Indeed sir! My classic NES collection is at 527/687, and my savings account has never been so happy. All for the best.

Cosmetic only, so of a sudden playfield art and the shape of the playfield art is not important?

Seems strange to me almost zero pinball ads comes without pictures of the actual machine, why not just say that it's working.

Have you really thought your statement thru?

Listen these are complicated machines that are priced accordingly....nobody wants to modify anything...all customers expect is a new game with no flaws....its really that simple....if Stern knowingly ship a game with flaws than they should warrant the product. Clearly they are aware that the product is substandard as they've added washers to the games. Pooling is a more complex issue as most owners wouldn't care about a little pooling, but their concern is whether or not this leads to chipping once the game is out of warranty, which is a valid concern. From the tone of your messages u think that a little chipping is perfectly fine and the new normal. Thats great u feel that way, but I highly doubt many people would agree with you. Do you know of any cases where Stern has replaced a play field due to chipping?

Yes, by all means, let's flood the used sales market with defective play fields at a discount. /sarcasm

This is what I'm doing right now. I have open and regular communication with JJP and my distributor about my case, and I'm playing the hell out of my Wonka in the mean time. I'm waiting patiently for them to come up with a solution for me. But....

*tick tock tick tock*

My patience has limits.

-wonka owner #08742206, play field #105, clear coat case #5107

At some point thats exactly whats going to happen....why should the NIB owner take the entire financial hit due to the play field issues? Its crazy to me that some on here think thats ok....defies logic

yes

They have in the past done the populated pf replacement thing. They send you a box with pre-paid shipping. You disconnect and send your entire pf.
They take off your parts and repopulate a brand new pf and return it to you. You connect your new pf.

I'm aware they've done this in the past (i.e. GB fiasco), but have they done it recently due to play field chipping / pooling issues? The perception is many have contacted Stern with this issues and I haven't heard of one case where Stern has provided a response...in the eyes of the consumer a "no response" is basically a big FU....

after 4 (or was it 5?) months of continual communication and updates on how bad it was and things getting worse, they agreed to provide a blank Beatles playfield to us. It has not arrived yet (I assumed they are trying to figure out the issues).
I am told it will arrive soon/ by expo.

A nice thing...they sold you a product with known issues that they tried to mask with $.10 washers....Small versus big chipping...who defines that? Do either really affect game play...probably not, but they look like shit and Stern has made bank on selling games with cosmetic improvements. I understand its expensive for Stern to address this issue, but thats not the owners fault.....your logic is completely flawed

I think the real reason that Stern and JJP need to not only fix this issue but make a public statement about it is for their own bottom line.

There is no doubt in my mind as a personal collector that the high price of games is being propped up by the only 15-20% loss at resale. As a collector I am willing to buy a NIb game, knowing that I am basically renting it IF i opt to sell in the future. I can put a couple thousand plays on a game in the comfort of my own home and then sell for $500-800 less down the road. (in many cases the rising prices of NIB have actually allowed you to sometimes sell for more)

When we start to see sales of these games and people are taking 25-35% loss at resale then I believe the new sales will dry up. People will all have a different point of cost they are willing to put into any hobby. I have to think we are getting closer to that point sooner rather than later with this pf issue.

Everyone seems willing to take a hit on one dud game, but when they start to pile up then NIB sales will also (they appear to be already with how quick EV3 comes after JP2 in my opinion). This is a very slippery slope that they can still get out in front of... or they can lie, deny, and treat their customer base poorly.

"Gary" has the same social media director as Robert from DR! So no.

Do you think Stern don't know that we are concerned or pissed off? I think they do. Otherwise turning around a new play field design for JP in a matter of weeks wouldn't have happened.

It would be a shame to turn a session into a moan and vent session rather than a positive session that helps all pinheads in the medium term.

I think you'll be waiting a long time for this. I don't ever recall seeing a public statement about the Ghostbusters ghosting.

They did update manuals to saying ghosting is normal though

Agreed. Why not ask them to explain their process when it comes to returns/defects.
Have them explain what THEY consider to be worthy of replacement.
Then you all know what to expect before spending hard earned cash on a new machine.
The “case by case” explanation is vague, and leaves owners wondering what to expect.

That does equal a public statement, doesn't it? I suspect a manual update that says something to the effect that pooling, blistering, and clear and art chipping off and collecting in the bottom of your cabinet in particulate small enough to cut into lines on a mirror and snort like cocaine is also normal.

