I have, I dropped my SWLE and couldn't be happier. But what's one person, at the end of the day it requires a lot of us to sit back and say no thanks Stern not until you step your game up!

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Where the F*!*! Is the code?

SW got it.

I think it is happening for some of us and will happen to even more of us as time goes on unless Stern makes some changes.

My whole Batman66 experience has soured me from getting a NIB Star Wars. I'm not much of a power buyer but I've bought 4 NIB Sterns over the last few years (Tron LE, Tron pro, Star Trek premium, and Batman66 LE). I'm a middle aged guy with disposable income so I should be Stern's prime demographic to buy NIB premium/LE pins for home use.

Things like the forced 2K preorder, game not being playable at expo, empty code once it finally shipped, slow (and getting slower) trickle of mediocre code updates, overly long downtime to wait for a replacement node board, have all left a bad taste in my mouth. I feel like Stern doesnt understand that they are alienating a large portion of their repeat customers with the way they market their new products and support their older products.

Most of it is my fault for buying it based on what was shown initially but it was a dream theme for me and I jumped on the hype train because I didnt want to miss out on an LE. If I was smart and waited I could have picked a nice HUO LE for $1.5K to $1k less than what I paid. I still like the game a lot even in its current code state and feel confident Lyman will do a good job with the final code (who knows how long that will take though).

I'm a huge Star Wars fan. I saw the original Star Wars at the theater and have been to the opening night of every Star Wars movie since then. I still have an original 40x60 poster hanging in my basement that I've owned since I was a teenager. But after my last NIB experience, I'll be waiting this one out. I'm sure there will be plenty of nice HUO ones in the used market down the road. I see no reason to jump in early on this one. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.

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Docquest - Well done Sir. Your comments are spot on for me too. Unfortunately, it has taken me a lot longer to reach this point. I have been to Stern multiple times, I have had conversations with many of them. They are all very nice people. However, nothing changes..... Is that a result of the investment group? Gary Stern? Some other factor? I really don't know. However, I do know that NIB from Stern is never going to happen again for me.

All that said, I am sure the code at some point will make Batman 66 a winner. For me, it is a wonderful theme with great potential.

Kinda bummed about slow code, but machine is a keeper for me, so not really sweating it. I know it will get done...and after this long ( or longer) suspect a substantial update. I still enjoy playing it, and that's all that really matters....

Ditto

Can anyone work out the time it took games like ACDC/Metallica/Star Trek/TWD to get to "complete" game status. I'm thinking it was at least a year on those, but could be wrong. We're still only at 9 month's for B66, just seems like longer for some reason.

The real problem is that Stern does understand - they just don't seem to care. For every potential buyer that gives up because they feel burned Stern thinks there is another replacement buyer.

I bought an LE for exactly the same reasons - and banked heavily on Lyman. I'm not sure I would have risked it without Lyman on the project. And, with Batman 66, it was an LE or nothing for me.

My next "must have" is Elvira 3 - also rumored to be a Lyman game - but after BM66 (and the various quality issues on other titles) I may not be a day 1 buyer and may forgo an LE to see what the state of Elvira is until about a year after the release. Or maybe I forgo Elvira entirely and get Dialed In or a future JJP title.

Space is at a premium for me and I can't afford to gamble on what Stern is becoming - a company that cares more about quantity than quality and that seems to have little regard for what it takes to want customers to become repeat customers.

Looks like a re-run on our bat channel this week, and probably longer. My bat sense tells me that Lyman is working on something else right now, which would explain why the last release contained tweaks and mostly tightened up what was already there. I figure we must be in TWD update mode at this point and will just have to hunker down now like we did then.

I think it will be awhile. Hoping Aerosmith and BM66 both get updates soon.

My local Honda dealership bends over backwards to make sure I'm a happy customer. Free wi-fi, TV, video games, soft drinks, snacks and popcorn in service waiting area. Free car wash and vaccum with my oil changes. Follow up emails after my car purchase to see how its going. They act like they really appreciate that I choose them over the other dealers and want me to come back for more, which I have and likely continue to do so.

