman getting polished off, then we can say Stern as a company has actually made progress.

I agree with most of what you said... Stern has done quite a bit to resolve software issues, so the large chunk of complaints in this thread are not as relevant today as they were a few years ago... some people just can't move past it.

An important point to consider... if Stern actually refocuses to deliver games with finished code from the outset, their business will no longer be setup to apply user feedback to rules updates. It is an advantage Stern has over the B/W days where operators got what they got, and everyone accepted it.

Back to your comment, I'll just say this: over half of Stern's sales today is to collectors. The LE is marketed as a collectors game. Pinside is the world wide focal point for pinball collectors. As such it's too harsh to say that Stern doesn't owe anything to Pinsiders, it represents their core customer base. It is a tough place for manufacturers to participate, and Robin has received many suggestions to make it more vendor friendly. I hope he can implement some of them.

Stern is wasting their time with deep rulesets because only 2% of their customers care about it?

I agree that 2% of the customers will never be happy, but far more than 2% care about a deep and complete ruleset. More realistically we are talking about 10-20% resource effort to satisfy 10-20% of customers, which is a justifiable business expense... and Stern largely executes on it. This thread tends to be complaints about games have that 1 bug, or that 1 unfinished mode, or that 1 rule that needs really tweaking but Stern will never fix.