Can’t they just make an Alice in Wonderland so I can finally buy an AP pin ? I want to support them but the themes are all just meh.

There is novelty.

There is innovation.

I think I know which category we fall into on this one.

Everyone says they want different, they don’t want cookie cutter Stern. But when it doesn’t comport to what they are used to it becomes: “how dare they make this crap”. We want what’s familiar even if we say we want different. How many people complained GF used Wonka-like music.

This is different. I agree it can be different bad or different good. Jury is out on this one. I suspect despite the bad acting it will be different good, precisely because it’s bad acting. Wouldn’t want in my home, too repetitive. But on location I think this game will do well.

Crappy rollout or not, all ongoing controversy aside, this game interests me the most of all the new releases. I will probably be in on it because it’s the most unique of them all.

While almost certainly not intentional, and while I’m sure they would have loved to sell out on day 1, I’m not sure their terrible marketing will hurt them that much in the long run. Might have even ironically helped. Hey at least they didn’t do a Deeproot “you have 24 hours to put your order in or else”. That would have been the only page they left out of the bad marketing playbook.

So the best part is where he advertises his other machines for sale at the end of the video. It is all so head scratching. You are a multi-million dollar pinball manufacturer and this was as good as you can do ???? What is more stunning to me is that what I hear again and again is that AP pins have really good build quality. Usually it’s the other way around, ie juiced up marketing and then crap follow thru on product. Go grab obs, some webcams, and get your designer to play. This problem is fixed with a day worth of effort.

We do tend to nit pick over the smallest details don’t we ? Doubt pretty much any of the playing public would notice this in real life. However I am just a bit perplexed here. Urethane over molding of 3D printed parts is pretty cheap all things considered, even for low volume production. I’m not sure why they didn’t go there. The BOM is not that much higher. Each mold can get you 25 parts and given the size of those parts he mold should be cost reasonable. Also if you are going to go super cheap ass ABS as it seems the tank is here, why not up the game a little and go with a little bit higher print resolution or some post processing so it’s not so damn obvious.

Go to the route operators thread and see the play count for a lineup. South Park still highest, Circus Voltaire low. There is very little correlation between how much a game is played and how good the rest of us see it as. In fact I would say that to the degree there is any it is an almost inverse correlation. And as to many of those non licensed themes commanding amazing prices it is because production runs were so low. Manufacturers saw zero of Circus Voltaire commanding such high prices these days. TBH I’m looking for a South Park to put in my place given how popular it apparently is.

I’m actually a potential buyer for GTF. But like you I’m clear I’m doing it for myself and not for the good of my establishment. For that matter same reason we have 40 pins on the floor rather than add another skee ball and air hockey. You have to admire the chutzpah of AP and it’s part of the reason I have so much interest in this machine. But yeah from a business standpoint what they keep doing makes zero sense.