Considering they are still by far the market leader and the only company that is putting out multiple pins a year I don't think they are in any danger. For all we know GoT will have the greatest flow and ruleset ever and everyone will want one despite the art, even if it doesn't and it flops they are still selling MET and KISS and aren't in any danger. If their 3 game release model wasn't turning a profit they'd change it.

When Gottlieb 'fell behind' they were swimming with Sharks like the legendary Bally... and the legendary Williams... and when they fell behind, their competition was releasing 1 game a month using brand new technlogy that was the future (Solid State games).

Building 1 game every 4 years with an LCD screen (invented in the 80's) bolted in the backbox isn't putting anybody out of business anytime soon.

In 5 years the market may be very different if some other companies can get some games out, but as of right now Stern's sitting pretty even if some feel the latest game is a dud.

Stern builds and ships games, it's a solid strategy that puts them ahead of the competition. We should hope Stern eventually falls behind and is forced to innovate or compete more. If they fall behind to competition that's exellent. It's only bad if they start losing ground to waning interest in pinball. In the meantime it's crazy how many games they put out even if they're not all runaway hits, and many recent ones have been.

Another thing you need to keep in mind is that historically, pinball companies have always had some turds. Stern's actually been on a damn good run for a few years here.

So for instance, in 1990, Midway(Bally) released

Bugs Bunny (weak)
Harley (weak)
Gilligan (weak)
Party Zone (o.k.)

then they blew it out of the f'in water with The Addams Family. Best selling flipper of all time.

Two years later they were releasing Popeye, and Corvette.

Is Stern releasing GOT really doing that much worse than Bally in their hay day? Bally's sales were better but they were still hit and miss.

Has anybody played GOT yet?

Post of the year.

And no, no one here that is having a fit about the display or the art has played it yet.

It's Steve fucking Ritchie kids.
The pinball king. He doesn't make a bad game.

Well......

24flyer.jpg

Just messing with you Mrgone, I agree 100% with what you said.

Stop being so practical

Competition brings about innovation. Stern has no competition therefore expect to see very little to no innovation.

The art on 24,...............nuf said.
I played it at pagg 2014 and really liked it.

Ok, well, maybe Elvis.
Nah, even Elvis has its charm.

Exactly.

Just like AC/DC (awful art) and Star Trek (average art) if the gameplay is good, everything else is soon forgotten.

AC/DC is by all accounts Sterns biggest seller, so it goes to show how much art means at the end of the day.

The comparisons to Gottlieb are a little off. Their EMs were great but the move to electronics wasn't great for them as their electronics were not reliable. Unfortunately, when you sell your machines to operators, and they have to keep fixing them, they will shop elsewhere next time. There's much more to the story than that, but here's the start for you.

rd

When they release the Raven Vault Edition maybe.

Gilligan's weak? c'on...was the first DMD. I still remember the 30' line to play when our local arcade got one.
It was a blast to play!.....music, animations etc.
We should rate 90's pins keeping in mind the tech available at that time
However agree that Bugs Bunny was horrible

Not even close:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/mmr-is-on-the-production-line/page/3#post-2211440

no
stern releases 3-4 games per year
not every game will be a winner

until GoT is released and we get to play it, then it seems pointless to judge it
Steve's last game was Star trek, the art on that is lame, but that has not effected the games popularity

Stern didn't have any competition for years. So they can go at thier own their pace. LCD will be there one day

Gary has a lifetime of knowledge in the pinball business.

I was just thinking about the 3 game approach by stern on the weekend.

Its actually a great business model. I'm new to pinball. So I didnt want to spend very much. When I first started looking for a pin. I set out a budget of $2000

I quickly realize $2000 got me old games. Like 80s. So I increased my budget to $4000. Now I'm in 90s. But the problem was. These games were routed.

In my travels. I found sterns new games at starting $5500 all in cnd

JJP WOZ starting at $8500

Sterns 3 game strategy gets ppl new machines and playing pinball. Whether for home use or playing on location.

So chances are. New players playing these days are playing on stern pros. Which is great for everyone.

Stern pros are still awesome
A pro is an easy game to play with flow. When i play games like kiss acdc on location. Still have mad fun.

Really the reason to not like a pro is because u know about the LE

Which companies getting "up to speed with production in 1-2 years time" are you referring to?
And which of those companies will be able to offer 3 or more new pinball machine every year?

Following your logic of innovation driving sales, WoZ must have sold better than any Stern game in the last years. It didn't. An neither will The Hobbit.

