I’m fine with the washers, as long as I can replace them with PETG down the road. I’m going to leave things alone for the first 6 months and see how it goes.

Has the operator contacted Stern about it? Looks like this was before they started shipping with larger washers.

Serious question: why didn’t you take a picture of the chipping? I don’t doubt you, just would have liked to see what you’re describing.

Definitely not true.

Anyone who says their game is okay is going to get shouted down, so don’t expect to hear from them much. I’m not going to say mine is “good” until I’ve played it for 3-6 months.

The resale hit is going to affect everyone. It’s going to be hard to persuade a buyer that your game was immune, if the Pinside consensus is that all games are affected. I’m planning to hold mine for at least a few years for that reason alone.

I already saw a CL ad for ST Pro that said “this game is from before all the clearcoat problems”. The torch is lit, and it’s going to take a solid response from Stern to put it out.

Probably restating the obvious, but if I’m an operator who puts a first-run JP2 on location and I make $3000 in 3 months, I’m not going to quibble about some blistering. All you guys posting location pics of blistering are just yelling into the void. The ops that I’m friendly with care deeply about gameplay issues. They care about the players (the kids, the millennials who won’t be able to buy a new game for another 15-20 years).

We have to understand that this is a collector issue. Our issue. If I have blistering as a collector, and it can’t be fixed (or gets worse), damned straight I’ll be talking to my distributor. But as a collector and a pinball enthusiast for 40+ years, I also hope that in 5 years location pinball will be doing so well that we’ll be a minority again. Then it’ll be like the roaring 90’s again, and we’ll buy “old” games from ops that need new games, for pennies on the dollar. That’s the era I really miss.

FWIW, I’ve got about 60 games on my Aug 21 JP2. I looked under one of the star post washers, and there are no signs that it had ever been there (no outline). It’s still too soon to mean anything, but I’m hopeful that this means my clear is hard. I’m keeping the washers in place for now, just in case.

I can feel the tiniest little ridge with my thumbnail at the back of the post, but I can’t see it. I may put a slightly larger washer there.

Here’s what I paid for my 3 NIB Sterns, in inflation-adjusted dollars (includes shipping & taxes):

2004 - LOTR - $5161
2013 - MET - $5176
2019 - JP2 - $5500

LOTR and MET came with monochrome DMDs, so I added ColorDMDs for $350 (show specials). Considering all that, I think Stern’s pricing has been pretty stable, with steady improvements in audio, graphics and electronics.

I’m not sure what you mean. I think the quality is better in almost every way, especially compared to LOTR.

The reproduction quality of JP2’s cabinet and playfield art, audio and display are undeniably better than LOTR. I can update JP2 with a USB stick, or even change the callouts if I want to. LOTR had less clear coming from the factory, so it’s true that there weren’t clearcoat problems. But the playfield colors and registration were often off. I bought a LOTR playfield that was hand-picked by Ron Kruzman, didn’t realize how bad my NIB playfield was until I saw them side-by-side.

So yeah, reminisce about the “good old days”. But at least acknowledge that Stern has made lots of improvements in the past 15 years. I’m not saying this to excuse the current batch of playfield issues. Maybe Stern should go back to using thinner clear. Pixelated art and weird colors aside, my ‘04 LOTR playfield has held up really well.

Yep, if you have to make the playfield post look like Stonehenge to show the problem, it’s not really a problem.

I have some very minor pooling on my new JP2, fortunately none at the slings. If I can’t see it while leaning over the game, it doesn’t bother me. I do recognize that others have much more severe pooling, and they should be made whole. For my game, I’ll just roll with it and hope that I’ve already seen the worst of it. Life’s too short , and it’s a fantastic game.

If you think there’s some dark sinister motive behind releasing a bunch great games in a year, I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe free market capitalism is not for you.

Well the I think the word you’re looking for is irony. I’d agree with that. But Stern didn’t deserve this any more than JJP did.