I'm afraid the same complainers would then bitch " why doesn't someone make a new game?" Oh wait, they already do that...

Whichever the game the designer designs. They get to make one design, their best design.

Even in the Bally/Williams heyday, they had to hit BoM budgets. They worked towards one design within those budgets, however, and they made the best game that they could.

The reason some LEs are worse than pros is because the design didn't warrant whatever extra was included (GoT upper playfield). The best design is the pro, but something HAD to be added to justify the premium/LE feature matrix.

And yes, JJP has it figured out. I mean, actually, Batman '66 basically does this as well. No difference in gameplay between versions. The starting price is just out of whack.

You actually just made my point for me.

Stern BM66 has no pro version, and the prices are too high for many people. Great argument for keeping Stern's current 3 tier structure.

And to say that "JJP has it figured out" seems to miss the boat, as their cheapest (standard) model doesn't come close to being as inexpensive as Stern pro models.

To be honest, the designers opinion of which is their best design isn't going to always be what you or I think their best design is. How many LE's are going to be the designers choice for their "best design" even though many of us think that the pro version plays better? (take a look at GOT for a recent example)

Give me the choice to decide for myself. Stern is doing it right.

This doesn't make your point. All this does is illustrate how freaking greedy Stern is being here to "celebrate" 30 years of pinball. The whole pricing structure is a downright joke.

Aren't you done beating that dead horse in the other thread you started?

No, no....I still don't get how he REALLY feels......and more than that, it's going to affect my pinball purchases moving forward.....I'm just ashamed of myself...

Stern is a for profit company whose goal is to maximize profits. If they price their products too high the market will respond accordingly. I dont think Stern adjusting their prices for what the think the market can bear makes them greedy, it makes them business men.

I also wish NIB prices were lower but they are what they are.

The great thimg about this hobby though is that you can have just as much fun with a decades old sub 1k game as you can with an 8k NIB one.

It makes them greedy business men...

It absolutely clearly makes my point.

Just because you refuse to see it does not mean that it doesn't.

ebay.com link: DC Comics Batman Bat Signal Kits Books Mega Mini Light Up Projection Toy USA

Get your bat signal here, get it while its HOT, BAT SIGNAL HEEEEEEEERE!

There are like 100 different versions of projection bat signals ranging from $1 to $100, some elaborate old time BM66 style/era and others like a laser show. any one who buys a PROMIEUM can get one cheap and better looking than what Stern is offering. I built a dark night arcade and used the laser ones under the control panel to project on the ground in front of machine. so the options and applications are endless.

Hey now! I am 220. I see the mods are once again allowing personal attacks against South Dakotans

Someone needs to take Midwest geography 101. Wisconsin has the 500 pounders, South Dakota has the mullets.

Clearly y'all haven't been to Texas lately

I'm 260

Cant imagine why

20161106_082303 (resized).jpg

If you want that batsignal light you linked on ebay, you are better off getting it on amazon instead for only $5. This is the same one mounted on the playfield of the SLE.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0762445262/ref=mp_s_a_1_6

It wont replace the topper projector thought as this one is not nearly bright enough. This is meant to be more of a desk trinket than a projector.

Some of the ebay ones might not be bright enough. The Stern one at expo was very bright and projected a nice strong image that was pretty far away in a bright room. Most of the ebay ones are designed to project from the bottom of a car door sill to the ground which is only a few inches. Not sure if they have the lumens needed to go 10 or 20 feet.

When I looked earlier I couldnt find one that used the same shape as the batsignal from the TV show that Stern uses on theirs. If the Stern version is priced to high I'll probably just try and make my own.

The other nice part about the Stern one is that it will be interactive with gameplay.

Really? If $5k ish Pro models are so financially satisfying to pinball manufacturers why aren't other companies competing with Stern to get a share of that lucrative market?