So you think AC/DC would have sold better if the artwork would have been nicer?

however behind they are, unfortunately they are at industry standard level and hold on to it with one upside that is trumping boutique manufacturers:

- they reliably mass manufacture and ship hundreds of units of several pinball machine models per year that are available for order and are funded on their own, not on preorder and hope that it will ship model

downsides are:

- no progress in pinball development
- lower quality art/sound package and not exploring license potential to the fullest // no original themes that would not be $$$ limited
- unfinished code at release time
- tiered trim structure where PRO is not bang for the buck
- from now on price hiked up to the point of boutique manufacturers (because you let them get away with it)

First time when some company comes even remotely close to the only real upside Stern has, they will need to up their game at least pricewise, and that is not happening any time soon. Sorry, but pinball IS dying because every manufacturer aims for the collector market and you can't expect new generations and uninitialized civilians to learn about it when it lives mainly only in the rich white men basements and man-caves. Stern at least used to target mainstream markets that could afford its pinball machines from 2000-2010.
Pinball will at least have a chance to survive when someone start making $3000 pins again.

How many WOZs are routed? Tens of dozens? Who else has games on route? A handful of AMHs and FTs? Probably several MMRs.

There are TENS OF THOUSANDS of Stern games out there earning dollars.

The closest outfit able to get close to hitting Stern's pricepoint seems to be Heighway with their swappable system. If a full game is somewhere around seven grand and additional playfields are 3 a piece, then you're at about the same price as a Stern Pro for two titles...but with Stern you get two games to put on route, so it's still not even that close.

JJP is doing the redemption thing, so maybe that will get more games out there.

Swinks. I agree. I really wonder how much it costs stern to build and code 2 different machines.

It's ironic though. U asked if stern will lag behind from competition

It's the competition that is the reason why stern has 3 models

I Don't worry about 3 models. I just buy what i like. To me pins are just toys that I just want to have fun with.

I have never seen a WOZ in real life let alone play one. I doubt I will ever see a hobbit machine. But I have played wrestlemania,twd,Star Trek,kiss,acdc, metalica on location

So play before I buy

how dare you berate my beloved GI " best game ever "

When I think of no LCD on stern games for so long. I actually think its quite smart to use dmd

Like u said "old technology". But that old stuff is tried and tested

Let JJP and WOZ test the market on lcds.
Will ppl love them?
Will they be trouble free?

When u have no competition. U can go at your own pace.

But if u have competition. When u lose market share or when it becomes the norm.

If Stern continues to cut features, offer infrequent code updates, and doesn't innovate yet tries to keep prices high then yes they will fall behind. A company can only keep such business practices going for so long until it bites them in the ass.

Stern needs to look at themselves in the mirror and offer value with all of their titles, commit to regular code updates and finally put an LCD in their games as the main display.

As for those thinking that JJP is not competition to Stern think of this. Let's say to date that JJP has sold 4000 games between WOZ and The Hobbit at an average price of $7500. That's $30 MILLION in pinball dollars that could have went to Stern instead. I'm sure Stern would like a piece of that pie or the entire thing.

The main thing people seem to be pissed about lately with Stern is cost cutting. They are charging $5k-$8k for games which is a hell of a lot of money for a pinball machine of all things. At those prices why are proper service rails being left out pros, why are service rails in premiums / LE's now shorter, why can the power button not remain under the cabinet where it's convenient, why is an LCD not the main display in their games in 2015, why do code updates take months on end with little to no communication in between, why do some licensed games lack original themed character audio, and why do their recent games look sparse feature wise compared to the games they made 10 years ago that cost nearly half the price?

24 rocks, beauty of pinball is tastes r different. I seriously can't believe you think 24 sucks as it's one of my favorite players in my collection.(and I got a big collection) Simply love it, imo you should give it another try. Standups are well done, mix of easy and difficult shots, achievable wizard mode, theme well integrated,awesome sound, gets my blood flowing everytime I push start. Sure little army guys may be cheezy, but when that safehouse blows up and terrorist start popping up all over playfield it's pure excitement and fun for me. Modern pinball at its finest.....all this and I stumbled upon this game by accident having never seen an episode of the show. Game draws you in and makes you feel like your on a mission to save the president. LOVE IT!!!

I miss my 24! Bad artwork but good game!

Wow what a joke JJP and DP are no Bally / Williams

You guys don't get it. 24 HAS to be a bad game. It doesn't look especially good and the theme itself is not very attractive.

Since GoT-Gate I have the feeling that's all pinball is about these days...

Which company recently innovated these?

innovate.JPG

lol, wut? All of those companies have faults, just like Stern does. Heighway seems to have the best chance at eating into Stern's sales, if they can ramp up production.

I couldn't disagree with you more. In 2010 a Whitewater would cost you $1800 and I could get a brand new Stern for $4K. Now if you can explain how in 5 years a game as gone from $4K to $6.5K all while removing stuff on pretty much each game as they go along (service brackets, metal apron, lockdown bar mech...) JJP WOZ was $6K when they started taking preorders.

The LE model is a broken model because at that price point you only get a very target buyer. Eventually that buyer is going to run out of room. LE's should be like Swinks stated upgrades to specific pieces but leave the entire game identical. That way you don't spend twice the effort to coding almost the same game. And god knows Stern needs help in the coding department..

