Except when he makes fake legal threats on his competitors for copyrights he does not own in an effort to drive them out of business.

The same thing happened with Xenon last year.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/beware-cpr-preorder-lists-

This kind of thing seems to be standard fare any more for CPR. They flat out tell people not to expect timely replies from them when you do contact them. But they always seem to expect your money in a timely manner if you are lucky enough to get a preordered playfield. Its a shame, but they are able to conduct their business like this because they are one of the only games in town. Maybe this is an opportunity for a new company to come in and scoop some of their business away by offering a better service model.

Why not require preorder list people to pay a non-refundable 25% deposit once you cross the threshold of 100 verbal preorders? If you target to make 80, and have a few back out...you are still really close to having the required number of playfields to justify the run. People are going to be a lot more willing to pay for the rest of the playfield balance when it is ready to ship if they have a couple hundred bucks in it already. Seems to be working swell for Spooky...

Very true....I was thinking with the assumption that once they hit 100, production starting would be imminent. Although, some people have had $1000 deposits on ACNC for what, a year now? and the walls aren't coming down yet.

I don't know about you guys, but my latest pin is vegan friendly and non-GMO.

So it would be $17 per sf instead of $12 per sf.

I am willing to speculate that Stern doesn't even realize they are getting an inferior playfield blank these days. These bigger companies are always calling in their vendors and asking for cost reductions to keep being their vendors. Bean counters don't care about quality. They care about a number and having something that resembles the item they want, when they want it.

The home building industry is notorious for this. The economy slows down Big Spec House Builder Bob gets all his subs together and says if you want us to keep giving you work, you need to knock 20% off your price. Small Sub Stan scratches his head, and buys cheaper plumbing parts. Or cheaper quality windows and doors because he already has a competitive price and still feels strongly about being able to eat dinner next week.

The big box home supply stores are notorious for this as well. Say there are two big rain carrying system suppliers for the major big boxes...and they both want the big orange box's business because its 75 million in sales a year. There isn't much room to trim fat left off processing aluminum to turn into gutter...so what happens? The metal gets thinner. 30 years ago, your gutter was 20 gauge (.032"). Well, it keeps getting thinner and thinner. Most of it is 26 gauge (.016") or less now. Big orange box doesn't care...it looks like a piece of gutter, still holds water, and the purchasing agent looks like a hero that year for winning a 10% cost reduction. They have no idea that its comparatively a lower quality item now...and they don't really care.

I definitely don't want to give Stern an out...I think they need to up their game. But they won't until someone else makes them. Stern is apathetic right now because they are king of the heap. They don't have to do better...everyone is still buying their games on day one without playing them. Another manufacturer needs to start an ad campaign championing their higher quality materials over the competition with a head to head comparison. This company also needs to be successful at taking measurable market share away from Stern. The easiest path to that point is by selling a machine with an MSRP at or under Stern Pro pricing. That is probably the only way Stern will be shamed into building a better mousetrap.