Yeah, this is not annoying at *all* in my industry

If there was more of this we might not have the Predator and jpoop fiasco....

I'm very excited to get a chance to play this at TPF. ...assuming all goes well, suspect I may be putting down a deposit on one of these bad boys.

So games are not shipping this week? Is that correct?

Did those guys mass manufacture another title before their collapse?

If Heighway is open to it, that's great, you just don't see it with other industry on this micro level...even within the wild weird world of pinball you don't see Gary Stern listening this closely to people. They just keep their head down and pump out titles. It's great but at some point there has to be a cut-off.

Predator certainly. But I'm not so sure about poop-a-duece and all his NDA's. Heck, there were even concerned customers who visitied his shop (inhaled the magic dust) and reported all was ok. ...so I'm not sure a few probing questions would have brought down that house of cards.

Perfectly explains the new & old guards.
You have the Stern side which is a bigger company and was around before 90% of the people currently bitching aboot them. They are the leaders of the industry, and as such, they don't feel the need to take any input from people on Pinside; and really they don't.
On the other side you have the new small start up that are trying to break into the business and need the support of people on here to be excited aboot the products they are making so they can grow their business.

Luckily for Heighway it's vastly in their favor around here and the mood is a very positive one.

I am really looking forward to this pin and my full throttle kit. I also want to be on a list for future games like spooky does. Andrew all I ask is for a smooth purchase I don't care If I am told july and that's the case. you will have my business going forward!!

Cool.

When will we be able to see the full LE art package?

It would be nice if people realized how lucky they are that the leaders of at least two pinball companies are willing to come here and talk directly to hobbyists.

You don't see the CEO of Ford hanging out in the Ford Muscle Forums.

You are probably right.

What.. you don't remember when they said this was no biggie and shouldn't take any time at all after Expo? Aurich defended that to the death that it shouldn't impact anything in the fact it wasn't even done, yet games were supposed to be shipping within weeks.

At this point asking for new estimates is just coming off as antagonistic trolling.. poking to try to expose things you know will be negative or force Andrew to the table when he's not ready/willing.

Instead of forcing Andrew to face the things he really doesn't want to face.. we could accept that all estimates are crap.. and instead let them promote and share what they do want to share, making it a positive experience where they will engage more.

Not whitewashing.. but if you drag 'em through the mud every instance you can.. that's what runs people off.

Forcing the guy to face his mistakes... over and over.. when the answer is obvious.. is not constructive tho. It's mean... and if you want a healthy relationship you have to let off the pedal sometimes, even when you know you are right.

Why does Robt hate Heighway?

well said Flyynn

Is that why Aurich doesn't post in this thread anymore?

That's right, we should just stop asking questions altogether. In fact, the whole thread should just be closed so people can't ask questions.

Heighway seems more than "willing" to give new estimates...despite the fact that he keeps missing the dates again and again. "Only two more weeks."

lol

People used to accuse me of the same thing with regard to JJP. Have I mentioned lately how much I love my Hobbit?

Maybe if I went back to my Alien avatar people would stopping thinking stupid things like me hating Heighway?

Oh Pinside.

You've come a long ways Rob!

Actually that is good point! Where is Aurich? He used to post here all the time with updates and info.

2 weeks 2 weeks

2w (resized).png

We all have...because it's been over 2 years.

HA! You'd think games that are crumbling apart would be Stern's biggest nightmare...yet it's turned some people into their biggest supporters

Oh, Rob. It's just a little ice. Stop being such a hater!

IMG_0561.JPG

Apples to Oranges, Ford aren't exactly making products solely for a small yet dedicated niche market.