In order for a pinball to be a real hit you need 3 things: Great Art, Good Flow, Good Code. Missing on one of these 3 pillars will affect sale margins.

Ac/Dc disagrees with you.

No, maybe the margins were affected.

Just think if ACDC had *great art* it might have surpassed TAF in production numbers instead of being the Stern blockbuster it is

Sorry I don't get this thread. They have introduced new technology. Didn't Stern release Spike ?. Whole new modular platform to enable LCD's. So that's an innovation and looks to me they can release a LCD when they want to, but probably have found the DMD easier to code or still cheaper. Innovation requires R&D and looks like Stern have been doing lots of that. Maybe GOT is a dud maybe not , wait to play one to find out. What is known is they are currently designing the next game and probably the one after that and that. If they cost cut the parts better than the competition and buy in bulk as they make more units then their cost per unit is probably better than any of them. They charge what the market will take and where their competitors charge so we all know that's a premium price. So that means their profit per unit is going to be better than any competitor. Add to that they make more units than any of their competition. Add to that that they have the ability to produce stuff quicker than any of their competitors then to me that means they have more money and speed.

So until the competitors can get close to those variables , they look well placed to me.

The killer for them is the rising prices so that I think is where they all need to be wary. How many existing or new entrants will continue to pay top dollar? I am in the UK , been out of any new machines for a few years. as import exchange rates etc kill it, new innovation or not. At a US equivalent price of $12,000 for a GOT LE . I am out!

Great art would have cost Stern more to produce, so their margins would have been affected, you are correct.

Would they have sold more? Maybe, but hey sold a ton. Everyone looked past the art at the great game play. And the machine does great on location, so OPS bought a ton.

Exactly what I was thinking...Spike is new and a smart step. I think if they make too big of a change at once, many customers will complain "It's not REAL pinball." We saw this with P2K...so many people hated it before every even seeing it in person, let alone playing it. Granted they didn't turn out to be great games, but many people couldn't even see the potential.

Slow, incremental improvement may not set the world on fire, but it also doesn't alienate the customers.

That's not how operators would benefit from Heighway games. For operators, the Heighway system allows them to swap games between locations easily. So location A has Full Throttle, location B has Alien.

Swapping them takes barely longer than the drive from A to B. No need to pack up, truck out to van etc. Don't even need to cash out the coin box. Just pull playfield/translites and take it in the car.

Off topic to the thread slightly, just wanted to clarify the innovations that HP has brought to the table

And who, exactly, is Stern going to fall behind? JJP? Do you remember when JJP announced WOZ? It was 2010. Since then they have shipped ONE title. Stern shipped SEVENTEEN. At that rate, we will all be dead when JJP ships title 17. Heighway? JPop? The Predator guy that stole all the $? Spooky?

well said. I will give huge props to spooky. while all the others have bragged about how their game is the future of pinball but have not shipped anything other than rugs, shirts, and broken promises. spooky has delivered an original themed game that people are enjoying and are closer to game 2 than jjp. heighway should also be saluted as they are shipping game 1.
no small feat to start a pinball company from the ground up.

U really need to stop blaming stern on exchange rate

In aug of 2014 I know for a fact that I could have a Star Trek pro shipped to my door for $5500 cnd
Aug of 2015 that star pro is now $6500 cnd shipped to my door

Should I blame JJP that a WOZ costs over $12000 cnd now when it could had for $6000 as u say

If a guy is buying all top dollar machines. He isn't running out room. He will make room if that happens. I bet u they run out of garage space for theirs cars before they run out space for pins

Coding is not easy. I'm sure there is lots reusable code

But someone has to see the logic and write the code for each instance the ball does something

The more complex the game. The difficulty in coding is exponential.

Just out of curiousity. How many pinball programmers do u think there are in this world? Heck if u wanted to become a pinball programmer. Where would go and learn ? Exactly how does one even get experience in that field?

Time will tell. Stern seems to do just enough to keep things moving forward. Once in a while they have a great game, some good, and some bad. We always expect the next to be one of those great ones. Most releases disappoint but in the end it's new pinball, piggy banks get broke, and everyone pays to play.

I don't like the 3 game versions system either. I do like the idea of a basic machine that does not have all the useless junk tacked on to inflate the price tag to obscene levels. However, I don't like a different game in the pro versus premium/le. I suppose the logic is that you should always buy the premium/le but that becomes a very difficult sell for people like me.

I agree with all that, and didn't mean to slight anybody. My point was that Stern is SO far out front (and I am NOT a Stern fan, whatsoever) that the thought of any of these boutique guys passing them up is ridiculously remote if for no other reasons than financing and the all-too-common startup problem of scale...how they take production from 10 units to 10,000 units.

And yes, I know that Apple started out in a garage, and FedEx was an MBA thesis and Ford started with one car. It CAN happen. Against long ass odds.