This is strange thing to listen too. He talks a lot intelligent things about wood, steal, clearcoat, polycarbonate and physics. He then turns around and acts like adjusting the height or thickness of a target or pop bumper is insurmountable. I was not a fan of his bad faith cargument that you shouldn't drive a collectable car. He even tried to act like a chipping playfield was completely fine so long as the ball doesn't roll over it. Also I am not a fan of the whole back in the day these were commercial and no one cared, well people care today. In the end the sales are clearly healthy so they have no reason to change.

I do like that he spoke on the topic, he is pretty clear that this is the product they are selling. At this price point its not a product for me, but business is good. They seem to be being more upfront and I think that is a good thing.

No doubt in the least they make some sexy machines. Just incredibly annoying to essentially have zero support should you have an obvious issue with your playfield.

I highly doubt this "policy" would have been put in place had sales been mediocre. Once the dust settles hopefully they realize customer service shouldnt be a secondary priority.

Why JJP continues to even bother w/Mirco is beyond me. When I spec a vendor's part number in a design, if that vendor screws me over - they are history for a long time. If that vendor ever says the problem is fixed, I sure as heck write up a test spec to make sure that their part is tested thoroughly and often. But for some reason JJP keeps going back for more with what appears to be no accountability from Mirco.

So don’t understand a single complaint or point you made here. They botched marketing yet they sold thousands on opening day. Hmmmm. Highly doubt they expected to get a years worth of orders on day One but far from a fail in my opinion and likely theirs.

Well, it's a "fail" if they sell thousands, but can only produce hundreds...leaving thousands of pissed off customers waiting for their machines.

Just be proactive and get these posts on clear washers early (unfortunate but necessary right now) and you shouldn't have further issue

I've found by blocking these issues early on, I can confidently play it...Just have to get on it right away or before even flipping the pin.

What's crazy is the rest of the playfield is beautiful and holds up to ball play better than my other Sterns.

You can market and put backed up orders of a product on the books.... it only matters when you deliver those orders. And THAT has been a major fail. They could produce and sell more WOZ and POTC, but just don't have the ability to for some reason. Horrid business practices if you ask me.

He got kind of worked up and defensive. He makes some decent points but ultimately it's not very convincing. They always conveniently leave out important facts like when talking about toppers, nothing was said about the limited edition toppers like star wars or Elvira that have contributed to the problem. It's all spin with this guy. Somehow the Batman SLE circus was a good thing. And it sounds like they're priming the audience to get ready for higher prices based on wood and steel costs. It's funny how he crapped all over haggis pinball for using a plastic playfield surface, but then says later that Stern is looking into other materials... But only because wood is so expensive right now. The man is quite a salesman.

I haven't listened yet but read some on TWIP...was he talking about Haggis or was he talking about the flexible playfield sheets installed post delivery. Seems it was the latter as he was referring to raising bumper and sling heights, which would be accomodated already for on the Haggis pin but not on the playfield protectors

I thought he was talking about haggis but I guess it's up for debate... Felt like a dig to me.

that is not the impression I got, not even close. To me it sounded honest and to the point. When you have scientific tests showing you the damage a metal ball does in wood, there is nothing else to argue or debate. It is like beating a dead horse.
I also work with wood and understand it well enough to know that what he is saying is true as well.

We might be talking about different things here (or maybe you meant to quote someone elses response), I was talking about the post above and the playfield plastics reference, not dimpling. I personally don't care about dimpling and accept it as part of the hobby

This is what he said about the playfield (I think he is referring to the Playfield Protectors and not the Haggis solution but you never know - but he does say Europe and not Australia)

George Gomez: You can make it work, those guys in Europe put the plastic on the playfields, which by the way I think is absolutely atrocious. We spend so much time trying to make a pinball machine feel the way it does and shoot the way it does. And then these guys come and add a sixteenth of an inch and everybody says “oh, it’s just a couple millimeters”…yeah I know, but the position of your drop target or your standup target or your ramp flap, whatever, relative to the – you didn’t move the target up, so the ball is hitting the target at a different place, at a different height…[and] on the plastic, the ball tends to slide as opposed to roll on certain shots. When it skips, forget about it…it is a wild ball. That is the issue with the polycarbonate solution.