When sales volume went way down along with the other pinball manufacturers, Stern treaded water financially, one or two busts away from the drain until they started LEs on every title (not just SM or LOTR). Poor CSI and NBA sales nearly took Stern down, were it not for an outside investor. They had to layoff much of their design staff and were down to Borg and Lonnie at one point, if I recall correctly. Minus a few classics such as LOTR, TSPP, SM, IM, and perhaps POTC, Sterns best games have all been since LEs were the norm.

It seems obvious to me that Stern is able to keep Pros at their current pricing because of LE model pricing, which probably helps them recoup game design costs. If the LEs are dropped because their existence offends a few Pinsiders, bye bye Pros and welcome to Premium pricing across the board.

B88 ?

IMG_4150 (resized).JPG

Growing up in Nebraska, 'sodack' jokes were like Polack jokes...

- - -

So these two Dakotans were on a job site building a house and nodack went over to check on sodack, found him throwing away every other nail.
"Why you throwing those away?", nodack asked.
"Cause the heads are on the wrong end!" Replied sodack.
"Save those!", nodack replied, "We'll use them on the other side!"

Dumb ones. Business is not just 'maximize profit' - because running a business is not just a single moment in time. If you maximize profit today, and ruin tomorrow.. you have no business. You have to balance more than the profit dimension to have a sustainable, effective business.

I don't blame them for trying to capitalize on what appears to be an undervalued product for what people are willing to pay.. but they've gone over the line in several dimensions leading them into a risky spot... not just a increased margin.

It's not just price about Batman that is gross, it's the scummy behavior around it. Raising the SLE from 30 to 80 after being adamant that it was only going to be 30. Not only that, they were meant to be created at as an expression of appreciation for 30 individuals, now they're just a margin grab. There's no no longer any element of appreciation. And no, this wasn't the original plan, that's obvious by George's and Jody's appearance on C2C. They devalued the SLE before launch by raising production numbers. Total dick move.

I've had trouble for weeks now understanding the outrage over the SLEs and I still don't get it. Unless you bought one or intended to, why does the quantity change or cost bother you, particularly to the level of emotional posts and threads about the matter?

I bought an LE and it doesn't bother me that people who want a a greater exclusivity can buy the SLEs, no skin off my teeth, or anyone else's to be honest. I don't get the cost to value of them, but clearly enough folks did for them to sell out, even with the video requirement. What am I missing?

There are other manufacturers out there and tons of HUO games available at a given time if you don't like the BM66 pricing.

The sole purpose of the LE or SLE purchase is to have something limited. They're making that less so at the expense of the consumer on the SLE. They're devaluing the product. It degrades my confidence in them going forward.

They're doing this with other stuff too. They had sticker packs that were exclusive only to attendees to their party. Well no, you can buy them now anyway. One of the reasons to buy that ticket was to gain access to exclusive things. To screw people over who bought into that idea after the fact is poor form.

There's a pattern of dishonesty and disingenuous behavior from Stern lately. It's just one more example with the SLE. It's not just the price, it's the underhanded business practice.

If someone wants an SLE, that's their business, I agree. But to hype it up as limited to only 30 run to generate a social media campaign and impulse sales only to more than double the production later...that's terrible. Some show of appreciation to fans and partners, Stern.

I hope that the game is fantastic and worth every penny that people pay. That would be great. But if that's how it goes, it still doesn't excuse Stern's poor form.

I'm pretty sure that anyone who bought a BM66 SLE would have had the chance to cancel when it was determined that there were going to be 80 of them. Not that big of a deal really.

It's not like Stern sold 30 BM66 SLE's to 30 people and a year later sold another 50 of them.

They still lied though. That's the issue. It's a bad sign for the company. What reason do we have to trust anything Stern says these days?

They're doing exactly what you said above. The free market will determine if they are priced to high or not and have "gone over the line". If they are, then Stern will react accordingly. I hope they continue to thrive and grow as they have over the last few years.

I just don't get why some many people have their panties in a bunch about all of this. If you don't like Stern prices or their recent marketing strategies then buy a NIB from one of the other manufacturers of buy one of the hundreds of thousands of used game out there at all price ranges.

