Despite the issues I still stand by Jersey Jack. All NIB warranties are very short and limited. If it's damaged in freight refuse it or make careful notes on delivery. There are lots of notes on the internet about how to do this.
Here goes:
I started the pinball hobby in 2007. I used to post on the old Yahoo boards (wild west with no moderator) when Clay was giving us manuals on how to fix pinball games. Prices for the games were fairly low. Then in 2008 I started attending the Texas Pinball Festival to find parts to fix them (digging through piles of corroded boards and play-fields) as there weren't many vendors with replacements. I used to buy my games from Craigslist. I built my collection to almost 8 games before divorce set in and I had to sell most of them. I had to learn how to fix and restore my games because they were barely working or busted. I lost over 7k on all of those sales. Older games need a lot of maintenance and cost a lot of money to restore. The old games I have remaining need occasional maintenance even though the boards and connectors are new or rebuilt. After a few years I remember going to a seminar at TPF and listening to somebody named Jersey Jack in 2012. I heard a some interesting conversations and ate a lot of good pizza but didn't have $ 7500 for a new game and it was a new company.
Forward to 2016: I finally bought a Hobbit LE in March 2016 with the optional play-field protector. It was a RISK in my opinion. I had to wait 9 months and it only had a short warranty. Was his company going to be in business in a few years? It was delivered in December 2016. It worked right out of the box but had a few minor issues. I knew the warranty window was very short so I played the hell out of it. There was a big CD manual but I always emailed or called Jersey Jack and got prompt replies for the rare service breakdown or went to Pinside. I still get fast responses for minor "ghosts in the machine."
Forward to 2020: I decided to order another Jersey Jack Pinball... GNR.
Over the last 3 weeks I've read over 2000 posts on the Jersey Jack GNR play-field issues. I've also read about 400 posts on the warranty change and that topic is just getting started. Why do I read the posts? Because I bought-in again and there are some really good guys on Pinside that help you fix your games and share the love of the hobby. I ordered from Jersey Jack directly (October 11) and I haven't received my game. That is no complaint as I had to wait 9 months for the Hobbit back in 2016. I agree it's unfortunate about ALL apparent issues but that's NIB pinball.
Would I buy another NIB pinball. Maybe...