I honestly think it’s not an issue. We know Seth Davis reads this stuff and is eager to please; witness the recent distro call where he promised code updates on old games until the end of time, vaults till the end of time, and no more LE re-runs.

I can guarantee you, from here on out, every stern game will contain at least three ball-eating mechs. And that’s just the pro!

I actually think the negativity post full reveal has been very low….i see way more people excited then criticizing. Kaneda has polls up asking if followers are buying Jaws, EJ and the new Spooky games. All the polls were released around the time of reveal…Jaws is at 30 percent of followers buying, in comparison Spooky at 7 percent combining both variants and EJ is only at 3 percent. They all have a few hundred responses so decent sample size.

What's worse, complaining that the shark doesn't eat pinballs, or complaining that people are complaining about the shark not eating pinballs?

I'm glad I needed "sorted out", but let's face the fact that the underwelming draw to play a shark based pinball machine that DOES NOT EAT THE BALL, will be the most agrevating thing to have to constantly assure and explain to your friend's and guests-

"Oh, the shark never eats the ball... but that would be so lame, you see the designers thought..."

"It doesn't swallow your ball? Like, ever?"

"Well, no, you have to play the game and get in tune with the ruleset, it's so much more satisfying just to bash that sucker one more....

"No biting, no chewing, no animated "jaws"?!?"

"No, but there is this neat aspect of leveling up your bounty hunting..."

"So what does this Godzilla machine do? That looks like a lot of fun- trying to tear down the building..."

Complaining that the shark doesn’t eat pinballs.

complaining - just complaining

Yes, you are 100 percent right. If your average moron who has NO IDEA how to design pinball machines made jaws, it would 100 percent have a ball-eating shark. It would be the one thing the game would be guaranteed to have, besides flippers.

We all know this already but thanks for explaining it again. Bonus points for doing it in the form of a one-act stage play, or corporate team-building roleplay exercise.

I don't know how big a meme can get for pinball, but I predict videos of people taking the glass off and trying to shove a ball into the Shark's mouth to be "huge"(actually small since there's only about 2000 people who watch pinball content).

Well that's just wrong. Everyone who plays mine and sees the alien eat the ball thinks it's one of the coolest things ever. I have a JP that eats the ball...I'm fine with a bash toy on my Jaws.

Listen, Jaws might be awesome -- we can't tell if it is or isn't yet -- but we're seeing a shift here. The LCD screen is a big factor, so do you get the movie rights so you can play clips, but reduce playfield mech/art budget, or do you make a game like JP with lots in it but no assets? The latter was solved by a third party because that custom code is awesome.

Throw Insider Connected development on top of this to give players some "achievements" and you'll see where development costs have shifted.

Having said that, Maiden is the best modern game ever and it doesn't have many mechs at all, so still possible for Jaws to be good.

I'm just happy we don't have to abbreviate Jaws.

Took them 3+ years and a redesign to make it occasionally eat a ball, maybe they should've gone the Jaws route.

I guess he gave up on us, baby.

Just be happy the shark eats quarters!

I know this for the mod thread but I’ll assume someone is already making a 3d shark coin slot or dollar bill mech for this thing.

Its called jaws, i would assume it would have a shark as the main attraction. Saying at least it has a shark is silly. Its a shark movie, it has to have a shark. It was said to have three full sized flippers, and only has two. Those mini flippers IMHO are a waste and only semi functional.

The pro, essentially has no shark. I mean i can put a shark figure on my scooby doo or tmnt and call it jaws. This shark has zero interaction, a huge miss on the pro.

On premium, you bash the shark once and then it hides? WTF, it might as well have no shark. As one mentioned, having a underwater playfield incorporating a shark, or a shark that is a constant bash toy like deadpool, or a shark that eats a ball like JP, etc. Another huge miss.

This is not a unique machine, and the shark is a huge disappointment. Its slightly crazy how much people are going nuts for this. If this was a different manufacturer, you all would absolutely wreck this machine. Imagine if jjp or spooky put this out, everyone would say how stripped it was. Stern knows jaws will sell regarless of what they put in it due to desir and theme.

With this being said, stern has changed pinball in a good way, has made pinball a larger community, innovative with IC, and have produced fun reliable machines. I will absolutely play this machine on location, and like stern as a company. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions and its nice to see people excited for their dream theme. I just feel all the anticipation and awesome theme had been a disappointment and a huge miss for the theme. Stern will print some cash on this machine, but being a cash grab is really all I see.

Pokemon will have a Poke Ball bash toy. Capturing stuff wasnt fun

It should lock a ball in its mouth and then chew with blood in the water. At that point a re-used walking dead crossbow (Re-labeled as a gun) on the apron fires to kill the shark!! The shark explodes on the screen and the shaker goes off as Brody yells smile you son of a bitch!!! Hey Elwin Im available for a part time gig!

That being said. Im in on a premium anyway!

Man... i used to own the 45 when young
Dont give up on us on the A side
Black Bean Soup on the B

God speed

For all those looking for a Hungry Hungry Hippos pinball game where every Mech on the PF eats balls…

This is not the thread for you.

I can't wait for BTTF when everyone complains that the ball doesn't do 88 MPH...

Does the ball eat the shark?

