Sorry, just not on board with this.
Plenty of Billionaires are hard working people that still care about their customers, and conversely there are not so rich people running businesses that don't care at all about customers. There are good and bad business owners across the wealth spectrum - how much the business or owners make usually doesn't have much to do with it.

If you are just anti-rich ... then by all means, continue your rant.

The printing not adhering to the pf cant explain why the clearcoating is soft as peanutbutter.

I am not anti-rich. I am explaining to you on why I say the Abess family does not care about your pinball machines. If they did the issue would be fixed. Plain and simple. What I am anti on is the elite shitting on the common man and not taking responsibility for issues they can solve but wont because it does not effect their personal lives. I never said they are not hard working people. The Abess family are not getting rich by selling pinball machines. They are not standing behind their products that is coming from their money. Please let me in on why they can not fix this issue. What other reason other than they do not care? That is all I was stating.

if they were broke, what about this would be different, to you?

You're asking me if the Abess family were broke how would that change the situation? If that is what is being asked then that takes being able to fix the issue a bit harder to do. We can all admit that this playfield quality issue is not some easy cheap thing. I think we can all see how stopping a line and finding a new contractor to do the work is extremely expensive. We can also believe that sending out new playfields is a costly deal as well. This all comes down to money. If you do not have the money then you make do. You tell your customers "sorry but if we fix this issue we will be done so either deal with it or no more JJP". If you truly cared for your customers you would come out and say "we are extremely sorry for all of this. Please work with us as we deal with these unfortunate issues".

But they are not broke. They have the resources to fix the issue. They haven't fixed it. They have shown no ambition to fix it and they have not communicated at all about the issue. So why is that? I am just trying to open a conversation on this because no one is holding them accountable for this or asking them this. They can do it. They could do a lot of things with the billions they have. I am not anti rich or anti wealthy or whatever posters want to label me (maybe a bit anti on having multiple billions for that is just dumb). I simply came out and said that the Abess family can fix this issue yet they wont do it. If they truly cared about it, it would be fixed. Why on earth are people defending these individuals? They will not replace your playfields! The only solution they have is to buy it back from you and tell you to F&^# off!

And if the next question is "well what if they only put a certain amount of investment in JJP and its not enough to fix the issue" Then that goes back to my statement that they don't care enough then to invest more money into it to fix it. For me it all goes down to caring enough. If they cared enough they would fix it. That is totally and reasonably fine to only invest a certain amount in a company. There is nothing wrong with that. Doesn't mean they are bad people. I never said they were. I just stated they don't care enough.

I keep seeing people talk about how this is unacceptable on the CE. What about LE, SE? How about any brand new game? These comments worry me. There should not be any delineation between machine models and playfield quality.

Such garbage that anyone has to deal with this on such a ludicrously expensive purchase/hobby, from any company, for any reason. I hope a solution can be reached where everyone is happy and JJP stays on the upswing.

Luckily for you, JJP sells "equal opportunity garbage." All models are affected.

Can you give me some examples of this "soft as peanut butter" clearcoat? I have yet to see that particular issue.

So lost on your Abess crush. Being an investor in a company does not make you a chemical engineer or playfield specialist. I like many have invested in many companies via the stock market yet they don't call on me to repair there product challenges. Sounds like your just looking for someone to blame? You have money must be your fault! This is not a great situation but is also not the investors issue to figure out thats up to the team of JJP.

Been saying this for years and not only are people still buying them but they are lined up around the block and back to buy them at ridiculous pricing. It is crazy.

If I'm not mistaken Ken went on Zack's show and said The Ce's would be perfect. That clearly hasn't been the case and could easily take to court just on that statement alone. I doubt jjp could win a court case cause anyone (either side calls)who even remotely dabbles in clearcoat would testify to a judge that isn't normal and the playfield is bad.

To my memory, this first became a thing when GB launched. Clear and art were literally flaking off the games. You had the old heads saying ‘Shit happens’ and the new guys screaming class action lawsuit.

Stern eventually shipped populated playfields to some, but not all. Since then, I’ve bought NIB Sterns but I’ve been cautious and more than a little suspicious about new playfields.

FOMO will always be a thing with some collectors, but my money won’t go to a NIB JJP.

There was a two week production window of bad playfields for Metallica, which may be the earliest issues?

Maybe I am mistaken here but are the Abess Father and Son team majority owners in JJP? Did they not pump a bunch a money to become majority owners and to also keep it going? When did I say that just because you have money makes you know how to fix these issues. You pay someone to fix the issues. Or invest the money in other technologies. They are the ones running the show there from what I have heard and understand. It's their decision to not replace playfields. Its their decision to not fire Mirco and get someone else to do it. It's their decision to put money into the business to make a good product. Why is this being spun on me hating them cause they are rich!? I am not asking them to put their lab coats on and figure it out. I am stating that if they cared enough they would dig into the problem and spend their money to get it fixed. They have not! Why can't you understand this? Its the investors/owners job to put the people in place to fix the issues. If they placed the wrong people in those positions it is on them. No biggie. They then use money to hire/entice better people to get the job done.

Yes, and unfortunately I got one of the pros. The artwork was literally popping off the playfield as I was playing. Took 2 years to get a fully populated playfield replacement, but stern did make it right.

I don’t remember that, but you could be right. I do remember all the pictures of the GB shattered clearcoat in the shooter lane and around the posts.

I’ve had minor issues with most of my newer games, but man, it sucks to see some of these pictures.

There’s a simple answer to that question. Profit. Shaving costs here and there to make a few extra dollars. What these companies are missing is that customer loyalty rules the day. Long term they will make way more money if they treat their customers right. Right now, it’s all about short term gain and quick profit which will come back to bite them some day.

