Can this be true? - Stern revenue up 40% in 2016 and 30% in 2017.

Nah, i just don't feel it necessary to list all my games on pinside.
Largely got sick of one stalker that would not leave me alone about wanting to buy a few games so i changed how and what I list publically to avoid the hassle.

I don’t believe you

That is cool. I don't care. Lol

Upload a pic of your massive stern game room that includes stuff included on your current list, with “whysnow” written on paper in the photo .....otherwise none us believe you. Pic or it didnt happen

Dueling Homer avatars... sweet!!!

The 40% number over 2016 I have heard before. As far as I was told the company actually sold less games that year than previous years due to the ghosting issue and other unforeseen problems. The main reason revenue was up: Batman 66.
The 30% number over 2017 is new to me, but can easily be explained (aside from price increases): They still sold Batman, Aerosmith was a steady seller and Star Wars sold very well (to distributors. Whether they sold all of them doesn't show on Stern's numbers). Add the reruns of small batches of elder titles and that should explain the increase in revenue.

He has them. More or less common knowledge around here. You may not agree with him but he has plenty of Stern’s.

best part about the argument, great idea for upcoming episode!!!

I believe it. They have substantially upped the prices to consumers, reduced margins for distros and employed cost-cutting measures. Complaint threads all over pinside and many customers have lost faith. This seems to be a money today, don't worry about tomorrow philosophy. Wondering if they are trying to sell? Distros stuck with inventory.

2018 ain't gonna look so hot I'm guessing. I love my Sterns, just don't love their current business model. They need to slow it down, burn the base and there won't be enough new blood to keep it going long term.

Fair enough, but if you are going to discuss your collection and list your collection then it would be reasonable for people to assume it is accurate and current.

Congrats Stern & co

Now whurr dat code at tho?

Get’r done so I can give you more money in 2018

Good to see stern surviving without money from me.
Even SW and GOTG couldn't get me to bite at their current quality/price scenario. I suspect 2018 will see yet another price increase to cover their sale decline.

Yeah and welcome to the business world, some of you guys like to pretend this is all being done for the "passion" All the companies are in it to make money and will cut corners and raise prices if they can. Again I say who cares? SW is a great game, really enjoyed my time on AS and GOTG looks promising so 2017 was a pretty good god damn year not to mention DI and TNA. Sales decline? this whole hobby is on borrowed time my friends, the 18 year olds of today will not spend big money for pinball, not in my opinion so embrace it and if its all too much then collect stamps.

Can't agree with this more. Same Hilton-logic lead to his strong endorsement of Predator and convinced many people to be duped by Skit-B Pinball.

Hope Stern is making money. I feel like they have declined in quality of pins but if they are making more money then good for them. It's still fun to see a new game every 3 to 5 months and then watch everyone get bent out of shape over it like the world is ending. Always fun playing a brand new pin and seeing what it has to offer no matter what it is.

Uh, that's "piques my interest". E.G. I sure would like to have a peek at Stern's books to try and figure out if earnings have peaked. To try and figure out if Stern is overcharging me or undercharging me, or if Stern will be around next year piques my interest.

It is sort of like "their", "there" and "they're" that half the population constantly struggles with.

I hope Stern is making money too, but this comment "I feel like they have declined in quality of pins but if they are making more money then good for them." is really such an bizarre perspective. Anyone that feels good about paying more and getting less deserves what they get...that's for sure!

snaroff

40% sounds pretty optimistic, but private companies can say whatever they want. Can't deny pinball sales have been growing the last few years.

Looked again and %’s could totally make sense.

2015 had WWE - not much of any sales, Kiss - so so sales, Got - pretty good sales, but a chunk of actual sales could have rolled over to 2016. So 2015 the base year of all the data was probably slow causing higher percentage increase ahead.

2016 - had GOT rollover sales, SMVE - ok sales, GB - strong sales and 500 sold LE’s creating a good chunk of the 40% increase over 2015, BM66 - good sales, but limited with a high cost each pin and a group of those sales may have rolled over to 2017.

2017 - had rolled over BM sales, AS sold alright, SW was a hit with 800 LE’s sold. All of these had increased price LCD’s and non LCD games all had a $300 increase which brought in more revenue.

2017 BM roll over, SW LE price and volume and LCD’s higher prices could easily add 30% over the weaker 2016.

So if you base increases on weak 2015 and better but not super great 2016 then sure revenue went up.

Just a total guess though.

Wait until this new tax cut hits!

