C'mon Ice, we want to see you squirm...

No, but we could have a rugby match in your house with R Diddy, and film crashing through the screen door in a drunken stupor.

That would catch Gary's eye and be a winner for sure.

I was thinking about doing a Todd Stuckey and pushing one of my Bally's off the roof.

Or rolling it outside and setting it on fire?

Just goes to show you how F'ing stupid people really are.

Should it be the Road Show or the Indy 500?

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Odin starting his film documentary of a cross country tour to Gary's house in Chicago. Never can have enough tires!

Does it deserve the SLE?

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Of course it does! It also deserves exemption for the 18 month no flip rule, as I could sure use that $25,000.

Original theme for the win!

Meanwhlie Lee Meriwether has a slight lead over Halle Barry in the poll.

I've purchased most of the recent LE's but due to the following I'm out on all versions of Batman66:-
- Application process for SLE
- Price is a joke with the exchange rate in OZ.
- Recent QC issues
- PR & Marketing has become a JOKE
There are people like me STERN who if they can't have the top LE will buy nothing. Maybe the SLE price will cover the ones you now lost.
Stern have survived through the years despite poor QC, bad themes, poor code etc, etc, but blatant money grabbing may be their demise.
I see Stern in a different light after this release, pull your head in Stern and stop raping the people that kept you going all these years.

Nobody is making you buy.

lol correct, isn't that bad for business? I'm not the only one who feels this way.

True. And a lot of people won't be buying.

Sometimes it is smarter business to make more money selling higher priced but fewer items. If you can sell enough of them to make up for the many that would otherwise buy the lesser expensive items. I'm not questioning their logic.

A lot of people ARE buying.

Stern is doing just fine....

You are right, but does that mean hes not allowed to voice his displeasure in the way Stern does business? Sounds like hes been a good customer and it would be wise for Stern not to piss off the people that have helped make them who they are. I love Stern and I love their games, but their relationship and communication with their customers could use some work. They do have a reputation of making things right when people have problems, and I hear that Gary is a great guy so thats a good thing. It would just be nice if they would keep people informed about code updates, playfield replacement and things like that. I want a new GB right now but im afraid to buy because of all the recent quality issues. I got my fingers crossed that the playfields are going to be good now, time will tell.

Yep they are doing just fine "now", but that can change really fast. Pissing off your customers is a really bad idea trust me. No business is too big to fail, especially a pinball manufacturer.

That's good to know because they have a nice new larger building and all the overhead that goes with it.

I don't know why, but between Stern and the "application" videos, the word "vulgar" keeps coming to mind.

Yes!

And while many of us assumed they were going to be using that space to build lots of games maybe we were all wrong. Their real plan could be to build just a few really high end expensive games and use the rest of the space to pile up cash and batmobiles.

LOL

Is it just me, or lots of batman shit everywhere lately, it seems......just saw an add for a new batman Xbox game? 3rd annual batman day? Guess I've been out of the bat loop .....sure hope this game is awesome.....

I'm losing interest in Stern.

Anyone else?

I'm actually starting to dig into another hobby because of it.

It's going to take more than a few overpriced super LEs to pay for this sucker.

http://www.barrett-jackson.com/Events/Event/Details/0-1-BATMOBILE--137874

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Holy bat crap! They would need to sell a lot of SLE's to pick that bad boy up. Clearly they need to raise prices again. SLE's are a bargain with batmobiles going for that kind of cash.

Lost it after i bought my twd premium in dec/jan . Have since been trading my sterns off for b/w a titles and don't regret it one bit and have much more fun on them

That's essentially the problem in a nutshell right there. Pre 2011, nobody bought a game before playing it. Stern actually had to produce a quality product or nobody would buy it at all. After 2011 a new wave of buyers appeared who bought everything sight unseen and regardless of cost, and they don't even have to produce that great of a game.