For us I think its that we had our sites set really high for this title. Dream theme for sure and everything just fell flat for us.

After how great GZ, JP, IM are we expected more - a lot more. What is that more, I don't know but all aspects fell short of expectations.

Does that mean this won't be a good game once we play it - nope. In fact I get a vibe that it will be fun and a great shooter. For us the art, the mechs, the toys, the innovation all of it came up short. That's on us not on Stern tbh. We had super high hopes probably unrealistic and we accept that.

We are eager to play on location (or preferably someone's home) but we are not dropping 10k on this game anytime soon. We spent our $$ elsewhere.

And this is not me bashing the game just stating why we aren't as hyped about it as we want to be.

I think we can all agree the BTTF shark is a flying delorean.

Does it fly?

Dear god why doesn’t it fly?

You horrible monsters all I wanted was a flying delorean!!

I still think it might fly. If you look there’s a spot where it could fly.

It doesn’t fly?! Why doesn’t it fly?! If anybody designed a BTTF game the first thing they’d implement is a flying delorean!!

This is actually a realistic speed for the ball to achieve.

I used to think so but I’m told a pinball doesn’t exceed 20 mph.

BTF the musical had a flying Delorean, I expect the pinball machine to have one

Since it appears people are still gnashing teeth about the shark not gobbling your balls, if you are curious about how that would work, I created some PROFESSIONAL mockups of how that could be achieved if you look at my post history in this thread. I also made a promo poster for the occasion, which I will repost here incase you missed it during the feeding frenzy surrounding the official promo release.

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I feel the pain of those not happy about no ball eating shark. Imagine my dismay when Godzilla didn't actually shoot out atomic breath and melt my machine down and light my house on fire. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to live with my disappointment and just play a great shooting game with awesome rules

haha.

An 88 mph pinball would do quite a lot of damage. Just ask any Philly fan...they use them at sporting events to throw at players.

Dam it's hard to keep up with this thread. Maybe just time we all take a little break

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I don’t know about anyone else, but I feel like all my games have three very effective ball-eating mechanisms. I call them the outlanes and SDTM

Can’t stand all the negativity on this site. People complaining about things in a new game. Do you not like pinball? Do you want these companies to fold up and not make any new games at all? These companies are making new games for people to flip and enjoy. Yes they are expensive but no one says you have to buy it. Play it on location like it has always been or get another hobby.

I think a reaction like this is why Stern passed on Potter and BTTF. You guys are ridiculous! Get off the trolley from pretend land and lets enjoy this baby!

You're not wrong. Here on Pinside the people that see it as a grail theme will accept it understanding that there's more to the pin than a shark eating a ball. Great to add to a collection and have in the basement.

But when Joe Six Pack puts a dollar in on location because it's "Jaws" - let's see what cool things it does, he'll walk away disappointed.

Complaining that Grogu doesn’t move.

We shall survive this! Baby Yoda/Grogu didn’t move until mod makers made it so. Godzilla doesn’t move. I think somebody made it move its head? I’m ok with the shark moving up and not eating anything.

Hell baby Grogu ate a lot of shit in Mandalorian shows and I think Godzilla bites and eats a lot of shit as well in movies. Nobody ever said how come Grogu doesn’t eat a ball like a frog egg and nobody ever said hey how come Godzilla doesn’t eat the ball. We will get through this guys.

But does Godzilla eat the ball?

Game does look fun. I can't wait to play it. One knock and it may seem silly is that center of the playfield looks ridiculous having only 2 of the 3 characters involved in taking down Jaws. How does Name, Likeness, and Image work these days when it comes to having your image on a licensed game like this? Does the Roy Scheider estate have the ultimate say-so on this matter even when its under the umbrella of this license? It seems like Universal would "own" his likeness in the context of Jaws. Does Stern have to pay the estates of each of the deceased actors and Richard Dreyfuss directly and were they simply not able to come to terms with the Scheider estate?

Yup, and if I don't buy a particular title, chances are a friend near me will. Win win

I'm excited about this as well don't take what I mentioned about RD call outs in the "complaint" department. It's just his personal acting style that lends him to "I can do the best 1974 RD impression around!" instead of...maybe what the director wanted. Not saying they were not happy with his work or anything like that, just saying that this was going to be all that was available here.

True story: Robert Shaw had just done the take in which the shark eats him. He's screaming, bites the pack of chocolate sauce (aka fake blood) in his mouth, goes under the water when the shark drags him off the boat in his mouth, etc.

Spielberg goes: "I'm sorry but we have to shoot that again."

Shaw's like: you're kidding right?

Spielberg apologizes. Has to be done again.

Shaw did it again.

When you watch that scene, pay attention to how committed Shaw was to it. He did not "mail it in" at all. Very believable.

I think every living creature eats things... you know what, now I'm rethinking this whole freaking pinball industry.

Not the people behind Rudy though, you guys f*cking rock.

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Stern Insider Connected Idea:
If you play BM66 and then Sharks, you get a Shark Repellant Bonus Mode!

Game looks fun to play. All 3 models are cool. A theme people waited for decades. It's an Elwin. And yet people keep whining.

Get gomez on the horn, i think ur creativity needs to be recognized.

Setting it on "Pepsi Free Play" is a solid sponsorship opportunity.