Logistics nightmare with the signed apron card

Ditto. Ordered mine direct from JJ Monday, email confirmation received and CC not billed to date. Contacted my bank also and made sure they were aware of the pending charge of 12503.

JJP is screwing their distributors the main distributor for the North East has never charged shipping for JJP or Stern games. They are charging shipping on G&R so JJP better hope they still have distributor support when it comes time to sell toy story CE games

It has EVERYTHING to do with predicting demand. If the CE for the previous 3 or 4 games never sold out, and you PREDICTED this game would sell roughly similar, then you wouldn't have taken steps to pre-allocate with distributors, and you certainly wouldn't have limited the number of units sold through your first party channel.

In the end though, we agree they didn't take the right steps and here we are. I just don't think they are bad/stupid for it (e.g. suggesting a 10 yr old could have done better), because I see good/smart people end up in similar situations all the time.

This didn't start with G&R. Been going on more than a year. They wanted the distributors to be the same on pricing. No more free shipping. No doubling warranties. Etc.

LTG : )

Last I heard they can do 30 per day. No idea on the plus minus with the new factory setup but they should bust through these rather fast.

Another thing I really don't care about
Just give me a 2nd different CE version with the lock mech, and all the fancy trimmings minus the signature card (or a reproduction signature card)
and I am fine with it

Based on the pre-release pictures, it sort of looked like they had produced quite a few and had them ready to ship even before Monday's announcement. So also wonder how many they had ready to go on day 1...

I'm not sure I agree with this. The problem is that guys were told, "Yes, we have a CE for you, thanks for the deposit". Meanwhile, there were still CE's available on JJP's website. So these guys could have bought directly through JJP, but they were told they were good to go.

Here's an analogy: There are two lines for concert tickets. You're standing in one line waiting for these rare tickets to become available. You get to the front counter and hand over your money. Tickets are handed back to you. You're good to go! Meanwhile, now there is nobody in the other line, and there are still plenty of tickets available in that line. You think nothing of it. You go home happy, only to find out later that your tickets are fake. If you knew this, you would have stood in the other line.

So I follow your logic if the fact was that you just didn't get in line early enough and showed up when the tickets were sold out. But this isn't what happened.

That’s what Jack tried with Dialed In. I think they got less than 100 orders or something so they rounded it up to 150 anyway.

So many problems with this launch that are easy to resolve in hindsight. At the end of the day JJP did f*ck up, but it’s easy to see why they f*cked up. They are human, and as long as they learn next time, they’re not fools.

Just for the record, I can tell you for a fact not all direct website orders are being honored. In our case they took the order and issued a confirmation and then referred them all to the Australian distributor. So on top of the distributors own list, he now has to deal with the direct orders.

Yep. The unanticipated demand. This happens with other products as well.

Do you think distributors would have agreed ahead of time to buy these amounts of CEs at full distributor price no matter what and take the chance of getting stuck with them if the game and reveal was a flop? The pendulum swings both ways. When you are not required to unconditionally buy a certain number of whatever comes next, then there is little merit to the complaint that you didn't get as many as you hoped for when there is this type of demand for the item. If a distributor was formally committed to receive a certain set number and did not, that's a different story - but I do not believe the facts have not lined up that way as of yet. And kudos to JJP for any efforts to remove the duplicate orders.

solve it like i said before, produce another 100 to keep all parties happy
or sell these upgrades the CE version has to LE buyers

I agree there is a market out there for ce likeness, I would totally take one since I missed out on the initial ce order. I am not getting an LE after thinking about it. I am waiting to see how this shakes out......come on JJP a 11.5k rocket queen version with the ball lock and speaker top hat topper you can do it !

That's stupid. If you buy a ticket and it turns out fake that's a crime. Retailers only put your name on a list. Nobody lost a dime or get an empty box. One thing retailers should of not done is make any promises or give any indications that once you put in the deposit you were guaranteed the game. Maybe in the future it will be a lottery system where everyone has a chance.

It's fine.... with 500 out there they will start popping up on marketplace in 2021....I'm in no hurry, if at all

Congrats JJP on this much needed and well deserved success

The biggest lesson to be learnt here: don’t make the top end super limited version too different than the next model down. Just make it limited with some minor cosmetic changes and a couple of relevant signatures.

That’s definitely one Stern have mastered. Elvira: Piece of couch +$5000. B66SLE: Foil artwork $5000. Beatles Platinum: literally just the colour +$10000.

You might not care about the autograph, but GNR fans do. Just like how GNR fans aren't going to care about the pinball part

Gotta please all masters

JJP is fine. They don't have to do anything or make another CE or another non-limited version with the apron mech.

So the problem is either that a)the distributor took a deposit on a game that the distributor hoped or thought could be obtained but didn't communicate the potential uncertainty to the buyer; or b) the distributor took a deposit on a game that JJP confirmed it would provide to the distributor.

Seems as if the crowd is mostly convinced its b); I am not. Sure, the history of CE availability may have led distributors to believe that an endless quantity could be obtained, but a failure to obtain a formal commitment before selling - if that is what happened - is a risk they took when not fully advising those giving the deposits.