I thought people would learn after Transformers, Avengers, KISS, ST, etc but nobody ever does, self restraint is non-existent. Buying without playing is now the standard for all high end models. I used to be against all the senseless raising of prices by Stern, but honestly now every time they do it, it just raises the value of the games in my collection more since I'm not buying any of their LE's.

What happened? Didnt you like TWD or what?

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

No i like twd but soon after the price hike started and has continued and to me they just are not worth it and we have more fun playing games like afm and mm . Ill keep met and twdp bc its nice to have a few deeper pins in the lineup.

I can understand that for sure and older pins like AFM and MM are about as good as it gets. I have a WD and could never let it go, its just an amazing game.

Stern has had some duds lately. WD was the last game they put out that really interests me.

For me to buy another stern they need to put out a really good game, convince me the quality issues are sorted and give me a theme I ideally like or am at least ok with. Price increases don't help combined with cost cutting.

Yea love the zombie theme combined with best code ever ....and the 6300 with shaker and other mods was a fair price but for the same thing now it be 6800-7k which is to much imo.

WD has the whole package. Good layout, good code, good theme. A friend has one otherwise I would have one already. Since then they haven't put the whole package together again. Particularly when you factor in price (and exchange rates really don't help!)

I was planning to do that at your house when I come around before the Texas Pinball Festival next year ... can you get a screen door installed before then?

Neither! I'll take them off your hands when I'm there and I can bring them back as baggage on the lovely Air New Zealand.

rd

You all have no one to blame but yourselves. Up until stern started all of this bs I has bought nib, sm,lotr,potc,Shrek,tspp,NASCAR. Then they announced tron, I was so stoked. Then I found out I would get an inferior playfield unless I spent more. I said fuck you stern and have never returned. Yes those who bought tron le and acdc bib made it out big. The rest have been sucking sterns farts on your le's and are lucky to break even or make very little when selling. Sterns prices could be 4k again if everyone held out, I know it wont happen so I can't wait to see the bitch fests when we see over 20k.

see, there is marketing to benefit your company, but sometimes you push the envelope too far and piss off your market. When you do that you shoot yourself in the foot, and sometimes you can't recover because people just stop buying altogether. Toy market had it happen when they kept making "revisions" to figures to exploit the toy collector. Finally a bunch of us got fed up, and said screw you and sold off our entire collections, never to look back. Think it can't happen to stern? Sure the hell could. In fact, you don't even have to leave pinball to do it. There are soooo many titles out there, that you could go the rest of your life without ever buying a NIB and still be content.

Exactly.

Last NIB I bought was STLE.

I will never buy a Stern NIB again as apart from QC issues, prices are just way too high.

Every decade has fantastic titles so if I get bored, just dip into a different decade.

Huh? Inferior playfields.....sucking Sterns farts??? I have no idea what you're drinking but I'd love to have a swig lol.

Same opinion for a star wars pin?

I mean most of people don't care about this batman 66, even more with so dumb prices.

But Star War is worldwide famous, nothing to compare with some guys in tights in a kitch tv show.

I refuse to pay 12.500 euro for a batman pinball.
That is about 13.800 dollar?
I paid 8700 euro for woz?
And now that i think about it,why spiderman, batman, avengers all the time? Dorky themes, i am 40 , not 13..
Prices go crazy? You can buy a real decent mercedes for that money.
I buy pinballs because i already have a mercedes,but comparing the 2 made me cancel my order

Yes, fuck those prices.
I can afford it, but i refuse to pay high dollar for "dickie-toys" quality

I was told that kinker surprise was building the great batcopter

Lol exactly,i think in the future, stern lowers the costs by letting you assemble the playfield toys yourself.
They will put them in a surprise egg and call it the mystery playfield toy egg!
You never know which toy is in the egg!
Is it the batcopter? The batmobile?batbike?
Exciting! Zap! Pow!
But serious, i might cool off later, but i am so pissed at these stern prices right now...

