Quoted from Extraballz:
Stern has the best manufacturing plant in the business by a long shot. Yet they currently make the lowest quality pins in the business. Think about that for a minute. The low quality going out the door isn’t as simple as the QC dept missing things. The cut cost for larger and larger profits is absolutely deliberate. They know exactly what they are doing and don’t seem to care what their customers think. Money is king. Stern just wants it’s customers to think about theme and code. Of course they do. Those two things are subjective and no real answers can be reached. Stern doesn’t want to talk about materials used now compared to the past or number of mechs/features now compared to the past. On those subjects real answers can be reached because it is not subjective.
I think your going a bit far here now.
What's Sterns P&L for the past 5 years? Are we sure the cost increases are for more profits? Maybe some of it is COGS have increased. Like OPEX from hiring a lot or talented people, mfg cost increasing, wage increases, etc. I'm not saying I know but I doubt you do to either.
Let's not talk coil mechs here being what makes the cost of a game. It's part of it but there are a ton of variables in the mix. Looking at the games I own, the Maiden Prem is pretty dang loaded compared to my other games. More than my Met LE and Tron LE of the Stern "good days".
It's also hard for me to read post about Sterns Quality being the worst but not also saying the produce the least expensive games too. Stern to me is the Ford/Chevy of the industry. Volume with an effort for quality but not 100% focused on it. You want that you have to step up to the Lincoln/Cadillac branding which cost more money.
I'm not saying there aren't QC issues there and I do agree things need to improve and people need to get taken care of but it does feel a bit overbearing with some of the accusation from especially the last couple of pages.
Am I a Stern fan boy? Maybe, I prefer to own them as I like their rules and game play over the other mfgs at the moment but I also love all the other mfgs. The older games just dont have the depth to keep me engaged long term at home thus I play them on location vs buy them.