I would keep it as simple as this:

1. I might apply a sanding sealer (a really thinned lacquer) to the raw wood before painting to fill in the pores and make the underlying surface harder. I would use a duromoter to test the hardness of the wood before continuing and see if it was within a predetermined specification.

2. Make sure my supplier is using a finishing process that has the correct amount of time needed to have an effective dry/cure process.

3. Use a durometer to test the final coating. This could be as simple as a pencil scratch test (a set of calibrated pencils that mark paint coatings and produce a quantifiable hardness rating). If the coating was too soft (for whatever reason, including trapped solvents), it would objectively fail to be within the correct specifications and be, per se, a defective coating.

4. Use an ultrasonic thickness tester to test the thickness of the final coating. If the mils fall outside of a predetermined range, I'd fail it.

But I'm not Stern and won't pretend I'm more of an expert than they are on the subject. I also don't know if they are already doing this or perhaps something even more rigorous. I also recognize that they, as a large manufacturer, have a lot of additional factors to consider.

So from a consumer perspective, I suppose if I felt so inclined, I would simply use a durometer designed for paint to measure the finish hardness and compare it against other clear coats from other machines as well as the general specifications from several lacquer companies to see if it is either in spec or out of spec. If it fails, I would consider it defective as a matter of fact and leave Stern's response to its costumers to their own desires.

Possible, but it is worth considering that trapped solvents in the clear could be softening the paint underneath over time making it seem like the paint is the culprit. Also, the fact that the issue seems to be resolved when the paint is removed might be a result of the clear coat solvents no longer being trapped between the dried paint and the dried surface of the clear, letting those solvents penetrate into the raw wood and disperse. Again, this makes it appear like a paint issue, but it may not be.

I think part of their problem is they are trying to do too much too fast. Changing the playfield design really doesnt solve the issue if bad clear is the problem. Over the time there would likely be playfield wear and issues due to the ongoing problem.

They would be smart to stop production altogether until they know exactly how to fix the clear or paint problem and make sure nothing going out going forward is defective. Continuing to risk defective clear and playfields going to even more customers will only become a bigger liability and do more damage to their reputation amongst their customer base.

As for their unwillingness to acknowledge it discuss that a problem even exists, I'm sure that is their lawyers recommendation. The problem is how will those of us that refuse to buy NIB now until we know the problem has been addressed and fixed know it is safe to buy again? I have to think what is going on is significantly impacted their sales on these new pins.

AKA suicide in the manufacturing business

So continuing to churn out defective product is the better option? I wont touch anything coming off their line right now until they outline what has changed to address the problem.. and even then I'm going to wait at least a year.

Thank you for clearly demonstrating your level of knowledge when it comes to pinball manufacturing.
(Your pinball company just went bankrupt FYI)

-your Pal, “Gary”

Now it makes sense....you work for Stern....got it

Yes, it is survivable. In manufacturing, the line is everything. Money is bleeding out of every pore while the line is stopped. If you churn out subpar product, you MIGHT go out of business. If the line stops for very long, you WILL go out of business.

He accused me of it earlier so I’m just having fun with it.

Thinking more about your view point, I’ll say this:
You have an unrealistic level of expectation from Stern.
They have clearly stated that playfields are not under warranty.
You insist on a perfect playfield.

Neither of you is “wrong” but you have not agreed on this matter.
You appear to feel that Stern is obligated/indebted to provide perfect playfields and that anything less than 100% should be replaced at their expense. Remember that this is Stern pinball we’re talking about. It’s not Sony, Apple, or Toyota.
Yes, they are the biggest pinball manufacturer, but this is an industry that most people don’t even know exists.
There are no Ferrari’s in the parking lot.

Given this inability to agree on a perfect playfield, it’s really best for you to avoid buying new in box, and instead to wait and buy a second hand game that you can inspect, ensuring it’s to your satisfaction.

There’s nothing wrong with that, and it’s not meant to belittle or insult you so I hope you can appreciate the observation.

Quite frankly, it shouldn’t matter one bit to me. But I get annoyed when some people (not saying you), can’t understand that Stern is already offering more than they have committed to, and then try to call them out for lying, sweeping things under the rug, etc etc. They may not be operating to your level of expectation, but that doesn’t mean that they’re deceitful or doing anything wrong.

