I understand that Stern doesn't post here but they do monitor pinside. I would think it would be in their interest to contact the OP and say 'sorry new PF is on the way' which then gets posted here and everyone says well shit happens but at least they fixed it. Instead these things seem to drag on for a long time.

One thing you may not realise is that Stern distributors outside of the US can be a whole different beast to deal with. Many have a monopoly and that can lead to premium pricing and poor support as they know there is not much you can do about it.

It is difficult to say a game is for 'home' or for 'location' as that can change over the life of a game. I own two HUO sterns, both will be routed in the next year for about a year each. So new they didn't go out but they will go out. I had a WOZ at home for two years, it is on location now. I will pick up other NIBs and keep them at home for a while and then site them for a year. After a year I may keep it or may sell it who knows where they will go if I sell them.

The point is, as Vid said earlier, it all depends how you look frame the numbers as to how things work out.

Buying an 8k pin is not as risky as it seems. You don't need to make all the money back on it but if you spend 8k make 4k on location and sell it for 5k you are ahead plus you got to play the game and introduce it to others.

I have had my games out for over a year now and the numbers are quite nice, a fair bit better than my example.

Edit: I received this as an unsolicited email I am not sure exactly what question our distributor asked Stern but I do know people here have been raising concerns about ghosting with our distributor.

Here is an email our distributor sent out from Stern on this. Nothing to worry about this is just playfield dimpling.

You have told me that some customers are concerned about dimples in the game playfields.

As noted on the cover of our game manuals, each pinball machine has unique characteristics that make it a one of a kind American made product. Each machine will have variations in appearance resulting from differences in the machine’s particular wood parts, individual silk screened art and mechanical assemblies.

The wood utilized by us and our former competitors for playfields over the last decades has been made to the same specifications, as has the “hardcoat” coating. The routing, sanding, finishing, etc., processes utilized to manufacture playfields over those decades have not changed.

Some dimpling of playfields is to be expected. I have seen this throughout my pinball career. A steel ball is harder than wood and its coating, and the softer materials will always yield. The coating was developed a few decades ago to protect the playfield from the ball wearing through the art to bare wood as was typical in older games. The coating was not developed to prevent dimpling. Although referred to as a “hardcoat”, the coating actually was developed to be flexible enough to flex with the playfield as the wood expands and contracts with changes in the humidity and wood moisture content. Further, too hard a coating will crack during playfield assembly at the point of part insertion and rollover slot fluting. With the thicker application as desired for collector models, the coating itself will show more dimples, and the desired higher gloss of the coating makes dimples more visible. The layout of some game designs may result in more dimples in a particular area, and the art design of some playfield areas may make dimples more noticeable. My experience has shown over time the surface will level with game play, reducing dimple visibility.

I refer you to discussions on the Pinside forum. I am attaching addresses for posts relative to a Funhouse and an original Medieval Madness, confirming that playfields will dimple but level with play.

The Pinside posts I refer to can be found at:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/my-funhouse-beauty-queen-has-dimples#post-999911
and
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/playfield-dimple-reality-check

Thank you for bringing your customers’ concern to my attention. Please assure your customers that initial dimpling is normal in pinball and is within our quality parameters.

Best regards,

Gary

P.S. Ghostbusters is ranked #1 pinball in both the August RePlay Magazine poll and the August Playmeter Magazine poll.

Gary Stern
President
Stern Pinball, Inc.
2001 Lunt Avenue
Elk Grove Village, IL 60007-5605 USA
Tel: +1-708-786-7036 Fax: +1-708-345-7813
Mobile: +1-847-278-1398
[email protected]
www.sternpinball.com

To be fair I don't know exactly what our distributor asked Stern so it is possible he mentioned dimpling to Stern not ghosting. They are clearly reading pinside though.

I received this as an unsolicited email.

Hey Luke has CC said anything to you about warranting against ghosting?

Did you get a response or just the thing he sent out today? I know others have asked as well. I was all set to order one but CC was a bit to vague on when it would arrive and I was going to be overseas for a while so decided to wait till I was back. I may still get one but it will definitely not be until things have calmed and I am convinced they have this solved.

I don't see a need to rush this and I'm not so in love with the game I am prepared to take the depreciation hit if I get a bad one. I would route this for a little while and I don't think it would hold up.

Others have received it too and mentioned it in this thread. It is very real! Our distributor tends to forward things like this on like this. Hope I don't get him in trouble.

EDIT: Screenshot of email deleted. Point was made.

Nope because as we all know social media has been filled with concerns about dimpling recently LOL.

^^Yes!^^

I am a small time operator. I was going to buy a GB and would have if the manufacturing delays had not delayed me. As it stands I am not touching any NIB stern until I am really convinced they have things sorted. I don't keep my games out on location for more than a year but in that time I would hope it to have many thousands of plays and I can't see these ghosting playfields standing up to this. Yes I could add a new PF but that is time and money and I should not have to do it. I would expect a sizeable discount. As things stand overseas buyers already pay a premium to US prices, having to worry about doing a PF swap too on a 'new game' is way too far. Stern needs to stand behind their product or price it in a way that buyers are willing to take the risk.

If they acknowledge it publicly they will have to fix it which will cost them. I suspect they are weighing the cost of fixing it (fessing up) vs the cost of lost sales by pretending it is not a problem. A lot of people are still ignorant about this or will ignore it. If they are still getting orders my guess is they will not admit there is a problem. They will only do so if it hits their bottom line in declining sales. They know all they need to do is say "star wars' and people will go nuts.

