maybe he meant 9 to 8 % market Share or 98% Profit Share

Or maybe he just grabbed a number out of thin air that made stern look good?

I think it came from statistic that 98% of Stern buyers are 82% satisfied. I could be wrong.

While I would agree the percentage is inflated I imagine it is relatively dominant assuming they are basing this off of current market share in the pinball world. IE number of Stern titled games VS the other brands in the wild. They did have close to 10 years of production with no viable competitors to reach some high statistic values. With that said the other numbers mentioned, with JJP in a stall this year with POTC do we really think they moved 2000 units or the other competitors which also were in a bit of a stall getting new products out this year? Basically a marketing spin but there is no denying Stern has the industry by the horns and with the recent bombshell title releases and frequency I suspect they want to keep it a Stern dominant market for some time.

Great interview. Keep 'em coming.

everyone keeps saying this but the publicly reported owners numbers (now combined with Maiden already being on the Stern rewards list), I get the impression that the recent "bombshells" are not as big as Pinside has us believe. We are skewed with the hype and hired hype people of the largest company trying to sway opinion. Unless for some odd reason, Stern games are disproportionately under recorded on Pinside and PinballMap, they are not selling in bombshell numbers. They are down from GB and pretty level since then.

Stern has frequency domination for sure, but seems numbers per title are steadily down from the last bombshells. (GB, TWD, ST, MET)

https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/stern-guardians-of-the-galaxy/owners

https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/iron-maiden-legacy-of-the-beast/owners

https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/star-wars-stern/owners

https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/batman-66/owners

https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/aerosmith-pro/owners

https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/ghostbusters/owners

https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/game_of_thrones/owners

https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/kiss-stern/owners

https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/wrestlemania/owners

https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/the_walking_dead/owners

https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/mustang-2014/owners

https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/star_trek/owners

https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/metallica/owners

Even with Pirates being released, how many OPs are paying $8.5k for that pin, when they can buy a new Stern for $5k? Can’t be a huge number.

Obviously we’ll have to wait and see, but Deeproot (assuming their pricing and production truly shocks the market) is the only one that could have the ability to target Stern in numbers. That’s not to say JJP and Spooky are legit, but they service niche segments.

No disagreement #Whysnow my comment about bombshell simply meant they have finally moved off the non stop rock titles and onto majority interest titles not sales figures. As I to work with marketing people they tend to sell based on the larger denominator value in comparison. I was only assuming Stern marketing is (assumed) looking at 30 years of games = XXXX units sold vs the competition Still in business (excludes B/W). Based on that imaginative view they very well Could have upwards of 90% of the worlds market sales. TOTAL BS example but say they Averaged 6k units per year over 30 years thats 180,000 units. Compared to API at 400 total, or spooky 400 total, etc etc I can see how the marketing could be a fair pitch.

Release of rock pins is pretty consistent and has not changed. Once again Pinside perception probably.

Yeah, understood and agreed.

worth note that Spooky is over 1000 games now I believe?
JJP is a bigger number of course.

Stern is the big dog, but no doubt about it that they dont even have close to 98% of current market share. They unfortunately have a few egos/braggarts up top and have always wanted to hold on to some sort of outdated/false claim. They would be better off just being honest with the customer base IMHO. "We strive to make great games with big licences and make more volume and titles per year than anyone else.

I also personally wish they would get the ever increasing price under control.

Not as many OPs buying 8.5 games for sure, but the same could be said for 5.5k games like Pros are now.

I do think things are going to continue to get interesting with all the new players and continual ramp up in production.

Stern has their spot as largest with lowest entry price point with big name licenses.
Spooky has their spot with limited run, great no licensed stuff, and an agile team of nice dudes.
JJP has premier build (somewhat eroded with the thing pulled from POTC, but game still has a crazy amount) and the price point to match; along with big license.

How does deeproot fit into this?
Thunderbirds?
AP?

Time will tell and it is getting interesting to watch

I think the data is incomplete for making the claim there are no recent bombshells. The reason is the current models in production (GOTG MAIDEN SW) will continue new sales for another few years, until then their numbers are in flux. The others seem legit and locked down.

It's pretty easy to do the math. They shipped around 10k pins last yr.

How many did all the other guys ship?

JJP guess is around 3k
Spooky 500 guess or more
Misc others another 500

That's about 71.4% of the overall market

Even though their production numbers should be up in 2018 i doubt their market share will

And with Deeproot coming in 2019 the share will drop.

They shouldn't care, as long as their total sales go UP.

More GOOD pinball helps ALL pinball.

Total of 14k pins shipped

Stern did 10k of those

I'm factoring in Woz, Hobbit and DI shipments

JJP has to be shipping at least 3k a year overall right?

you forgot to mention CGC....their numbers are probably 1500+

Oh man I forgot about CGC. I was one of the LE buyers

That takes the Stern market share down to around 64.5%

What Stern has to realize is that when they were the ONLY game in town they nearly went out of business.

JJP sparked a new pinball revolution which made Stern get better.

Throw Deeproot into the mix and its wide open in 2019. Stern is still king but....

PRICING matters. Let's see how all that plays out.

You can't keep jacking up prices and expect volume to keep growing.