Can we just go back to bad dimpling? That would be great, yeah...

I thought he just got haggis' location wrong. I guess that makes sense that he's talking about playfield protectors, though Stern is no stranger to veiled digs at their competitors so I still think he's aiming at haggis a little bit as well.

Could be, that is a form of polycarbonate on the Haggis field right?

The part of the Gomez interview that stuck out to me was about reworking bad playfields. He mentions $200 playfield blanks having a flaw found somewhere in the process, and they sand them down again to try to save them.

The top and bottom layer of veneer on the plywood is the hardest layer, and then softer layers are used in the middle for filler. If the top layer starts out at .060"-.080" thick, that is one thing. But if they have to sand half of that or more, now your harder layer is not as strong due to thickness degradation and having a softer layer backing it up. This could be why some playfields dimple far more than others. I'd be curious if someone with a heavily dimpled playfield would be able to eyeball the first layer thickness looking at the edge of the playfield with a set of calipers, and then compare it to machines without major dimpling issues.

This isn't conjecture, George confirmed they rework and sand them down thinner on occasion to save a $200 playfield blank.

This is all still a gamble on what kind of play field you eventually get and that just sucks.

Yup Feels like playing the quality lottery every time. Will be playing the quality lottery myself tomorrow when a NIB TMNT Premium arrives (knock on wood).

I have less playfield concerns though with a new Stern game then a new JJP game at this time. Stern at least "solved" their chipping problem by removing artwork around all posts while JJP only installed washers on most posts. There's at least one report of a GNR LE having chipping with an April 2021 build despite having factory washers installed (the chipping occurred in an area where washers weren't used). Also have a GNR LE arriving next month and that's the one I'm more worried about.

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That was sort of surprising. I can't remember his exact words but he basically said the playfields are designed to allow for them to be reworked a few times if necessary, but it must have an effect on the quality. Certainly a playfield that was done right on the first try is better than one that was reworked several times.

While he was complaining about the added width of the plastic playfield surfaces, I kept thinking about the removed width of sanding the boards down to redo them. I guess changing the width of the boards is OK when Stern does it but "absolutely atrocious" when customers do it to protect their investment.

I 100% agree with him that playfield protectors are atrocious.

This statement, right here, is why we will never see anything get better with playfields.

No matter how much you huff and puff people are going to buy pins.

the clear coat and print from 30 years ago was not as shiny as the modern one, this also makes imperfections more noticeable. I honestly could not care less about dimpling. IT IS WOOD!!!!
Also, playfield protectors are horrible and let me tell you, I am very detail oriented with my games...

I feel much more confident in Stern playfield quality right now over JJP. Are Stern playfields 100% perfect with every single one? No, but they at least fixed the playfield pooling / chipping issue by removing artwork around all posts. Reports of chipping / pooling on the latest Sterns is pretty much at 0.

Unfortunately JJP seems to have done nothing to resolve the issue and their only "fix" is applying washers, a fix that is a reminder that they are continuing to ship games with a known manufacturer defect.

Another $12,500 GNR CE was just reported as having pooling / chipping...

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That’s quite the damage for that area. It’s not like the ball hits that post hard

that looks horrible, I saw it yesterday when Kaneda posted it on FB.

JJP should be replacing all of these.

agree - dimpling doesn't bother me that much but spooky's PF don't seem to dimple as much as Sterns
but - chipping, peeling and bubbling would really bother me

So

Gomez:

"those guys in Europe put the plastic on the playfields, which by the way I think is absolutely atrocious. We spend so much time trying to make a pinball machine feel the way it does and shoot the way it does. And then these guys come and add a sixteenth of an inch and everybody says “oh, it’s just a couple millimeters”…yeah I know, but the position of your drop target or your standup target or your ramp flap, whatever, relative to the – you didn’t move the target up, so the ball is hitting the target at a different place, at a different height…[and] on the plastic, the ball tends to slide as opposed to roll on certain shots. When it skips, forget about it…it is a wild ball. That is the issue with the polycarbonate solution."

What does he think clear-coat is?

clear coat is not 1/16" nor it is even close to be.