As a Stern customer I don't feel that at all. A good example is the big 30'th anniversary party at expo. After paying to get in and then having to pay again paying for food or drinks I felt like I was the one throwing the party for the Stern management team vs the other way around.

The home market is becoming a much bigger component of their sales base I think they will need to cater to the customer a little better if they want to survive long term. This is an area where the other companies like JJP and Spooky could really swoop in and steal Stern home use customers just by treating them better.

I still like a lot of Sterns games and will undoubtedly buy more in the future, I just think it will be on the second hand market vs NIB.

Or this is the "big" update coming next so its taking longer to get everything implemented. Maybe that's why he was a no-show at pintastic, he had his nose to the grindstone working on BM66 code.

Well... hopefully the one and only video I did/do for code version 0.75

Unfortunately the webcam didn't capture the display very well.
It is at this time already fun to play this beauty, but the major lack of rules, callouts etc. is pretty obvious.

But we're not talking complete. We're talking shipping state, 1.00. 7 months after shipping, still not even CLOSE to 1.00. That's unprecedented in modern Stern history.

Rumour is the next Kapow will be Munsters or Beatles, surely if Stern have any sense (which is questionable at this point) they need to get BM66 in good shape if they want future SLE models to be successful?

It is tragic really just how bad Stern are at customer service and social media interaction with their customer base.

Yes, I would say that is where a lot of the confusion stems from - being able to distinguish between complete code where all the advertised modes and features actually are present versus having code progression that at the very least leaves a positive impression on the consumer at the point of initial release. In that regard B66 is very much lacking.

In cases like these really the best an early adopter or any potential Stern product consumer can do is keep the faith and hope that....

But that's probably next year. We will see what happens. Sometimes they get it done before the next title.

We will see. I big update would certainly put us at ease. I cannot see how they can give Lyman a full year plus between titles.

I do not think they can announce another Katie title until this on is close to finished. I think that will blow up big time on them.

If they did Munsters I wonder if thy would get Franchi for the art? Seems like that would be right up his alley. Whatever his next game for Stern is, the art is done according to his facebook page.

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All this is fine,but what bothers me is the depth of the new SW code,versus updated B66 code!! The new SW code is so deep.you are doing 2,and 3,sometimes 4 modes at the same time!There is so much to do on the new SW pin,versus what COULD be done with our B66,it looks like Batman is standing still

SW might look deep but it also looks very familiar to GOT, there is no way Dwight has done GOT, GB & SW back to back from the ground up, not taking anything away from Dwight as he's a great programmer but at a guess I would say he did GOT moved into GB which is very one dimensional and now we have SW which to me seems a tweaked/refined GOT.

I don't think Lyman has had the same luxury, GOT was SPIKE maybe it wasn't too hard to port that to SPIKE 2, Lyman closest code to port for this game is probably BDK but that was SAM so maybe he's had to do this from the ground up?

None of us really no, only thing we do know is the code situation is now unacceptable and I'm no longer a NIB Stern buyer as a result of it.

I passed on SW and AS because of this,bought a Di and couldn't be happier and when I bend down to turn the game on the switch is still where it has always been, shame on you stern,I have put up with there shenanigans long enough even the customer support has taken a dive in recent years ,jjp just gave woz an code update after 4 years and there customer support is the tops imho and pricing is similar except for stern pro.

Competition is definitely hurting Stern. All of it is so solvable with up-front communication with customers.

We are all a forgiving bunch.

I have been playing Batman far less than I might otherwise be because of the code level. I'm pretty sure I've seen everything there is to see in .75 and I'm far from a great player.

Are others doing the same? Is your game mostly sitting waiting for new code? Or are you playing as much as you expected to, code level notwithstanding?

I don't want to burn out playing such an incomplete version. When the prior updates were released, I'd play it that night and a couple days following. Then it would sit off for an entire month waiting for the next update.