Why come on the "Batman 66 By Stern New Info Thread" and whine and complain endlessly about how awful everything is. Seems like a lot of people on this thread are getting way too emotional and about a luxury toy purchase. As Joker from BDK wold say; "Why So Serious ??"

I believe I remember when stern told us there was going to be no twd premium,just pro and le.

Everything is always subject to change.

Not for the honest.

I hope Stern releases another version of Batman66 LE. We missed out on one and would love to order! All LEs sold in Australia!

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

BMSLE changing from 30 to 80 who cares. The 30 apparently didn't , nor did the other 50. I had no desire to order one,
but don't begrudge those who did. If it was an issue all buyers would have passed when the numbers changed. Seems this is an issue to those who had no intention of buying . Why aren't the same people complaining when MM, MB , CC , Ect. Were
At these levels. It's a hobby, buy what you can afford.

Things that make me feel like an idiot:

- Putting a small deposit for Batman without seeing it, even after all of the GB insert issues.
- Putting more money into it after price was revealed and in AU there was a 2.2k price jump on the LE.
- Traveling to the US to play the machine, only to have it unplayable
- Listening to rumors all weekend that Lyman was pulling all nighters to get the machine playable at expo...when asking Lyman in person if it was true and him saying 'sorry, thats just not true, you won't play it this weekend its not ready'
- Almost a month later, still waiting to see the machine playing!

We gotta come up with a new name for this thread......

Huge difference. Those games prices were driven by real supply and demand. Only so many were made, not many were in circulation...it cost a certain amount to pry one away from a collector.

Stern is manufacturing rarity and setting a flipper/scalper price before anyone even knows how the fucking thing plays....also, when you buy an old B/W game - you know what the quality is going to be like. Based on the games made this year, don't count on the quality being any better despite the price.

High prices on rare games suck if you want to buy one...but there's a reason. Stern did this backwards...and while 80 people might be happy (maybe - they don't really know what they're getting), I suspect they've alienated far more customers with this move.

Had the SLE, as cool as it looks, just been the LE at a normal LE price ...prob could have sold 500 of them. Now 80 will get it, how many of them are hoarders who will keep it in the box...no ones really going to see this thing, so at the end of the day - who cares!? It's like it doesn't exist.

So 80 isn't rare. All of the BW GAMES HAD THOUSANDES PRODUCED. WHO CARES, NONE ARE WORTH THOSE PRICES.

Is it really that difficult for people to understand? Stern said that there would only be 30. They priced it and presented it as the very special reward for the customer. Once they realized that more profit was to be had, all that went out the window. Customer appreciation be damned, it's about money now. Furthermore, that $15k price was meant to reinforce rarity, which was diluted by more than half.

It's selfish and greedy.

As soon as you describe a for profit business as 'selfish' or 'greedy' you lose your arguement. You might as well call them Nazis. It's just as ridiculous.

Stern does not exist to make pinball machines. Stern exists to make profit for its shareholders. Period.

You, nor anyone else, is being forced to buy their products. The endless whining is intolerable.

I agree, and when selfish and greed are present, many will loose .

This is not how business works, but whatever. I'm done trying to explain it to people who don't understand business and marketing.

No it's not what I said... Because again... You've looked at one dimension in isolation. Tomorrow is not in isolation of today or the day before that. Just changing your price again will not undo the harm you did previously... You must now repair or overcome past impacts in addition to the actual change. Price changes aren't just about a price changing y/n but also degrees and how they are perceived.

I also was referring to other dimensions than price. For instance, brand associations are not simply changed because you start saying something. If you've conditioned the market with your past outcomes... (Like build quality) it takes a lot longer to repair that image than it took you to make it.

Running a brand and a business is not something you get to reset daily... And they're are multiple dimensions stern is digging a hole over
- failing to adapt their communications to the modern home market they are now targeting
- customer pushback over the rate of recent price increases
- a string of quality issues that have been poorly manged meaning even tho customers have or will be handled, damage persists to the brand - customers are holding back purchases because confidence is low
- a perception of arrogance in their interaction with customers
- yet another round of distribution changes that isn't addressing the fundamental issues
- increasing number of competitors without a clear message of how stern differentiates... The "we are the only REAL pinball company" schtick is not gonna work going forward
- continued problems delivering complete games continue to create drag in people committing up front

These are things stern can't fix by simply rolling back prices $500 tomorrow and weren't just caused by a small price increase like stern traditional has done per release.

