Agree. I own Oktoberfest, owned Hot Wheels, and nearly bought Houdini. AP impressed me a lot from the start. High quality pins at a comparatively low price point. Hell, Oktoberfest is at least as loaded as any JJP LE. Nobody was complaining about the quality or the prices. All they needed was a good licensed theme to hit the big time sales-wise. Then they made GTF. I don't know WTF they were thinking. They basically asked Dialed In to "Hold my beer." A guaranteed sales flop regardless of how good or bad it turned put to be. This is like when Zingy Bingy killed Capcom pinball. I am genuinely confused as to why so many pinball companies have made terrible choices on the most important aspect that drives sales; the theme. It doesn't seem that hard to know what the community wants or doesn't want. I could do it. I'd do it for free. Call me anytime. Someone in the room should've said "Hell no! What are you trying to put us out of busines?" when this rediculous idea was floated. GTF never should've made it past the white board. There are dozens of licensed themes that would've sold 10x better.

Stern is not selling 30k games this year. I doubt they ever have.

Our takes differ a lot. My understanding is Stranger Pro earns vety well. Seems like a better horse to bet on than Foo Pro for most locations. Fun pin and massively popular theme.

I heard a couple guys got projectors with focus problems in the new batch premiums, which Stern took care of. Those projectors aren't made by Stern. Not sure what manufacturing defects you're referring to. I owned a Stranger LE and now a 2023 Premium and Stern did manage to make a few improvements.

Pretty harsh on Bond. That pin has shaped up nicely. The owners I know seem to love it now.

AOC math. Love it.