From Kaneda lol

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I completely agree with Gomez. A pf protector changes the way a game plays. The ball does behave different and it changes the way the game plays. I do wonder how it would play if the game was designed with a hardtop with a clearcoat from the beginning.

I think dimpling is normal 99% of the time. I do believe that Stern had a problem with a small number of playfields. They didn't dimple, they were a lumpy mushy mess. The problem was it let the cat out of the bag and people started getting worried and it just blew completely out of proportion. Today dimpling seems solved and on that front everything is good. I think Stern likes to use it as a deflection tactic, they love to make like there was never a problem. I did get a good chuckle at the whole they would never let a warped playfield out the door. Their quality control is just too solid to let that happen. I just wish they would say were working on quality control, trying to pretend there is not a problem just seems like they have no intention of improving. Of all the stuff we have seen get past quality control saying something could never get through was a little much.

I don't even know what to say.

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That's ok, it would just be more of the same ranting that nobody should buy pinball.

Followed by more of your dismissive attitude towards anyone's problems. Try being less predictable. I'm not changing.

I think you'd be a lot happier if you stopped dedicating so much negative energy towards this issue.
It doesn't affect you any more because you're out of buying pins, right?

Incorrect. I'm still buying pins. Stop trying to pretend you know anything about my involvement in this hobby.

When Jersey Jack Pinball fixes this issue and makes me whole, I'll stop talking about it. Until then, well, you already know.

Stop buying NIB pins, people.

And just like that, NIB sales plummeted to a trickle.

Feel free to take all the pot shots you want. I will never waver from my position, regardless of what you believe. I was not made whole by JJP, and they continue to allow shit playfields to leave their factory. I'll call them out on it every day of the week. It's not right.

It’s important to bitch and moan about major issues like this. It’s the only way these things will get fixed. Maybe people seeing these posts will result in a material drop in sales for JJP and they will be forced to make things right going forward. Or maybe they care about their reputation. Not sure what drives them. But having a fanboy attitude and dismissing everything as “it is what it is” will not entice them to remedy the situation.

A line needs to be drawn somewhere and these playfield issues definitely cross that line. Not sure what could be worse. At least the circuit boards are easily swappable if they need replacement. Squeaky wheels always get the grease. Cancel culture proves that

It's not a pot shot. Just a shot fired at the idea that "Stop buying NIB pins people" is going to happen. It's a unrealistically simplistic.

You got a beef with JJP - like many others these days - but you are gonna have to work it out with them. Nobody is coming to your rescue with an en masse boycott.

Read the post above yours.

Is that your game? What’s the manufacture date and what model? Looks like the post was pulled up and took the clear and paint with it.

So how thick the plastic is makes all the difference?
i´m seriously interested, have never played with a pf-protector, but it seems to me, that if it doesnt feel the same, there should be some kind of wax making it the same?

the same can be said about a newly cleaned pinballmachine. It plays different then before the cleaning.

I have the impression that this thread of discussion is only present to denigrate JJP and to encourage people not to buy new pinball machines anymore. It's disappointing. The same ones who denigrated POTC for trivial details, who demanded a new plate not to even install it or sell it afterwards. This may be why JJP is no longer sending a spare tray. I ordered my GNR LE and if it happens with a little problem with the playing field I will survive. 90% of the people around me think. Thanks to JJP for innovating and for continuing to make great machines for us.

nope. they clearly have a problem and they failed their customers with it. This thread is not to denigrate anybody, is to keep them, if anything, accountable.

Correct. A spare playfield is a $1000 part, and the people who got them were for the most part ungrateful about it. "Now what???" "I have NOT been made whole" etc. I wouldn't send replacement either after that.

So instead JJP should just keep shipping games with known defective playfields and sending out washer band aid "fix" kits? That's not a resolution, they need to finally correct this issue. Pirates sell for well over MSRP even with playfield issues as it's very rare. The same won't be said for GNR which is being made in much larger quantities.

Once there's a few thousand GNR's out there how will the resale value of games with chipping / pooling be effected? I would expect the hit will be at least $1k on LE's, hence why JJP should at least be sending new unpopulated playfields out to effected customers.

Well the solution is obvious...buy one to play and one to look at and keep pristine.