I can imagine! Again, glad this is the first time I ever heard of such a thing happening… and it never happened to anyone I know. Let’s talk more about how bad Stern playfields are in this thread - that seems appropriate right?

You've got some good comments and bad comments all mixed in there. I agree jjp made the rest of the industry have to step up. They got off their asses and made lcds the norm, and also showed how all these toys are awesome. And competition is a good thing, no matter what. But they also showed how companies can charge more and we will still pay it. That really sucks. So you take the good with the bad. Also, you said some stern games were crap. I cant argue with the fact that the CSI era was shit, but stern, on their own, upped their art game without anyone else's help.

Dude listen: I, myself, have had a few issues with stern. They've fixed 100% of them so far

I am hoping for a huge positive from this thread. Hope it makes it easier to get a Toy Story CE.

My friend doesn’t stream and he has had bowed playfields replaced. I know of one, and maybe a second that he has had over the years.

Eh. Although I eventually got the help/parts I needed, she was very unresponsive via email. Took many follow ups and copying lots of people on each email to finally get resolution.

If the defect affects gameplay, that is the main deciding factor on receiving an unpopulated vs a populated playfield with Stern. If you did not push the fact the defect does affect gameplay, then that's why you got an unpopulated PF. With JJP, the degree of damage o the PF determines the level of snark you get from JJP as they deny your claim. Although, if I worked in support at either company, and Nicoy3k contacted me for support and treated me like he posts on here, I'd take great pleasure in denying his claim.

Because they sold a game that they know has problems...

I had mine replaced.

Sorry Chuck , I was just being sarcastic , responding to crazy Levi , who said only two Led Zep playfields were bowed , I've heard of quite a few people with the issue , I just named a few streamers that had mentioned it .

Over time Spooky does fix their issues. Stern as well. Seems like they try to learn from their mistakes. Chicago Jack Pinball would rather convince it is normal or tell you to go pound sand.

"Build Quality"

Stern is bad themselves with that bs ‘each machine has unique differences’ crap they tagged the pins with. They don’t get a free pass either.

Less is more mentality at Stern is intrenched also. No thanks. Neither company is worth my dollars, not with all the other companies stepping up.

Point well taken. I was only exposed to the few Sterns that my arcade had back then—Sopranos, Family Guy, And a few other not so memorable games. In your opinion, when did Stern start to turn around on their gameplay? I avoided them for a decade and my arcade stopped carrying them all together. When I asked why they told me they didn’t like the quality. Then my distributor convinced me to take a ride out to his show room a few years back and test some Sterns and I was blown away. It was night and day from the ones I had played. Would love to find some of the games I missed pre-Kiss. Thanks.

Stern offered to replace my Ghostbusters playfield and Metallica playfield in the last few years with new populated ones. Both had issues for sure, but honestly they weren’t that bad. I was surprised Stern replaced them so readily. And I am no industry guy or fat cat customer.

LOL dood - get a grip! lots of people in the threads have had their playfields fixed. Nothing to do with the fact I stream and have 4 people on average watching!

The difference is that Stern are doing something. JJP's last communication on this problem was that the problem was fixed months ago before the game went on sale.

Walking dead
Iron Man
Mustang
Star Trek
Metallica
Xmen
AC/DC
Tron
Transformers
LOTR
Batman Dark Knight
Wheel of fortune
Spider-Man
Family Guy
Pirates of the Caribbean
NASCAR
Sopranos
World Poker Tour
Terminator 3
Simpsons pinball party
Elvis
Ripleys

All of these are great games.

The votes for this are almost at Andrew Thieving Heighway levels! if that doesn't send a message to the numbskulls running JJP god knows what will.

Screenshot 2021-07-25 at 22.50.34 (resized).png

As long as people keep buying games nothing will change. It sucks, but simple economics. I had a couple of cosmetic items and an adjustment required for our GNRCE out of the box. Our distributor was super helpful as always and acted as an intermediary with JJP tech support to stay on them and help expedite shipping replacement parts. Personally, I didn't have an issue in this instance.

With that said, this is probably my last JJP. JJP's handing of playfield issues with multiple titles, sneaking in updated warranty language to try to avoid resolving a defect is abhorrent and general lack of customer service is unacceptable. 12 pages and no response from a rep from JJP (we all know they read Pinside) is shameful. Too bad Eric's masterpiece will always be shrouded in playfield issues and poor customer service from JJP.

