So your hersay is better than stern's own responses... oh and that stern refuses to actually confirm any of this... to even their own distributors/partners?

Do you not see the problem here?

You remind me of the guy who insisted in sept he knew everything about what Playfield's were going out... and was entirely wrong... because he trusted his anecdotal info as if it was representative of everything.

And kudos for telling people that paid before the game even launched.... that waiting till nov was the informed buy. Way to go captain hindsight

For the comments about 'small % of playfields'

If this were a problem of variance.. where the variables cause the defect.. that would carry some merit

But the problems seem to be much more uniform in origination... and the variance is simply how severe the problem is.

Really soft wood... is not something that will vary PF to PF. It's the sourcing of the wood.
Inadequate testing leading to problematic play.. is a uniform problem
The Clearcoat issues... who knows if they are an application or systemic problem... but the % getting out to the field with issues would infer the problem is inherent to what they are doing in production, and not just a defect due to someone straying from process, etc.

Stern has to keep the factory moving.. which is why such systemtic problems should be the utmost importance to track down. But it does seem like Stern has rolled the dice and just kept pushing product while they try to fix as they go...

Forget testing.. Its within the realm of possibility they simply are accepting lower quality wood now.

If Churchill says to Stern 'Hey Gary, bad news, wood prices are up... to get that same XYZ wood we used last year, the new price for PF is up $40 each'. They can certainly decide that they aren't going to pay for the material and accept a lower standard.

Or simply move to another quality seeking price reductions...

Stern hasn't promised anyone any spec on their components... they can change them at will.

I didn't suggest it - I said its within the realm of possibilities, in response to the challenge about testing. Stern is raising prices because they can.. not COGs.

But we know they've been trimming the BOM steadily now for some time... while also raising prices. So I wouldn't call it far-fetched either.

I'd wager the dimpling isn't a major concern except in the handful of cases where it's over the top (the example BM66 shown recent for instance). The clear failures and inserts are the main issues I bet they are focusing on.

Here's a new theory... playfield flex. It's normally the inserts near the center of the PF ghosting right? What if it's playfield movement and slight flexing... that could put a strain on the adhesion between the inserts, their seating, and the clear.

New Stern Playfields - The new land of a thousand lakes

Because some of these craters we are seeing won't ever level out.. unless you like your inserts a mil taller than the wood, etc.

Check out the PF shots near the end of this post.. https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/batman-66-whats-your-impression/page/28#post-3544738

Some of those are brutal in size.. and all of this in a game less than 2 weeks old. The size of those are not typical. You can tell they are deep too because of the diameter of the impression.

This is an argument that is predicated on the idea that people have no experience with new games.. yet that is not true. I, along with many others, have been playing, collecting, and buying games for a long time. I have multiple new Stern games in my own lineup, and have been around countless numbers in the collections around me.

These are different.. if it's the game's physics, or the playfields themselves.. the run of the last few games have been horrible compared to previous Stern production.

It's not about the existence.. the informed know it happens.
It's about severity and rate.

I keep my pins for 5-10-15+ years - not months. The durability of the pin is an important factor of the pins I buy.

A magnet that is too soft will need to be replaced more often.. and risks other wood damage if you don't service it in time. An unsmooth playfield will ultimately impact ball movement.

(but nice slide away from the point..)

I have pins I've owned for 19 years myself. Sorry you 'if it breaks, I'll just buy a new one' crowd don't appreciate having pins that survive.

I've never worried about 'wearing out my pins' - even pins that were older than me.. but Stern seems hell bent on changing that.

Your dismissive tact really doesn't paint the 'new blood' in a good light at all. Just emphasizes the more money then sense stereotype.

smh.... you just throw shit out in a jumble hoping something makes sense.

Damage from the apron isn't that uncommon.. but I can't say I've seen it with the big floating plastic ones stern has been using..

Where you see light coming through the black keyline on inserts.. check if the insert has lifted or if the clear is chipped from above.

Just view any of his restoration threads here and you'll quickly see how HEP is way beyond 'new'

Thats how many star trek owners felt... many sold their games... then afterwards the big update hit that brought medals, the extra missions, etc.. and they were kicking themselves afterwards.

Stick to games like Scared Stiff, ToTAN, ToM, etc.. clearly you get 'frustrated' by games that don't just lay out all the prizes for you.