I would LOVE it if they did this. It would be the difference between me buying a NIB stern or not. It would cost them a fortune though, particularly shipping for overseas buyers.

Before you do it Panzer let it go. This is not a JJP thread it is a stern PF thread. Please don't turn this into jjp vs stern.

You're not helping!

I still want to see what Stern does for a ghosting PF and how they handle this for people outside of the USA. KPG's needed fixing that was a given. What happens if a PF that is ghosting a little now starts getting cracking clear in another 9 months?

As per the other comments this is NOT normal wear. My metallica has 2k plus games on it and is just fine. Stern needs to make this right.

The program seems to be to fix the game of anyone being too loud and vocal that might hurt Stern sales. Everyone else can just suck it.

As to the question earlier as to what years are OK only Stern knows. I don't think I would buy a 2016 stern at this stage until it is at least a year old and I knew it had been played a fair bit (1k+) and I could not see any signs of ghosting or clear cracking or lifting. Even then for a Metallica or something they have been making for a while I would get an older one.

Has anyone outside of North America heard from Stern that they will be getting a PF swap? Just wondering if the programme is world wide or not.

That has to be covered or they will take a huge sales hit overseas. Please let us know what they do for you.

So to summarise what I think the 4k plus posts say. Stern does seem to have a programme of swapping PFs in place for North America for people with problems on 3+ inserts. Outside of North America no one has heard anything yet.

That right?

Have to disagree here! Why would any decent opp want to throw money away? They don't keep games forever and a munted playfield will take a lot of value off a game.

Why is it that people get called haters if they criticise stern? I am sitting next to three of my sterns right now. They have made some great games but it is no secret that they are trying to squeeze every dollar out that they can. We sort of accept some of it (pegs instead of service rails, metal back boxes, latched lockdown bars) with grumbling but then they take it too far sometimes (decals that fall off, PF issues, software fixes for mechanical problems, and incomplete code).

Those are all real things. When I criticise stern I do it because I want them to sort their shit out because I know they will come out with games that interest me but that interest quickly flags with ever increasing prices and questions about what exactly I will end up with.

Stern is primarily producing a consumer product and need to start considering how that changes the way they need to operate. Or could be there is so much demand out there people will buy whatever they pump out but somehow I doubt that.

As a comparison, JJP sent me a free part including shipping for my 3 year old WOZ becasue they redesigned a part that was prone to failure. It was a small part, probably would have been <10 with shipping but that bought a lot of good will with me (don't get me started on my Metallica DMD...). I trust JJP enough I bought TH knowing it had incomplete code and was a build that needed some fixes but I am confident it will get sorted. I don't have that level of confidence with Stern.

So call me a hater but, for a while at least, I am also a lost source of revenue for Stern and I suspect I am not alone.

Deadly serious about making money!

You have made a couple references to Stern using cheaper wood. What is this based on?

Dude he quoted you and included a link to YOUR post and PF was made after that date. But I guess you are saying that post/date was wrong and it is a newer fixed date. LOL You sound like the world is ending on this date crowd who keep changing their minds and setting a new date after the old one passed..

People want this fixed. It is your constant posting its fixed that is getting a response here. You go around calling people haters and then when someone puts up facts you just ignore it. Jeesh.

chambahz was pretty much in every thread saying everything was fixed and now he seems to have disappeared. Hmmm....

I seriously wonder how many accounts here are shills for people with skin in the game. Manufacturers, distributors, etc. Just like all of the JJP is selling piles of dialed in posts yet the buyers are not people I know or the regular posters here.

Way to be a downer RD Back to the 90s for me

Don't blame you with that space and collection! Roller Games is 1990 so let me know when you want to dump it for a proper game

THIS!!! You should not need to put mylar or PF protectors on brand new HUO games to stop the PF from being damaged. I find it hard to believe people seem to be accepting this as normal.

Yep it is a test game, something stern seems to have stopped doing as it is probably more profitable for them to let the customers do the testing.

My WOZ has well over 7k plays and the PF is good. It is not a mirco PF but seemed to be one of the non problem ones, it has mylar. There is some dimpling though but it is getting smoothed out over time It has been playing better with more play. It does take a fair amount of adjustments (not breakages just tweaks) to keep it playing as it should. Biggest issue lately is that with more play a number of switches are too sensitive so I find I have switches closing too easily. I will put up pictures in a few months when it has been on location for a year and I rotate it home.

When I look at some of my older games they must have had 10's of thousands of plays and the PFs still look great. A PF should look pretty perfect with 10k games unless you are using bad balls.

Edit: ExtremePibnball you just made me very nervous!

Just wait a while until you can play it and see how things work out. It is not like they are not going to be available in a year.

For me the issue is you should not have to turn all the settings down and mylar and cliffy everything. Stern's quality has slipped while their prices have gone up. Totally fair to call them out on it. Stern needs to fix the quality or drop the prices. I'm cool with either but not with where they are at.

Dimples are fine. Clear lifting, cracking or ghosting is not. None of my games (Stern, WMS, Sega, JJP) from 1000s to 10,000+ games have clear lifting like some of the recent sterns.

Resale is quite important for operators. It is not uncommon to buy a NIB, route it for 6-12 months then sell it. If the PF gets thrashed in that time it is going to cost you.