20% income exclusion for small businesses like Stern unless you fall into an exception like a service business like myself!!! FFFFF

Hopefully Stern uses that tax cut to hire more people, especially in the coding department.

And of course give us more for our $$$ spent.

Are you sure?. Batman didn't start shipping until after xmas 2016. Also with all the Ghostbusters that were out in the field I can't see how they sold less? Also Stern really only made money on the SLE. I personally don't think batman was that good for stern, otherwise we'd have seen more SLE nonsense.

Because of the factory move they did less new titles in 2016.

I believe that Stern had a great 2016 because of the following:

The Walking Dead Code released at the end of 2015 put the game back on the map.
Ghostbusters released early 2016, even with the ghosting issues look at the GB threads thousands of them must have shipped.
Metallica - again look at the pinside threads
Game of Thrones - another game that I saw everywhere in 2016.

All of those games sold like hotcakes, TWD and Ghostbusters especially. I remember at the Stern tour in Oct 2016 our tour guide saying The Walking Dead was the gift that kept on giving.

in my view the good news is that they invested to build a bigger factory - clearly a more for more strategy; a little more cost for a lot more volume.

Revenue up is great, key issue is costs and profit. I have to believe that they are up; and look at all the people stern are hiring, Zach - Keith Elwin and a bunch of other folks.

How anyone can take view on CGC is hard given they do so much in supply chain for pinball and arcade and other stuff. Sense I get is that they are doing very well indeed.

Cheers.
Neil.

Batman was a pre-order title. The money came in in 2016.

Revenue can only be regozinzed if it is earned.

Yep, being labeled a professional is not good for taxes and the tax bill does nothing for us. I foresee Gary buying more high gravity beer with the savings lol.

Only on SLE and only $2K and from a GAAP POV recognisable until machine shipped.

What does that have to do with revenue?

Edit. Methos beat me too it.

Arguably the revenue from BM66 still hasnt been earned

You guys need to stop giving so much a shit about this stuff.

If you think the Stern games are worth the retail prices, buy 'em. If you think it's too much, don't buy them.

Stern's revenue shouldn't have any part in that decision and you shouldn't care. Do you feel better buying an $8,000 Alien because you know everybody involved in producing it is likely broke or soon to be?

Pineapple (resized).PNG

Great, they're making money.... Maybe now they can afford to design a game that's worth a shit and doesn't self-destruct in 5 years.

Not likely with the shift to spike imho.

How is that a bizarre perspective? Buying a pin is some kind of punishment? WTH? If someone is happy buying a nib Stern pin and enjoy playing it then good for them. I have no interest currently in buying a new Stern but do like playing them. If nobody bought nib pins then that would suck for everyone. People have been complaining about Stern games since I have been in the hobby. It's either code, prices, art, quality, theme, or stupid things like lockdown bars. Nobody is forcing you to buy a game even if you like the theme. Not sure why that is hard to understand.

It's tough to win sometimes.

If you buy a game incomplete then folks shout "dont buy it then"

But if you wait to see how code matures & "vote with your wallet" folks then shout "you aren't an owner your opinion doesnt matter"

Stern made money in 2017 but I dont think another year of reduced sales will shake out as well. Hopefully they fix things before digging too deep of a hole.

I mean FFS volume was down on the year they released Star Wars, the greatest theme ever. IMO that says several things.

I hope they wrap up Star Wars, GOTG, Aerosmith & etc soon. I hope Elvira is a full of big o titties, beautiful art & legit code

C'mon Stern. Do it! Makie Bankie!

I hope so that means Pinball is in good shape.

Did I miss something? I didn’t see anything about a decline in sales.

Yeah didn't you read on Pinside people weren't happy with the toy count on SW

They're ASSuming that sales are down because a bunch of Pinsiders didn't like GB and SW and don't trust Spike.

whysnow says above that Stern's street prices rose $600 per year b/w 2015 and 2017 (roughly 13% price increase per year). If "revenue" means the total money paid by distributors to Stern each year (i.e. not accounting for Stern's costs of production or marketing), even assuming that the entire 13% annual increase in "street price" went to Stern (i.e. dealers don't get any cut of price increases), how could Stern's revenue be up 30-40% annually if its sales numbers fell? Wouldn't you need a 40% price increase in 2016 and a 30% price increase in 2017 to see those revenue increases, even if sales were flat? I'm not an accountant or a math guy, so this is a real question ...

(rumor)

To be 100% honest that is exactly why I didn’t buy Star Wars.

