If I was a limited edition buyer of either Stern or JJP I would be kinda of pissed. These companies are treating this group of buyers like they a bunch of assholes, seriously $3500k more for the Le dialled in , pretty much the same for the batman66 SLE and yet there is no true exclusivity or luxury to these models. These guys have lost the plot. I'm not worried about the death of pinball, if and when this new collector market crashes, any manufactures standing will be happy to drop their asking prices by $2000 or more and be begging operators to take their games. The term LE will be gone from the hobby in a couple of years, with everyone bagging on this marketing strategy these machines will no longer have that cool vibe and let's face it the only reason people purchase Le's is for the status. When that no longer rings true, even the well heeled collectors will be happy to save thousands and play the same game us the masses. It would be totally different story if these companies were actually delivering $3000 worth of upgrades and prestige.

I know this is a JJP thread but what really pisses me off is how many times have you heard Stern say the game is under the glass. If that was really true then give your Le buyers some true unique GAMEPLAY features and mechanical toys. These guys deserve so much more then you are giving them for the money they are spending.

Both the majors need to start showing consumers what they are going to be getting for all the extra money they asking wether it premium Le or super duper edition.

The difference this time around is that Jack can't afford to have the game 2 years away from shipping. I would not like to be Jack meeting with his investors when they see the feedback here and pre-sale orders. Speaking of investors, does it seem like both Stern and JJP went off the rails when new money came into both companies.

I have really tried not to get involved in the negative rants regarding pinball having jumped the shark and the crazy new price levels. In all honesty a figured $6-$7 was about the right price for NIB pins keeping inline with inflation from the 90's and overall drop in sales/production runs compared to those time. However going from wizard of Oz costing $6500 at launch to $9K for this game just seems more like profit taking. The sales numbers will determine which strategy works for the major manufactures I.e low run high margin, large run low margin.

Hi Ben

Don't want to put you on the spot but as someone who actually knows a thing or two about making a pinball machine, do you think dialled in could of been profitable for JJP at say $7-$7.5k list price? Granted you don't have in side knowledge on the BOM or even the profit sharing arrangement between Jack and Pat. I'm just asking for a perspective to see if all of us are ranting because we feel that companies are starting to price gouge or if we all have it wrong and the cost of building games with these sort of features is way more then we would expect.

Regarding your above post, I think the difference is you can easily say AFM is Mars attacks unlicensed, MM is the holy grail etc.. However what is dialled in reference. Earthshaker, whirlwind had much clearer disaster themes. Time will tell and personally I think the short gameplay videos looks great, however it is a hard theme to translate in a single byline. Which when you going within an orginal theme probably makes for an even harder sell.

The number of players at our local arcade that I have to tell to press the start button on a game as they walking away(would never steal someone's credits I want everyone to enjoy pinball) is ridiculous, I mean seriously 30% of first time players I see don't know to press the start button. How the hell are they going to know to use there phone or take selfies etc... Seems like a cool idea in a marketing round table, in reality way off the mark.