Based on their shareholder reports, I have trimmed the summary down:

Total 2016 U.S. sales of 2,614,697 vehicles mark Ford Motor Company’s best annual sales in a decade.
820,799 pickups in 2016, making F-Series America’s best-selling pickup for 40 years and best-selling vehicle for 35 straight years.
Ford is America’s best-selling truck brand, with 1,077,006 van, pickup and heavy truck sales last year.
Van sales totalled 240,721, a 9 percent increase and making Ford America’s bestselling commercial van for 38 straight years
Ford SUVs total 772,667, reaching best annual sales since record 2001
Lincoln sales up 10 percent in 2016

The fact their sales are increasing year on year and are as of last year at an all time high shows they must be doing things right.

I think they probably speak to their customers more than you realise? I know when I brought a new Focus RS, I got a dealership feedback survey and courtesy call after pickup, regarding the whole sales process, sales advisor and product, a survey and call after 6 months of ownership again at 12 months and at each service. Admittedly in the UK that is their premium flagship product but that's still a lot of opportunities to see how their customers are feeling about them and their product at time of purchase, 6 and 12 months of ownership.

Ford & Audi (only two I can vouch for from experience) also offer up test days to valued customers, when Audi teased the release the facelifted R8, I spent a day down at one of their main dealerships in Essex, throwing a test car around an ice track they had purposefully built to take the cars on during the winter, it was a great marketing tool but a lot of questions and feedback was encouraged about all aspects of the car.

Point being I think any successful company needs their customers feedback one way or another, pinball sales are no way in the same league as global car sales, so each company/industry needs their customers feedback which ever way suits them best, a pinball company can come here and speak to a few hundred customers and take whatever info they need from all the responses - look at the recently spooky thread and Andrew and Heighway themselves have also taken pinside and expo feedback on board to create the best possible product they can and looking at Alien I think they have succeeded!

Would the end result have been the same without the pinside interaction? Only Andrew can answer that, but its nice to think in our niche market/hobby we can help the manufacturers out with their latest and greatest as much as they can help us bringing out new games for us to play/buy and keep the hobby healthy and expand its appeal.

Sorry that ended up being a lot longer than I expected, time to kill at work as no one is starting any fires tonight.

images-1 (resized).jpg

** - This was before I saw TheLaw had posted something similar.

I can't resist. I just can't.

No - it's that your questions really aren't genuine but intending to try to flush him out... for something that is already known. You are just trying to rub his face in it. it's destructive and adds no real value, only negativity and conflict.

You may think you are doing people a service by outing him... but people already know games weren't going to ship in 24hrs... or that they haven't done the full LE art reveal. We don't need to rub his face in his failures daily purely to say "gotcha!"

I really wish that you were a man of your word and put me on ignore like you said you were going to a month ago.

nah keep that avatar.

Had no release dates been posted (like Stern) then nothing could have been missed release wise - Batman66 was massively delayed after announcement but no issue because no release date!

I personally think after Alien, Heighway should stop posting on pinside altogether because managing threads like this takes time that could be spent better elsewhere, they should also just announce and release the next game rather than build it up.

It's not really the same though, is it? Stern do not take people's money before their game is ready. You can't really compare the two.
When you have taken a deposit and then ask for the remaining balance to be paid, you can't then say; "We have no idea when the game will ship." You have to give some kind of indication at least.

Incidentally, I hope Heighway do get this game out there. It's on my wish-list. I want to buy one! But I am too much of a cautious man to pre-order after all the other crap that has gone down over the past few years with other games.

But I don't understand why people get annoyed when people start asking difficult questions. If you take people's money you need to be transparent about what is going on or people are going to get antsy. And nobody is making Andrew give these release dates every other week. People would rather have a realistic date than 'next week' or '2 weeks'. Only last week Andrew said the first games will be shipping by today. Nobody forced it out of him. He added it on to end his post about releasing a video.

Anyway, I hope it comes out soon and I hope it's awesome to play. I think it could be a monster hit. And I am looking forward to seeing the gameplay video later today.

Hahaha! Touché Sir. Perhaps 'available' would have been a better word rather than 'ready'.