With as many SW as they have sold I think the rumor might be incorrect. I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't end up as there largest seller to date. Just as a hint of how many they are moving, the last show I went to Marco and Flipnout had a joint stern booth and all of the show games were reserved before hand so everything they brought for free play in the booth was already sold. There was 1 BM66 and 9 SW.

Most obvious answer...
Private companies can say whatever they want to try and sway perception... it is not like Stern has a track record of being super honest.

Second most obvious answer...
I was quoting pro price increases. do the math on prem, LE, of course VE, and of couse the SLE invented prices and get back to me. Pretty easy to make up some more %. That shoukd take care of the supposed increase in revenue.

Anyone that looks at the numbers on any of the various tracking websites should be able to come to the same conclusion... they are for sure averaging fewer games per title. they may have sold more games by decreasing cycle time, extending sale time, and vaulting. For sure they now have the ability to batch build and swap the line quickly. Keep in mind the line is mich more effeciant with simplified assembly of the spike system. Only have the wire of a yugo now...

It was actually on of the reasons I did buy it strangely enough.

You & Panzer are the ying and yang of pinside then

Always possible -- I don't know Mr. Sharpe personally, but people in this thread seem to feel he's a reliable source.

Obviously the BM SLE thing would have helped revenue increase in 2016. But do you have reason to believe overall that many more people were buying Premium and LE (offsetting a numerically larger decrease in Pro sales) over the past two years than in 2015? Based on the Pinside comments, many people seem upset with the additional content at the Premium/LE level for the past few titles, so I wouldn't have assumed a significant shift in that direction. I guess Stern would be psyched if you're right though, since their profit margin is presumably much better at the Premium/LE level.

I would have thought with the new large production facility (which presumably has higher overhead), they would pretty much have to be selling more machines per year to keep the lights on. Are there confirmed reports that Stern is idling its production lines much of the time? Wouldn't that have to be the case if they were producing fewer total games, yet they now have 2x the production capacity and are making mechanically simpler Spike games at a faster clip?

I am yet to see any evidence of this (I know they claimed it). I see the new facility as re-geared specifically to do batch runs and be more versatile so they can switch between games. Despite what they said, I see that their plan was for the ability to run multiple games in stages at the same time and build to demand. It all seems a plan for flexibility and space to have more titles staged at the JIT strategy as orders come in in batches.

The factory itself was way underused last I saw. I know they were bringing more things in house and taking over the back space last year. It appeared to be running a similar clip to the old factory just more things being done in house rather than sub contracted.

All I know for numbers is that all the publicly reported stuff on sites like here, which show that sales per title are less. Esp evident with ones they likely thought were going to be blockbusters but fell flat (i.e. SW).

Really my whole interest in this topic is that I dont find what they say to be entirely truthful (I dont think any individual outright lies, but I do think they like to bend the numbers to tell the story they want; most companies do this esp private ones that can legally) and I think it is exciting to see what they will do next to evolve to the ever changing market, new competitors, and limited NIB $$$ in the hobby. Stern has always been able to evolve with the changes to still make pinball. I think those pressures can sometimes bring about new, fun, and innovative things.

I don’t think Star Wars is selling that great tho.

188 Pinsiders own Aerosmith Pro.

122 Pinsiders own Star Wars Pro.

Maybe ops are the ones buying the game? I guess so. But Stern says home buyers are like half their market share now.

How can the best theme of all time, Star Wars, a theme that sells napkins & plastic cups for top dollar, sell less pinball machines than a total B- theme like Aerosmith?

How the fuck did Stern not sell me of all people a Stern Star Wars pinball machine? I’m like their exact demographic for such a title. I’m an idiot with a game room that buys NIB pins & yells like Chewie when the mood is right.

Folks say Pinside is a tiny sliver of pinball but I think it’s far more *and* I think Pinside mirrors the core pinball buyers that aren’t vocal on here (or listing their collections). Folks don’t casually buy a dozen $7K games on a whim. They’re here lurking! Didn’t Stern say the GB PF issues cost them sales?

Just a reminder. I don’t claim to know the sales numbers & I am 100% a Stern fan. But sorry, GOTG has shit implementation of theme & Star Wars disappointed many with its lack of interactive anything.

Am I a bad person for this opinion of mine?

I think you guys are both a little out of touch and are projecting your personal stern feeling on the rest of the world. SW has sold a ton and will continue to sell for a few years. Pinside might have deemed it a bust at release but it's the furthest thing from it. I know a ton of people with one and every location I go to has one with people flipping away on it. Most importantly the game is fun, different, and pretty much completely coded only a few months after release.

You just answered ur own question.