Hopefully Homepin can get mass production on line and put some price pressure on them.

Homepin can really put pressure on especially once they have their core component manufacturing completed. I would say they would be aiming for less then 5000usd maybe even as low as 4000usd. However I still think that for companies such as homepin or even spooky to really take it to stern they need to have a strong design and programming team in place. I belive homepin will be able to get the manufacturing side right, they are already shipping multiple containers of cocktail tables a month, so they know how to get product out the door. However one of the main reason stern is so popular is they have great designs in Borg,Ritchie , Treaudu plus some amazing programmers such as Lyman. Just like with the golden days of Williams/Bally, the really key is game design and rules. If these companies only try and develop games with their own in house design teams, then unless they have the next undiscovered Lawlor or Ritchie working for them, there is a good chance the games won't threaten Stern. We hear a lot of people say "making pinball is hard" maybe they should also say "designing and coding pinball is hard".

I personally don't think designing p/f layouts is that hard.

The genius comes in the coding. Stern have a ton to thank Lyman for. He is the one person they couldn't afford to lose.

As crazy as it seems to pay $9500 US for a Batman pinball, $13,800 for an LE is yes "fuck those prices"

Isn't $8,000 for a GBLE crazy too? Nobody complains about that price because you can sell it for more.

People have gotten so used to being able to buy a Stern Nib pin and be able to sell it a year later for little to no depreciation, with the exception of a few titles.

They saw what just happened with GBLE, people were BEGGING to buy one for $9k-$10k and then watched as pre orders bought for $8k and immediately flipped the LE for $9500.

They just simply weren't going to let that happen with BM66LE.

The end result is going to be the 240 LE buyers will take a hit on selling if they ever go to sell. That is going to be the NEW reality anyhow on EVERY new pin.

More and more supply is just going to lead to more and more people moving out last years "gotta have it" to get this year's "shut up and take my money now" pin.

It's kind of fitting that the battle with the "dark side" will play out with STAR WARS.

Let's see how people feel at that point. Might be the beginning of the end? Or not.

BINGO!

There are already 3 Star Wars pins (4 if you count the Hankin one) and no one cares.

Limited Edition / low build numbers aside, you have to think- "what am I really getting for my money" versus how much money you are giving someone in pure profit?

Taking a look at this 2017 Yamaha FZ-10 you can just look at this machine and think, wow, there are some expensive parts on this machine and it probably cost a pretty penny in parts and labor to assemble it. Combine that with a factory warranty that if there are defects you roll it into a dealership and they fix it at no expense to you. Hell, even if the headlights "ghost" they will fix it no problem!

Prices of pinball machines have now gone to the extreme phase, and are only exploiting those upper ends of the collectors market while subsequently telling less financially fortunate hobbyists that they dont have the money to buy their products any more. I get you dont "need to buy" - but the sad thing is many people would love to buy it, but they simply cannot afford the machines at these new inflated profit margins at Stern. They are only allowing the upper end of the successful pinball collector now, where you can only collect if you are rich enough. That sucks as we know Stern isn't putting more money into the machines - if anything they are now saving cash on the bill of materials - but are only raising prices because they are now targeting the richer end of the collectors.

At the end of the day you they are just alienating their core group to line their pockets with more cash, while offering the same if not cheaper built product. Just look at the recent playfield issues and the fact they wanted to save money with the Spike system by putting the power switch in the backbox... then they jack the prices up.

Any way, this is an example of what a $12-15K product should be. Not a Batman pinball machine, sorry.

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you know there are things to enjoy and buy that is not NIB. In fact, the older stuff and the enjoyment of restoring and making a rough game, look and play like new is what this hobby has been about for the last 2 decades. I know a majority on here are just NIB sluts and don't care about anything they can't bling out with a shitton of mods, but thats not what this hobby was about. Enjoy the masterpieces of old and the hobby is a lot more rewarding.