JJP sparked a new pinball revolution which showed Gary he could jack the prices way up and suckers would still buy them.

I’ve never seen production numbers for JJP - 3000 PA would mean 60 pins per week. Is that right? I have no idea as I don’t follow those threads.

Don’t forget to add in the 50 Aliens too, and the 20 Magic Girls.

rd

You are F ing funny Rd!

Actually Alien is going to skew the numbers in 2018. It's a kick ass pin!!! The last batch anyhow. I love it.

If JJP didn't show how Gary could jack up the prices and survive then we wouldn't be here to today. I came back into the hobby because of Woz and the LCD innovation etc. blah, blah, blah.....15 pins later and counting and I should be really pissed off at Jack.

I feel like you are keeping the entire market afloat RD with those Aussie sales in NZ. And of course don't you have about 300 pins yourself?

Kaneda is always good for 1 pin every few years. Does flipping count? Poor guy can't get any interviews, wonder why? Nutpuncher is killing him.

Only 130. Chicken feed!

Dunno about “Aussie sales in NZ” icey ... different places, don’t ya know!

I know they sell shitloads of new Sterns in Aussie. In NZ, maybe 3-5 of each new model? With only 4.5m people, and pros costing $9,700 bucks ($6800 USD) there isn’t a massive market here.

As an example, with the Spookys I’ve sold about 10 here which is a pretty good effort. 1x AMH 2x Rz 3x TNA 3x ACNC. So 9. Actually might be 4x TnA. So 10. I think.

Now if only I made some actual money on that ... hmmmm ...

rd

Again depending on how marketing is Swinging this promoted number the fact is companies comparing themselves to others consider total Market numbers not just this year numbers. They claim they own X amount of the Market not a prize for this year. Comparing Stern of 32 years making units to API (1 Year) Alien (1 year), Spooky (1 year) etc is a huge difference in total Market ownership when you (or their marketing team) look at the numbers.

I wonder how accurate these numbers are. I’ve owned IMDN LE for nearly four months, listed immediately in my collection on Pinside, and am not listed in this data. BM66 I am. How many pinsiders don’t even bother to list their machines? How many owners don’t use pinside?

It’s all marketing to drive sales. I gave clients the ability to leverage from a readership of over half a million potential customers with disposable income and 42% of the NZ male population. All this from an audited circulation of only 24,000. Its all BS but it did come with a highly competitive investment level haha

The 98% given by George will be plausible if you think creatively. Reaching 500,000 people from a 24,000 print run in is plausible if your wife reads it and gives it to her mother, she lends it to her boyfriend and he leaves it at the waiting room of a dentist that sees over 100 customers each day.

It is all about the relative numbers.

Comparing Pinside reported numbers for 1 game to the next allows us to assume much less variability.

Your Maiden is clearly listed in the owners numbers for Maiden...
As soon at you put a game in your collection, it shows up.

dts maiden (resized).JPG

Oh, I went to the Pro owners from that link! Well, statistics was never my strong suit anyhow. I’ll go ahead and ask a dumb question in this case. Why doesn’t Stern simply tell us how many units they sell?

Gomez was right on the money New BM66 code just dropped and it was indeed 0.94, love your podcast guys, you get the best guests on, really makes it a must listen!

Simple, as a market leader they don't want the rest of the market knowing how big it actually is

There is nothing to be gained by them releasing numbers. I wish they'd release numbers for games that have been our for say 7-8 years but they won't.

Agreed, thereis no real advantage to them to release numbers and in a few cases I would guess the Pro model is actually far more limited in number than the LE model. They don't want to show that.

All it doea it help others out if they punlish the numbers.

I also am pretty sure some of it is about ego. STern can't tell us little white lies to boost them selves up if they publish the numbers.

How good do we think the estimates are from http://www.ipsnd.net?

Which cases? I could maybe see (the original incandescent runs of) AC/DC since so many people went with the premium. Maybe X-Men?

I was going to say Wrestlemania, but there are only 6 submissions for the LE. lol.

I think XM, WWE, Kiss possibly, mustang possibly, avengers likely, and agreed on ACDC

Cheers. All the best with whatever you’re dealing with.

Ditto.

rd

Hope all is ok.

If anybody deserves a break from podcasting, it's you guys. Thanks for all your time and dedication and best wishes with whatever you're dealing with - hope everything works out well soon!

My thoughts and Prayers are with you guys

Another great podcast, Thanks Guys.

Tims GF Britney was classic !

th (resized).jpg

Haha,

of course, my bad

Oops I did it again

Hey boys. The hardest ramp is Taxi (the left one). Not a WPC game, but what came to mind first.

Taxi has a design flaw, where the Dracula catapult is making a dent into the ramp. In a sweet spot, where it will suck all energy out of shot up the ramp.

They learned from this and made a better design when the feature was reused on Fish Tales and Medieval Madness.

That was a great interview with Mr. Gillard.

NDA Ned, thanks for all the inside secrets!

Another enjoyed episode!!

"NDA Ned" is almost as annoying as that Jeff Teolis guy!

Does he know of any Poo Joggers in the industry?

miwyonnaire (resized).jpg

Scatman LE.