Not to sideline your frustration just saying being an Investor is not the same as production manager or part of the design team. I would Guess the investors visit that facility annually at best to review revenue. Highly unlikely they are reviewing the build design or game layouts. Just an opinion.

I totally understand that. I am not saying their responsibility is to inspect every playfield and screw. I was stating that these issues are not getting fixed because the "investors/owners" do not care enough to get them fixed. They are the life blood of the operation. You can have the best production managers and designers but if you have no capital you have nothing. Plain and simple. They are aware of these issues. If they are not then that is a different story. I would believe that not to be the case. My opinion (which my statements have been) is that they do not care enough to put the money and people in place to get it fixed because at the end of the day they are not dependent on JJP money (or need anymore money) nor do they have any higher ups to answer to. They can get it done with a snap of a finger. I do appreciate the convo back and forth and respect your opinion. I may seem frustrated but I am having a good time. I have been plagued by playfield issues on three of my machines so I understand what everyone is going thru. Pinball production comes down to talent and money. JJP has both. There needs to be a shift of that money to these areas or an injection of more money. Both are possible.

If only the playfield issue was brought to light and widely known before paying for GNR.

You didn't. You said because they have money, they don't give a shit. "Neither care because they are billionaires", were your exact words. I have no idea where the correlation of a person's wealth, and a person's level of caring tie together, but you've somehow come to this conclusion. And if that's your belief, that's fine. But then you went as far as to copy/paste a picture of Brett Abess' face to another pointed caption?? That's spiteful and immature at best, slandering at worst. He might be the investor in a pinball company that's currently pissing you off, but at least he wouldn't do something like that to you or anyone else.

This is why it's relevant...
Screen Shot 2021-05-24 at 6.44.29 PM.png

They have the resources

He's not just an investor - they run the company.

Met and Star Trek both had small batch problems that resulted in major chunks of art coming off the PF.

Email or call them everyday until you get a populated playfield for free or a full refund. They will only grease the squeakiest wheels.

But when Stern has an issue they fix it. They also pump out 3x the number of games (or more) of all the other companies combined. The number of reported issues on the past few runs has been minimal.

Skyemont does your playfield have the mirco playfield "quality" test thing under the apron like they showed previously?

How does that compare?

Sorry Dad for being immature. Maybe if you read my posts some more you would see my correlation on their wealth and my opinion on that because they have nothing to lose they wouldn't care about trying harder. That's all it was. I feel sooooo horrible for slandering a Billionaire on a pinball forum.... I am such a loser and will go home now and cry.

What have JJP or your distro said to you?

We GET it: "Rich people are EVIL." haha...

.

My JJP distro attacked me publically here on the forum repeatedly for asking them to make it right by me (f'd POTC CE) , when I brought the distributors unprofessional and bullying behavior to JJP management's attention they shrugged it off, said that I misunderstood him.....

So good luck

Skyemont - Robert, sorry to hear about your issues. I hope you and the other owners with issues can get a resolution. I have a Standard that had some scratches but no pooling yet. I’m wondering if this is a problem that immediately occurs or starts to show itself after a certain number of plays? I assume all versions have playfield issues?

What do you guys want for $12,500 (or more if you bought from a flipper)?! A working game?! Babies.

Unfortunately the buyers spending crazy money on pins don’t read Pinside, don’t see what we see or want what we want...rando newbs keep buying, so nothing is lost to the manufacturers by a few of us hardcores dropping off as buyers. Aside from R&M, I haven’t bought a new pin since 2014 due to what I consider unacceptable quality, lack of testing & unfinished code. Stern & JJP have only become more successful since then. Sooo...it is what it is, I guess.

Ok, I'll ask it....

OP, you've posted in THE most relevant thread about Stern/JJP PF issues over a year ago....

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/continued-playfield-issues-with-jjp-and-stern

Why did you buy anyways? Just hoped it wouldn't happen or something?

Copy all. I'm sorry to hear this happened : (.

Who is your distro? or did you buy direct from JJP? Now would be an amazing time for some distro to look like a champ.

When the manufacturer says no and the problem costs real money, rarely will distributors be of assistance.
Hey, but at least they will bring games to shows. We’ve got that going for us.

Diamond coated playfields all still look incredible. Everyone says the chemicals used in that coating are no longer allowed, which is a darn shame...one would think there would be something at least as good as the ceramic coats put on high end vehicles....

Bingo...or, if JJP survives, they pass the cost down to their future customers. It's a bad deal for everyone.

Sometimes a company needs to be crushed into oblivion by a class action suit.

To me, it seems like both the ink and the clear weren’t allowed to cure properly. The clear was too soft which allowed the posts to rotate and shear off the poorly adhered ink.

My guess is another 8-12 weeks of cure time would have alleviated a lot of the issues. My TNA was built around the time others had issues, but mine sat in the box for 3 months before it was played and it’s been perfect with no issues. I get it that everything in this industry is rushed, but it seems like some of the early GnRs were too rushed. I hope JJP makes it right for everyone affected.

To me if an investor bankrolls a company, they have a loud voice. If they aren't there in a managing capacity, they put people they trust in positions of power. Maybe it's the bean counters, maybe the operations manager... but in the end the buck stops with the majority share holder/s.

Sure, but JJP is not a company that should be crushed into oblivion. None of us win there...

Remind me plz, when did JJP and Stern move to digital vs screen printing? Just in last few years, correct?

Seeing these poll #'s and reading the posts....sad day for the hobby. Almost seems unbelievable that it happened again....