Hasn't been turned on since May 30th

Mine hasn't been turned on since a few days after the last code drop. I should probably put a sheet over it as a dust cover like I did with my NIB X-Men years ago, which was the last time I got bent over on a new game.

I'm also out on buying new Sterns at this point. As I wrote somewhere else, Stern probably won't miss those of us NIB BM66 suckers for the time being, but there will come a time in the future when they'll wish that they had us former dependable NIB buyers back.

Mine has been sitting since 0.75 came out since my node board stopped working with that update. Once the replacement is here it'll be like new code for me since I couldnt run the 0.75 yet.

That's a double whammy

Let's hope you get some new code to test out the new board.

It's only going to get worse for Stern as the competion grows.

Once JJP is at least releasing 1 game per year and they start throwing out some hit themes that's going to hit Stern Premium & LE sales hard imo.

And we have CGC going from strength to strength to strength, what they have achieved from MMR to AFMR is remkarbale abd AFMR is getting ALOT of love - build quality, customer service, code - ironically compared to Stern who are borderline a distaster at all 3.

Throw in Spooky, American pinball and maybe Heighway and Stern will begin to bleed sales slowly and if they don't change they will be hemorrhaging sales uncontrollably.

You're not missing much. I didn't notice any substantial improvements in the .75 code. Nothing like the previous code drop where they introduced the Bat turn mode.

I know this will not be a popular viewpoint, but you guys are giving me some hope I might actually be able to afford one of these in the near future. Love the theme, and more importantly, my wife wants one. For the right price, I'll ride it out on the code....

Franchi is doing art on next Kapow

What's pathetic is that I'm sure they have Lyman focused on Elvira 3 pre launch

Why not finish up BM66 and ship Elvira with no F ing code.

Wtf

Probably more profit in Elvira 3 than BM66, sooner we all start telling Stern we are not happy by keeping our wallets closed the sooner we will start getting better code/finished products.

You have inside sources about the kapow game or is this just a guess?

Here's something to consider. You've seen the highs and the lows of pinball popularity over the years and were probably thinking it was done 20 years ago. Yet here we have a resurgence, but you know it's not going to last forever. What do you do? You crank the titles out as fast as you can. You can always go back and fix code right? What do the enthusiasts 20 years down the road wish you had done?

100% agree. Rake in the cash while you can.

He said it himself in an interview

I can say for a fact that is not the case yet. I can't say what tomorrow will bring, but unless I was lied to on multiple levels in face-to-face discussions and visually deceived as well, he is still very much dedicated to BM66 code.

Cool. Is it posted online anywhere?

I gotta say I agree 100% here....maybe I'm not a pinball wizard, but the game is still quite enjoyable w .75 code. This machine has a much different feel on the LCD integration..one that doesn't get old for me. I seem to hear a new riddler phrase or scene every time I play it. I'm simply not good enough to beat it every time I play it....that's ok for me.

I know it will get completed, I know it will get deeper, I know it will be even more fun....but " as is" still quite fun, and virtually EVERYONE that visits my house is fascinated by the damn thing. It's a beautiful pin, and will having staying power long, long after the band themes have run their course.

( it is Jager night, btw, so life is good period right now...play some pinball!!!)

I'll never doubt Lyman. Just a matter of time

A bit frustrating though

Yes, and trust me, he is aware. Patience will yield good rewards.

No one doubts Lyman.

But no one trusts Stern.

Never have truer words been spoken on this site

Unfortunately I have to agree...........

The way I see it, the longer the wait, the bigger the update.

I'd rather Lyman stay focused on coding the game instead of trying to get constant updates out.

Don't forget, patience is a virtue...granted, whoever first said that probably never had to wait for anything.

As long as he's working on it, I can live with it.

I do wonder what kind of QA period is needed before every pinball software update. And look at the Star Wars thread about the story of blowing node boards about what can happen with pinball bugs.