No company wants their customer base to buy their product begrudgingly.... Because they are then more at risk of disrupters entering the market.

Stern had stumbled into a great new market full of brand advocates and champions in the last 6-7 years... And very quickly they are working to piss that away.

Are you really done? Best post in this thread for several pages, if you're serious. Really man, I don't need you to explain to me how business works. I'm just buying a f**king pinball machine I want, like a lot of people.

Apparently, at Expo, it played pretty much the same as BDK, from the one person who saw it played by a kid.

I'm willing to bet that this game will be quite different in the end. I don't think that they will go the lazy route or screw this up. I'm expecting a great game on regards to code.

Stern could fix a lot of their problems tomorrow.

- Start communicating with us customers MUCH better, especially regarding quality control issues and code status

- Create a Customer Loyalty progam to reward loyal and repeat customers, get creative, its not that hard

- Instead of taking customers for granted and exhibiting arrogance, be humble and show appreciation, charging for a VIP party isn't the answer

Since the "competition" isn't any better for the most part I'm assuming it won't happen anytime soon.

Whether they fix their house or not, I don't really care. I'm excited about buying a Batman66LE!

All of the other shit will work itself out, for better or worse, it always does.

Really? The layout is already really close to BDK. It's closer to a BDK vault edition than a completely new game. Pretty lazy since it saved them a ton of time engineering new shots on a different layout. The differences between Premium/LE/Super LE are pretty small considering the starting price and price jumps. That seems lazy, too. I hope I'm completely wrong because I sincerely hate the borefest of BDK, and if this is a BDK derivative in the end, it will have ruined a nostalgia pin I would like to have one day.

But they wont

Because people keep buying

I guess it hasn't gotten bad enough yet then to stop people.

Maybe one day they will dig the hole deep enough.

Maybe this is why it was not playable. It may have some sort of weird code mix of BDK and BM66 while they are developing the game. Hopefully it will be quite different though.

No sense arguing over the whys or hows for making this game anymore. It's done, the only legit topic left is how good of a game is it.

Ghost Dog: There is something to be learned from a rainstorm. When meeting with a sudden shower, you try not to get wet and run quickly along the road. But doing such things as passing under the eaves of houses, you still get wet. When you are resolved from the beginning, you will not be perplexed, though you still get the same soaking. This understanding extends to everything.

I guess I understand the principled aspect of your point, but I don't understand why you're so passionate about it or personally offended if you're not an SLE buyer. The numbers changed from 30 to 80 before buyers were selected, so no one was on the hook for an SLE at the 30 quantity and then had the rug pulled out from under them. I don't think there was even a price or pictures of the game prior to the quantity changing, so to me it's a marketing misfire, one of many at Stern I might add. I chalk it up to incompetence more than intentional deceit. In any case, I still wouldn't care, because I was never going to buy an SLE. It's the same as me not caring that JJP introduced the second LE versions for WoZ and Hobbit (Ruby Red and Black Arrow, I think). I wasn't interested in either game so I don't lose sleep over the supposed corporate slight of hand. Though, in those cases, I can better understand why previous LE buyers would be offended (they had skin in the game), unlike in the BM66 SLE scenario. I like the BM66 theme for nostalgia purposes, so I ordered an LE. If Stern changes the number of LEs tomorrow, I still won't be upset unless they lower the number and I don't get a game. I buy games to play, not as an investment.

Also, due to experience I have lower expectations for the behavior of corporations than I do for Family and Friends, Church and State. I have a certain level of distrust of them from the beginning and expect all decisions to be financially motivated. It's a case of buyer beware in all cases. Also, as one of the JPoP suckers, I've had a hard reminder of that lesson in the not too distant past.