You should still have had plenty of objective to go for in ST with Kobayashi Maru and the medals.. without needing to play the strategies for the level 3 awards, etc.

Yes, but individual preference doesn't define the consensus - something that escapes you. Your comments show you don't like working towards objectives, but would rather have it more readily obtainable or at immediate reach. Hence the suggestion of games that don't require qualifying things or much effort to lite up alternate paths.

'having to shoot the away team' to qualify modes being frustrating? On TZ you still have to hit a ramp to qualify the mode start being ON and then hit the shot... which is common in most games. Mode start being available without qualifying varies in many games, but not sure why having to hit a mode start is 'frustrating'

must be a socal thing.. the shots are not that difficult nor devious. If you had to complete a warp combo.. ok. But simply a wide shot to the left.. that never rejects.. or a shot to the right where you can even use the flipper to sweep the ball in?? Not stuff to moan about.

At least you are consistent in your whining about game rules. Funny how you compared everything to hobbit... then matured and sold that off. What's your new hotness now? I love checking in on your reviews of games... from the complete opposite end of the spectrum.

Risk vs reward in pinball shots??? Who would have thunk it...

Look at the key posts at some of the Ghostbuster threads.. you'll see posts linked.

I would say that's pretty consistent with what I've seen. If asked, I'd throw out maybe.. a half dozen to 10 people who have posted on here they've either been swapped or have started. Probably less than that really.. but its on that kind of scale

No.. one is a scoop.. one is a saucer. Scoops wear differently and far more. The right side on Pro is like the Gimli saucer on LOTR. Pass through saucer.

That he looked at a hobby in a moment in time and extrapolated that to mean thats how it always is? Surely you can understand the naivety in that or at least self-induced failure.

They made money by either refurbishing them or by routing them. People didn't speculate on appreciation. Nib games always lost value as the game wasn't new anymore and residual was based on a used game market where new stock defined the upper limit except for collectible history examples.

The idea that i can buy new, I can play and sell for what I have in it or more... was not the hobby. That was a trend that started with used games that had already depreciated... and later saw appreciation due to the flood of new buyers eager to buy and comparing prices to new games. The "investment" bubble came with this flood of new money and the speculation that came with the boom and titles like star trek and Metallica . This idea is based on the market at a point in time and is not reflective of the grander trend.

Now we have seen the manufacturers react to this and look to capitalize on the eagerness... and nib prices are through the roof. When the prices get to the point the buyers shrink... the price the second hand market is willing to pay for those titles will go down even more.... because the number of buyers at the higher price point is down.

Because almost every game is going into private collections and being babied... condition will have less upside on value. There will not be a large premium for a cherry game... because most are.

The market of 2011-13 is already an alighnment that is already gone. As we enter this next phase of 8k-10k premium priced pins you can't use the expectations you formed from before to expect.

It's not "hard to understand" how people think their buys will be safe because that's what they saw before... but it's naive to think the model will keep repeating while all the other pieces have already changed.

You've already seen it with the higher priced jjp games and with stern pushing that higher price as well we will see more of it.

Glad KPG will finally get his Playfield.. but pretty typical 'grease the squeeky wheel' responses from Stern. Just get the noisey guy over to the side and continue as normal. All the 'trying' responses are just placating. Where is the action? You want us to believe someone is just being made aware of this now? Where is the output of your 'trying' for the last year+?

Stern 'tried' when they hired Jared... then quickly cut his balls off and buried that whole effort. Community engagement is not that hard when you are coming from as far back as Stern is. Hell...screw community, start with simple CUSTOMER SERVICE.

Sounds like more of the same.. it's exactly the same conversation they had when Gary called you, the only difference is this time they have playfields in production they can swap you now.

Nothing is changing... they will continue down their road of burying things and handling them at a pace that impacts them the least, even at the expense of their customers.

The problems started with Game of Thrones and Spiderman VE... then peaked with Ghostbusters. With GOT it was small scale.. SMVE was a bit more common.. and GB seemed to be the majority.

Batman appears to be a mixed bag..

I'm not aware of any large scale issues with Metallica's and their clearcoat in the style that we are discussing here. There was a batch of Metallicas, and a smaller number of Star Treks that were experiencing delamination and the entire top coat chipping off in large chunks. I don't connect that to this same chain of events that have been happening as that was a small window that did not persist afterwards.. and were not failures of the same kind.