RBION … ahead of its time! Great game

Honestly, just 1 call to explain they’re side would’ve went a country mile with me .How hard is that .

Agreed every time I run into this game I can’t get enough .Very unique.

I really hate seeing this thread as I'm a fan of JJP and the games they have made, but this thread is needed.

They need to get rid of Mirco and get back to making things right when customers have issues. It won't matter how awesome your next game is if people refuse to buy from you, because your quality sucks.

I shouldn't have to feel like I'm gambling when I buy a $10k game from you.

Nah. Way past Mirco. This is on JJP.

So the solution according to you is to just shut the doors and go away?

JJP makes great pins but they need fix the issues and stand behind there pins. If people keep buying there pin at 10k that have issues there dumb.

Agreed, so weird seeing people blaming a vendor. They are shit, we know this, everyone knows this, it’s been proven time and time again, yet JJP keeps going back to that well. The playfield issues at this point are 100 percent on JJP.

Wrong.
If they don't want issues and buy them then they are "Dumb" but some people can live with those issues, we all know the risks. Jesus some guys still buy NIB pins from start up companies and we all know the track record of that in pinball.

Oh yeah, by the way u shouldn't call anyone dumb while u have a Thunderbird s in ur collection.

Why doesn't Spooky have these issues with THEIR playfields? Is it a proprietary thing or ?

They use a different playfield vendor. Bader.

I stopped buying. I have more money to spend in this hobby then any point in my 50 years on this planet. I could buy 10 NIB tomorrow if I really wanted to. But I'm protesting by NOT buying. I'm not paying more for less. And if they can't support the issues everyone is having why should they get any of our future business??

Spooky can also make their own playfields, their vendor is not to far from them. Spooky has developed the “recipe” for the playfields that their vendor uses.

Interesting. Didn’t know that. Now tell that vendor to tool up to increase capacity to do all the playfields for every manufacturer. Haha

Man, the solution seems pretty straightforward...I wonder why JJP would not try swapping vendors? It's making them look bad. Really bad.

I can categorize four issues people are having with JJP. First, JJP playfields are having pooling, chipping and defective clearcoat issues on many games and these remain unresolved at present. Second, JJP doesn’t recognize any of these as being problems, so if there is no problem, there is nothing to be fixed. Third, the warranty on JJP games is worse than piss-poor and it doesn’t protect customers, define issues nor remedies. Fourth, many customers are pissed at the lack of JJP’s attention to fix the aforementioned problems, and JJP has decided not to offer any mitigation.

If JJP switched playfield vendors and had their playfields screened instead of digitally printed, many believe this would solve their current problems. So why not switch as there is nothing to lose and everything to gain?

I’d bet if they switched vendors and that was the only change JJP made to fix the four issues outlined above, people would flock back to the games. In other words, I don’t think that many people would hold grudges and avoid buying JJP products in the future. Some will be lost for good, because you can’t unpiss people off, but 95% of customers would be fine with JJP building quality games again. So we must wait for JJP to blink first. I hope they address and resolve all issues.

Not me. I've yet to play a JJP game that I would consider really fun and a long term keeper. (I had a WOZLE and Smaug) I played GNR and was hugely underwhelmed after 3 or 4 games on location. I've said this from day one, JJP are tanks and beautiful to look at, but Stern games are so much more fun to play. Just my opinion but I know lots agree with me.

Things change all the time and pinball people are very “fickle”.

And the pf issue is fixable. Bader provided the original shit pf’s for Woz. Stern has had its issues over the years. Now Spooky,
AP, CGC, Haggis, P3 all getting it right.

So it’s possible to fix it now but will they?

Funny thing is I recall how the fickle masses for years defended JJP in total denial.

DI comes to mind and the chipping pf’s early on and excuses from the fans

From the time of Canceling my Hobbit to GNR I was no JJP fan. Then I got a GNR and Wonka CE

Very happy with both right now, but I have not needed to use customer service either

Same situation - why pay top dollar for an inferior product.

You’re a hopeless JJP cheerleader, attempting to always put Stern in the same camp. The point is not about Stern, the thread is talking about JJP and their lousy products and lack of customer support. I’ve also experienced being left with zero support on new machines, always hoping when I turned them on, they actually would. So many times I tried getting help from JJP to no avail. Every time I visit an arcade that has JJP, they are always “out of service” and Sterns keep on working. Stern has always taken good care of me and all my machines, in warranty or out. No questions asked, they just do it. Night and day difference between the two companies. Finally some of us are starting to wake up and see that JJP is nothing more than a take advantage of the customer non caring company.

