Quoted from CPR:These huge and thick ONE piece veneers are crazy expensive and we always get this top grade veneer on BOTH sides of your PF. This alone added $12 to the cost of each panel vs just using a second grade veneer on the bottom like Stern does.
Quoted from PinMonk:So what I'm reading is Stern has cost reduced out that $12 on an almost $9000 retail LE and $8000 Premium machine to sacrifice consistently harder playfields for 12 bucks in their bottom line. Great.
Forgive me if I am wrong, but it sounds like you have never been in business for yourself. If you have been or are in business you would realize just how fast costs can mount and spin out of control. And now you have designed something you cannot afford to produce. Some body has to keep an eye on the costs.
Consider, you buy a new CPR play field and get it out of the box. You are going to get out your magnifying glass and hit it with a fine tooth comb. Top side and bottom side. So that CPR play field better sparkle like a diamond in a goat's ass you will be crying the blues about the ugly looking bottom side of the play field. CPR has to go with the higher grade. And it is going to be for visibility and not structural reasons.
Stern does not have to worry about you scoping out the bottom of the play field on your NIB pin. With all of the wiring and brackets and other play field paraphernalia screwed to the lower side you won't be able see anything anyway. Your pin will play the same even though a lesser product is used on the underside.
Read it agin. It is the bottom side that is the lesser. The top side, the important side is only one that counts.
The next time you are out looking to buy a car and it has leather seats, take a closer look at those seats. The part of the seat you put your butt in is leather. And that is about all that is leather.
The top of your seat where the headrest is at is plastic. The sides of your seat are plastic. The backs of your seats are also plastic. Or pleather. Or Naugahyde. Or vinyl.
Or it might even be bonded leather. Bonded leather is leather scraps molded together with.....let's hear it.....plastic. 20% bonded leather means 20% of your leather couch is leather shavings to give some leather smell and the rest is plastic. Of course, your furniture sales rep will try to avoid that conversation as he tells you about the leather couch he wants you to buy. The sales brochure, by law, has to tell you what you are buying is not real leather. It is bonded leather. But you did not ask what bonded leather was. And 5 years later the "leather "on your couch starts peeling off of the arm rests and you see cloth underneath.
If it was real leather, most people would not be able to afford the couch.
Can't you just hear the late George Carlin blasting that out in his stage act? "IT'S B-O-N-D-E-D Leaaaaather.
That leather feels good on your back and on your butt. But can you honestly tell me that you give a rat's ass that the back of the seat and the map pocket are plastic? Or pleather? Or whatever? Does it really matter? As long as you your butt feels the leather and the rest of the seat is not falling apart, does it really matter?
Quoted from 3pinballs:Yes, that's unbelievable. Gary I heard will ask "what that costs" when a designer has an idea for a Mod/mechanism for the game. So I guess he looks at 1k games at $12 each that's another 12k to the bottom line. What he doesn't get is what that's costing him in future sales.
See above. Have you ever been in business for yourself ? I have. Do you know what its like to look in the bank account and not have enough funds to pay your employees? I do.
So, how is this 2nd grade piece of wood going to be costing Gary future sales? Before CPR revealed this information, was this even on your radar? Are you saying you have been a NIB buyer and now you wont be? How many people are going to quit buying a Stern pin because the bottom of the play field something less than top shelf---appearance wise?