Pretty sure they often take a 1k deposit to hold a spot and more recently some distributor are taking full payments and then 'delays' have stretched out deliver for months.

That's not Stern though, surely? That's distributors. It's not a fair comparison. That's all I'm saying.

can you buy direct from Stern now? My understanding is that the only way to buy from Stern is a via a distributor and EVERY stern distributor I last checked with was requiring a deposit to hold a spot and then payment prior to game actually being ready.

Right. So it's not a fair comparison. That is my point!

Right on. If I were making games I'd leave out the hard dates. Chinese New Year, UK New Year, Christmas, wrong parts, bad batch of muffler bearings...

Here we go.....
ALIEN Ready To Ship 2017

Really hoping for a gameplay video today.

The only attention Heighway needs to pay to this thread is to provide updates especially when things aren't going as planned.

I appreciate Andrew answering questions as they come up (unless, i ask them of course) , but we would be better served by less individual attention and progress reports when delays happen.

As much as people might want to say Heighway doesn't owe us anything or shouldn't post here; I think a large amount of sales have come from this thread and pinside announcements. It got me involved.

Best of luck to Heighway and Alien.

Take your time , do it right and hopefully enjoy great success.

It's funny how great pins like Ac/dc, TWDLE and GBLE have turned me into a HUGE supporter of Stern. I hope Alien does the same thing for me.

Wow. That's hysterical coming from you.

I've been supportive of Andrew and Heighway from day one. But Andrew, you know you have a bit of "Jersey Jackitis", telling people what they want to hear when the truth would sound better, can be a bit of a negative and credibility crusher.

Yes, I too would like to see the LE art package and the video promised and games shipping. When it happens, doesn't really matter to me, but that's when my $$$ gets sent in.

Looking forward to the finish line!

I don't think so

WP_20160623_15_24_59_Pro (resized).jpg

Maybe now, I should have probably put "at the time", I'm pretty sure 2015 was the first year Ford released the mustang globally with factory produced right hand drive iterations for the UK market?

Although that ecoboost rubbish should not have a mustang badge on it

sorry all, massively off topic but yes Jon, you're right on both counts - mustang only arrived in numbers from Dec 15 and there ain't no substitute for cubes

Over 4000 stangs sold in the uk since then and 70% 5.0

C'mon Andrew, we need the video!

Yeah we are getting desperate here

Ford!?! I miss beacon-gate

Queen gate, board gate, beacon gate that's so 2 weeks ago, it's Ford-Gate now and if no gameplay video is posted today there will be some conspiracy theory leading to no show video-gate

No, this week isn't April 2014.

I'm around, I don't post on Pinside as much anymore, but I'm not gone or anything. I try and keep tabs.

I'm not in Wales though, my insights into the actual hardware/physical progress of things are limited, just decided it was best to let Andrew handle updates now. The team over there is working hard, I see legit progress all the time, but it just doesn't feel like my place to say much else at this stage since I'm not there. Not in a position to promise or give dates, but it feels awfully close. Best I can say!

I know it's frustrating. I feel that. My personal take is if you've come this far then have a little more patience. Making a game is complicated, it's easy for a small change to improve or fix one area to screw up a lot of other parts, and suddenly it's all taking longer than you thought as you adjust everything.

Anyways, that's why I haven't been posting in this thread much anymore, just letting the process play out like the rest of you, and helping where I can. I'm still actively involved, just juggling it with my day job and family and general life commitments.

And to be blunt I'm a bit burned out on how many people on this forum want to make things with me super personal. I don't really need the negative headaches in my life. And if it's not directed at me it's complaining about something else. Just not a lot of fun. Not to get political, but the state of the country right now is enough to bum me out. Rather my hobby time was more uplifting, and less bitchy.

Not asking anyone to read anything further into this, just figured I'd explain rather than people ask where I was and stay silent.

(Not @aurich)

Cmon guys. You're killin aeonflux
aeonblack or whatever his name is