Even though all their IPs, except for GNR could be considered in the “Fisher Price” category, I wanted to support them, but now realize they are not going to change. TS is definitely a toddler title, even though I have enjoyed watching it with my children, it isn’t an adult title. Nor does Disney pretend that it is. Highly suspect Toy Story will have all the troubles the last 4 have had, with stripped down PF mechanics, so they don’t have to be troubled with any warranty claims, even though they aren’t anyway. There will be lots of inexpensive LED lights and that alone seems to satisfy some buyers.

My ol’ buddy (@romulusx) is not just a cult member, but is in fact the JJP cult leader! He (and PanzerFreak) cannot and will not see any lacking on JJPs part on any issue. All sunshine and JJP lollipops for Romey. Lol

Romey cheers: Give me a J, give me another J, give me a P, what does that spell? “Just Joking People”, Jersey Jack is not worth my efforts any longer…LOL.(Has Romulusx seen the light?)

It's they're, not there.

Here is what is really sad… we cry all day long about how a Stern game never delivers the World under Glass. We all know a long list of documented issues and problems with Stern games and their customer service please… I call and I don’t get a reply for days or ever. But no matter what Stern does or doesn’t do 99% of all the beatings go to JJP the company that actually in my opinion reinvented pinball. JPP showed the pinball world that games could be made for the collector, they could be more than a ball moving around a piece of wood. Yeah JJP made mistakes, they’ve made a ton of them but they’re also the risk takers, the dreamers the company willing to spend up to 2 years developing ONE DAMN GAME!!!!

First ever color screen, full movie assets, led lights, toys and mechs no one has ever seen before then we get to GNR. GNR has more songs than any pinball in history, the theming is out of this world, light shows, the artwork is simply amazing, the design something never before seen… and everything unravels with a chip in the play field. I’m not here saying this issue shouldn’t be fixed, and I’m not saying I’m the one with the answers, but i am saying JJP is the pinball ground breaker. Who can argue? Start to imagine a pinball World without JJP right now? Do you think Stern games would all of a sudden get better with no JJP? Tell me something Stern has done better than JJP to take pinball to the next level? I can tell you NOTHING! Does Stern even try to beat JJP at creating a World Under Glass? When you think about it, its actually a dumb question.

Whenever you attempt to break new ground, you’re going to have some growing pains but in the end you get a flawed masterpiece. JJP has had and probably always will have more things go wrong than Stern because they put 10 times more into the games right or wrong. Every JJP game is unique, not a cookie cutter copy of the game they made before… you’re going to get some problems. JJP games are complex and this is what we now expect from JJP. If JJP all of a sudden decided to streamline their games, publish three titles a year, would they still be the JJP we’re all so passionate about?

How in the WORLD is a Stern LE the same price as a JJP LE I’ll never know because they’re games on two different levels. I can honestly say I think the solution to all of JJP problems is a simple one RAISE THE PRICE DRASTICALLY! JJP should STOP trying to compete in price with a much inferior Stern product and charge what their games are worth, then guarantee them with a much better warranty that covers everything.

JJP LE games should cost $12,500 and the CE should cost $15,000 … then when this issue comes up they have more money built in for errors or mistakes. Despite problems Stern has, Spooky, American Pinball, or even Dutch who was despised but now we line up two years deep to get a copy of BL we love these companies. Each one is different, and each one has strong suits and weakness’s. When I look around despite the chips I don’t see to many people willing to get rid of their GNR CE’s probably the best pinball game ever created. In the end it doesn’t matter how much you spend on a game 10 dollars or 10 thousand dollars… you should expect a game that works perfectly. Right? But when you’ve been doing pinball long enough you just know that isn’t ever going to happen. LOL

JJP playfields shouldn’t chip but doesn’t mean we should burn this company to the ground does it? JJP in my opinion is the LEADER of the pack, taking the risks, setting the bar, going where no pinball has gone before. I’ll love this company no matter what and while saying that I do hope they can solve the issues that plaque them and I’m confident they will. I hope one day all these pinball companies will one day put out the flawless game that never breaks, never chips, neve needs a new node board, or even a spinner that should have worked out of the box.

It’s just pinball I guess that sometimes we just love to hate.