I’ll help fund a t-shirt lot to be given out at entrance to Stern/JJP seminars.

White shirts, black lettering, “GOT POOLING?” or some such.

You got to grab their attention. A hundred people walking around with these would get the message across.

worked for "where's the code?"

Throw that on the back, probably still applies

Thanks again for adding your expert insight to the discussion Gary. We should all just be happy to pay $7000 for a brand new game and just be happy with whatever we get, right?

Sure it would be awesome if Stern could stop the line and fix these issues, but that is definitely not an option for them. Think about what stopping production actually means. All the employees on the production side immediately stop working. So they have to pay them all while the work is stopped or be complete assholes and take away all those jobs. That's a ton of money every day. They still have to pay rent on their building. The still have to pay all their bills. All this while bringing in no new money until you get the issue sorted. Plus, all the playfields already created are unusable at that point. That would be crippling to the company. They might survive it, but it would hurt them really bad and would have repercussions for consumers for a long time.

Clearly they need to do something, and I agree that buying new machines from them right now is a hard sell, but stopping production is a worst-case move for them.

That much larger building they moved into a few years ago. It's all about production now. Keep churning and burning until the fire goes out.

I think you are missing the point. I think most of everyone posting here would be very happy if Stern just got back to the quality of game they made for 2 decades. These type of playfield issues (ghosting, pooling/chipping, etc ) rarely happened for years and now have increasingly becoming the norm.

It is hardly an unreasonable expectation that a brand new product costing 6-8k not have issues that potentially threaten the long term integrity of the heart of the product (i.e. - playfield) almost out of the box. Your expectations of what constitutes acceptable from a new product from a pinball or other manufacturer is pretty low.

But, it was probably super expensive to put down quality paint and clearcoat on games like WOF, CSI, and 24.

Correct me if I'm wrong, I don't follow it that closely, but have they had any issues that affect actually playing the game that they haven't immediate remedied? I get that we all want the machines to be and stay really nice, but ultimately it is still a game made to play. And from what I have seen all these games are still playable. I'm not defending the play field chipping at all, but I will point out that there are games that are 40+ years old with play fields worn to the wood that can still be played with no issue at all.

No one is making anyone pay 6-8K for these. Just don't buy them. If you want them to improve these issues, don't give them any money until they do. I'm disappointed too, I have been selling machines to put that money toward a new JP2. Now I'm not going to do that unless they announce some significant improvement and that sucks. I'm really unhappy about it. But it is still a toy that I'm not going to buy, it isn't that big of a deal when you think about it. And to say that they must fix what is ultimately a cosmetic issue for every machine they produced seems excessive to me. Again, just don't buy it. And if you already bought it, I'm sorry, it sucks, it really does. But honestly that's a risk you take by buying something so expensive that is ultimately just a leisure item. Resell it for a loss and move on. Give your money to a company that is more reliable to you.

Edit: This is probably a distributor thing and I don't know if it is possible, but if you have the option, return the game. If people are returning games to distributors and they are going back to Stern to tell them games are being returned, then Stern will notice and care. Complaining on the internet isn't going to move the needle for them.

Try to keep up, Utah.
There’s this thing, called “the environment”. And as of late, companies are no longer allowed to use super harsh chemicals because it’s bad for this “environment”. So things have changed.

Here is the thing: just because YOU deem it to be reasonable to expect something, doesn’t mean that the manufacturers are in agreement. In this case, they aren’t. See the warranty if you want evidence.

Your expectations of what constitutes acceptable for a new product from a pinball manufacturer is pretty unrealistic in today’s world.

I LOVE the fact that this has come down to some Pinsiders stating that they demand play field perfection. It makes the discussion so much easier to comprehend. One expectation is not equal to what’s being offered. In this case, the manufacturer has put their commitment in writing. Yours is known only to you and may be subject to change at anytime without notice.

I agree to a point. Like you, I was going to get a JP2 Premium but will know hold off for a year or so until I'm reassured these issues are definitely resolved.

Sure the games are still playable but that isn't the problem. Fair or not, the problem is the perception that the PF's are going to have extremely expensive and time consuming issues to resolve in the future. That will hurt anyone paying a lot of money for a brand new product whether they keep it for the long haul or try to sell it down the road.

