It is 100% refundable. Personally speaking I have waited long enough for WOZLE and don't feel like jumping thru all those hoops again for Hobbit. Especially for only a $500 discount. We got a $1000 discount to put up with this for WOZLE so it somewhat made it worthwhile. But for $500 discount only I am out. I can pretty much make that up daytrading with the money in the meanwhile and then choose to buy the game or not when it is done (or when someone else is tired of it). Additionally, I am tired of these new game prices skyrocketing and am somewhat drawing my line at $7000 for a new game. All this insanity has to stop somewhere, and it will not stop as long as we all keep blindly buying games to ensure we get a copy of the newest LE. Example: Avengers LE. Nothing in it to make it worth that kind of money. JMHO....

That is another valid point to this conversation. I guess my biggest fear at this point is a potential bubble when supply outstrips demand. With two "big" manufacturers, and numerous boutique manufacturers combined with the high quality guys doing professional restorations it would seem that we would run out of buyers for all these games when the price gets up to $8000+. I just don't feel comfortable having games with that much cash tied up in them. Every bubble bursts eventually. If these games start sitting in stock at these prices it will be a sign that the bubble is starting to deflate.

If they were not making "much money" off these machines they would not be in business. Stern was making money/staying alive at their previous pricing. When Jack jumped and advertised his price at the "insane pre-order price" of $6500 Stern immediately upped their price by over $1000. Thats more than a 20% increase overnight.
Just sayin....

If you are lucky enough to buy the right LE machines in advance with a blindfold over your eyes you are correct. All it take is for a buyer to buy one turd to blow that theory. It kinda puts us in the situation to having to buy every LE game that comes out to cover your losses on the occasional turd. The shame of it is that the games are not turds, just the code. Lets all hope that Stern does fix these problems and compete in quality as well as price in the future. If they will not match the quality they will have to provide a good game at a lower price. We might have the start of a JC Penny VS Wallmart thing going on here eventually, because Stern has a long way to go to match JJP's quality. But for some reason they seem to think they can command the same price.