This post is spot on and I’ve been saying the same things for some time now. JJP actions are that of a company in a downward spiral of denial. A company that has been given unearned community support and always afforded the benefit of the doubt, by some people. It is about time we stand together and vote with our wallets and just say no to any new JJP shiny. Spooky is number 2 in my book, because they deeply care about our hard earned dollars spent on their product. They want to give us their best and it shows.

Good point. So tell me then wise one… why are people lined up to buy Alien, Big Lebowski just as an example. Didn’t these companies screw a lot of people out of a lot of money. I know Deep Root is catching a lot of grief over their failure to deliver information about RAZA but why did this company build RAZA to begin with? Don’t a lot of people hold grudges against the designer? Let’s not even get started with Stern their customer support in my opinion is the absolute worst I send them emails you get nothing for days, weeks if ever. What about all the work you had to do with TMNT to fix that game, or the spinner not working on LED ZEP, lets not forget they also had pooling problems in the past. My Elvira LE had a ton of problems out of the box, crate didn’t work, broken this or that. Gates failing on Stranger Things the list goes on for days. I will say because its true that Stern’s games hold up the best of ANY of the pinball companies. I will also admit they have the most experience but their games are a lot the same… no real risky thing are being done there. If they get to crazy or wild they couldn’t quickly manufacture right? JJP is a different company all together and if they’re as bad as you say, then why do their games SKYROCKET in value? Pick the JJP Game with exception of Dialed In the values are out of this World. If their games are all bad this would not be the case.

I love Stern games despite all the problems I’ve had with them, and I love JJP despite all the problems with them. I’ve come to find there is NO pinball company creates perfect games but again doesn’t mean we shouldn’t expect that. We should for the prices you pay you should get flawless pinball. It just hasn’t happened yet. Please be fair and share your frustration at all the companies not just one.

Wow, you must have gotten drunk on the JJP koolaid to write something this atrocious…delusional, lol. (Wait, Jack is that really you kidding us again? When you sober up, take a good look at the heresy you’ve written here.) JJP is the worst example of financial fiscal irresponsibility in all of pinball and the real reason they charge such high prices (well maybe DR has out done JJP in fiscal irresponsibility…I mean they built a stage and auditorium to showcase their games, even before they even have any manufacturing capabilities). It certainly is not because they load up their machines with $6 coils and cheap LED lights.

Why are some people still trying to put JJP and Stern in the same camp? Do 2 wrongs make a right somehow? This thread is abut JJP, not Stern. (Yes, this is a Larry/DrFrightner length diatribe.)

this thread sadly is useless. The top cheeses at JJP don't engage with the community; we are beneath them. I predict they don't even hold a session at Expo. So whilst I suspect key JJP people are reading this and are equally pissed off, Eric and Keefer, I can't help but think we are shouting into a black hole. Even Ken who must have thought he'd landed himself the job of his dreams when he started working at JJP must be pretty hacked off about this situation.

With TBL and Alien I won't touch their games because of the people who were ripped off. DP seem close to putting most of it right after long long time, but they still lied to people.

I think you totally missed the point there is NEVER a thread like this about Stern. Stern cuts corners on assets, creating a world under glass, games almost always come out with zero code, many things don’t work, their customer support is really no better, but you don’t see threads like this about Stern. Why?

Of all the companies out there you would think Stern with all their experience, their dummied down games compared to JJP, they would always be flawless. But that isn’t the case right? So why is it always dump on JJP?

Look brother there is ONLY ONE company pushing the bounds of what can be done under glass and we know who that is. Yes we’re not going to deny the issues, but why always over dump on the SAME company time and time again. You claim they’re so bad but their games have sold at nearly $40k as ridiculous as that sounds. They’ve sold close to 5,000 Guns N Roses games, that is a real accomplishment. They deliver what is probably the most ambitious game GNR anyone has ever seen, and rather than praise that accomplishment we get you calling for their banishment. Start the thread about the other companies problems then I can take you serious. Until then you’re another hater.

I honestly think JJP gets the most flack because we acknowledge they’re who we expect the most from. When you hear people talk about Stern they say well It’s a stern a stern is a stern. We’ll I guess that means we hope for more but expect less… with JJP we expect the best, and if we don’t see it then all hell will break loose. JJP should fix the play field issue once and for all… but a pinball World without the innovation leader that is a DUMB THOUGHT!

At first I joked this might be Jack talking, but the more I read from you…is this Kaneda or DrFrightner (Larry)???