These PF issues have seemingly been a problem since 2015ish. Saying nothing and just accepting it as part of pinball manufacturing won't lead to any meaningful change.

Stern needs to get back to the suppliers and whatever they were doing to make better products pre-2015. The only way that is going to happen is if these issues are known and discussed and buyers start demanding better with their wallets

We'll, I guess I'll pile on...

I was ready to buy an Iron Maiden NIB. Title chosen, money allotted; just needed to play a premium to be sure which model to get. Completely ready to buy.

Then, I discovered these issues and threads.

That money is now going elsewhere.

Sorry I mistook you for Gary. I should have realized you were Stern's corporate counsel (the give away is the legalistic, condescending tone).

If you want to take that attitude, fine. Care to explain why CGC can still make quality playfields and games without these issues if it is "environmental" issues that are the main problem?

Either way, Stern needs to improve and fix this (and the perception) or they are going to be losing a lot of business going forward.

Hey, you started with the name calling. Don’t be shocked that I’m now giving back!

With respect to the current state of pinball, I have no idea what CGC uses. You’d have to ask them.
Fingers crossed. So far, JP LE playfields and the most recent Pro models appear to have no issues.
Here’s hoping it was just a bump that was hit, converting to a new process and all this is behind us.

Completely agree that ignoring it won't make them fix the issues. The only way it changes is to affect the bottom line. Don't buy new machines and return unsatisfactory games if it is possible.

Your absolutely correct....Stern clearly has no interest in standing by their product anymore...the good news we now know this is the case, and can make an educated decision on whether to buy or not buy their product. I for one will NEVER purchase another NIB game from Stern (and I've bought several), and will tell everyone I know what to expect if they do decide to pull the trigger. These manufacturers already have it made on warranty issues as they heavily rely on operators and home owners to provide all the labor to fix their products....I'll just take my business to the secondary market, and buy their product at a discount

This is true, but only to an extent. I don't mean any disrespect, but there are ways to test thickness of coatings and material hardness both before and after painting -- even with todays' chemical limitations -- to ensure a quality finish. There are also ways that someone's mixing ratios, method of application, and cure times could make the coatings better, worse, or just fail. With my (non-professional) experience of applying lacquer over unfinished, painted, and stained wood hundreds of times, I can tell you that it is reasonable, even with current lacquer compositions, to get a flexible but hard finish that is highly chip resistant and will not deform (pool, or creep, or whatever is used to describe it) when it is subjected to continued pressure the way my new JP LE appears to have done.

That would be pretty impactful if u got 200 people wearing those shirts I'd pony up for that

I work in quality in a manufacturing plant. The ability to stop the line to contain a defect and fix it is not suicide, it's incredibly important. You only have to look at the success of Toyota over the past 40 years to understand the significance. Sending out crap product, pissing off your customer base and losing their trust - now *that* is suicide in the manufacturing business.

My guess is CGC's playfields are good because they have been making them for year's and know how to do it right. Probably not a coincidence that many of Stern's issues with playfields began when rumor is they changed suppliers from Churchill about the 2015 timeframe.

Knock out blow.
Seriously you cannot argue "fact" and yet, here we are!
PS, discuss.... not attack guys and gals.

You've been making a good argument up to this point but I'll have to call BS on this one. First, you or I have no idea whether environmental issues have contributed to the root cause of the problem.

Second, if Spooky, CGC and American Pinball can make a playfield without pooling and chipping, then Stern and JJP should be able to do it too.

I don't think I'm being unreasonable to not expect this on a playfield less than 3 weeks old. I'm not being a "perfectionist" I understand there is wear and tear in pinball. But this is clearly defective and Stern should stand behind their product. Virtually every post on my playfield has pooling/blistering/creep or whatever you want to call it. Most of these are probably going to chip considering how early the first chip happened. Unfortunately I didn't know about these issues before I made my purchase or I never would have. I could not in good faith recommend anyone buying NIB right now. Hopefully Stern comes through for me and changes my mind but as of right now this was my first and will be my last NIB Stern.

IMG_2429 (resized).jpg

Stop it for a day or two? Sure. Stop it indefinitely while you investigate an issue that may take weeks or months to fully resolve? Maybe Toyota can afford that. I doubt a pinball manufacturer can. Just gotta slap a band-aid (washer) on it and keep moving, correct things as you go, eventually better parts make their way into the pipeline.