What could they really say that would put people at ease? Even a statement like "We are aware of some issues, we're working on it, blah blah blah" would temporarily disrupt their sales, upset distributors stuck with defective products, and would cost tens of thousands of dollars every day if they have to halt the production line.

They're probably running around trying to figure it out themselves.

And some people thought Spike was designed obsolescence...

I don't attribute anything to malice. But it is funny that a bunch of the Williams guys recognized that clear coating the playfields was bad for Williams bottom line (games last longer, less need to buy new equipment). Maybe all the ex-Williams guys in charge at JJP and Stern see this as mixed blessings

But it's probably something more mundane like a change in the way the art is applied and what chemicals are used for the clear coat.

The biggest thing I learned from this thread is JJP no longer puts their printed manual in the game. Granted it's a free PDF and very well documented, but wow that is cheap for these $9,000 devices. They definitely need to include it with those slightly discounted replacement playfields since people are being expected to perform their own playfield swap.

Occam's razor. We know that the art application and clearcoat process has changed over the past few years. I wouldn't rule out the wood either. The star posts and flippers have been around far too long for it them to suddenly be a problem though. They're the same design and strengths for decades. (Although stuff like the coil stops are noticeably crappier, but those make the flippers weaker)

Most people buying games aren’t on Pinside on a daily basis.

It’s not a known issue until Stern/JJP make a statement to the effect. Until then it’s a ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ from every distributor, operator, and collector trying to sell their game to somebody with the eyesight to notice chipped artwork on very new games.

Still. It’s their right. There are games from the past 12 months exhibiting these problems with relatively low usage. It wasn’t a commonly discussed problem until this past month.

I wonder how long some distributors have been dealing with this issue before it got some traction with the most obsessive pinball collectors.

It makes sense to me. The post wants to rotate inward, which applies the most pressure to the clear coat on the inside edge of the post, and the art/clear under the post gets pushed outwards where the resistance is less.

Think of it like this: if you put a piece of glass on water and press down on one side, which way would the water flow?

pool (resized).png

They look different to me. One looks more like the clear pooling and taking the art with it, and this seems like the art chipping and taking clear with it.

But Idk. I'm just a bored guy on the internet.

Most NIB buyers will never see this thread and a lot of them will have never even heard of pinside.

Unless you want to go harass people outside of a distributors showroom, I don't think there is much you can do to really raise the awareness in the non-enthusiast part of the hobby.

A lot of NIB buyers just want something to fill out their game room and are only going to play their game a couple hundred times in its life.

You're preaching to the choir here.

It's not that most people don't care; it's that most people don't know. And threads like this only do so much to spread the news because most people buying pins aren't here.