I thought POTC CE sold out day one at Pinball Expo. They only made 200 though.

I think they didn't sell out, they just stopped making them.

JJP did sorta predict huge demand. It's the most CE's theyve ever had. They knew it would be very popular. They just didn't realize it would be that popular

I agree that predicting demand is always an issue, but in this particular case the shit show JJP created has nothing to do with that. They clearly thought about demand because they came up with the 500 unit number. What they didn't do is manage their distribution channel, which is a major business 101 screw up. I didn't say a 10 year could do better what I said was my 10 year could have figured out the math (direct versus distributor allocation numbers). These procedures should always be in place, and past history is no indication of that process....I guess JJP is laughing to bank (good for them), but in doing so they pissed off a lot of loyal customers.

Sounds like nirvana and something worth shooting for... Pre-order $12k before seeing the game.... We're almost there! I mean, it's pinball, what could go wrong!?

Remember when 10k by Christmas was a joke?

It's still a joke, just different people are laughing now.

I have been thinking about this and first I thought: it would have been easy to prevent this by letting the distributors know in advance how many they would get. Easy peasy. But is it ?? What if they allocate 10 to distro A and then 7 to distro B and so on, and then distro A sells 5 and distro B sells 15 ??

That would give also a lot of skewed perception. So in a way JJP did a great job of making something that a lot of people want, but now they get burned for making such a great machine ??

Also I strongly believe after reading this whole thread that the distributors just oversold and assumed they would get enough machines. You know what they say about assuming anything.... I do not see any distributors here or anywhere else posting their story. Says enough.

Limited is limited. Your great distributor only did what they want to do the most, sell machines. I really respect the ones that told people to wait and put them on a list. If they all did that, this thread would not have been here.

I agree the distributors should not have sold more than they knew they were getting.
I would also have JJP consider to move to only selling to distributors in the future.

Fair enough, but the problem of allocation would stay the same. The whole situation just proved that there is no prediction possible. Wonka was also very much hyped up, but anyone can buy a Wonke CE today if they want. Market is just too small to get big data on it to predict stuff better.

Please, just stop already.

You assume JJP created a mess, you don’t know that and you are just guessing. You also don’t appear to know how the distributor/manufacture terms or relationships work.

Any distribution network with a manufacturer has different and specific rules for allocations from cars to yes, even pinball. Obviously, the more one sells, the more allocations they get. Another factor might be previous terms. I know some manufacturers push a product onto a distributor, if a distributor refuses product, a penalty might be the loss of future allocations.

I would be inclined to believe this is more of a distributor problem than manufacture. Bottom line is the CE was over sold. Finding out who to accurately and factually blame remains to be shown. The only way a product is oversold is when a seller doesn’t have enough product, but continues to promise a product they don’t have or can’t get. It is possible a lot of sales were made on speculation of perceived allocation. I would think the only way JJP is at fault is if they made allocations with distributors then reduced that number. None of that information has come to light at this point.

The CE did exactly what it was designed to do...stand out, sell out and be highly desired. I wanted a CE too and didn’t get one. As cool as it all is, I hope they don’t degrade the CE with the same options on some other variation of GNR. I do hope future CEs will have higher production numbers.

They were before Expo ended.

Though come Monday morning after guys got back home and told the wife what they bought. There were some cancellations.

LTG : )

That is only your personal perception as you did not get one. If you would have gotten one, you would probably also be crying wolf if JJP would make more than the 500. In case there is a limitation on a product, you will always piss off the people that want one but not get one.

The purpose of making a limited edition is only to sell more at a higher price.
And this time, when you read all the complains in this thread from people frustrated because they couldn't get one, it worked 100 %.

So congratulations to JJP marketing.

GNR LE being streamed live...

https://www.twitch.tv/whattheflip

all i want is the sound bar and undercab lights as an option for the LE. i like the LE art better anyway.

Not really...I really could care less about the number of units or the price....I just like the overall package .... its really that simple

This too shall pass!

Soon we'll be seeing posts from all the CE buyers complaining about the quality of the playfield finish or this toy is bad or that mech doesn't work properly or the balls keep getting stuck and how dare they churn out this kind of quality for $12,500!!!

Theres always a silver lining I guess

my goodness man, please stop or go away. you are on the serious side of butt hurt over a pinball machine. you do realize there will be some CE's on the second hand market not to long down the road?

finally some freaking common sense around here

30/day. Thats a lot. Eric said they been working a couple of weeks getting the first 100 ready.

How long will it take them to make 500 games? I bet a lot of these guys will lose interest when they see the next shiny thing.

I would guess and hope atleast 3 months.

What I heard said is, they never gave distros allocation numbers on the conference call that was 2 hours prior to the launch. So if your distro told you he was getting a certain number that was an assumption on their part. Sure JJP should have done this differently but there was no intentional deception on their part.

Great post..very true. I wanted a CE...via a local disty. Didn't get one. I'll take the LE. And be very happy. No one knows for sure who flubbed this up....did distys take orders based on assumptions of allocations versus a contractual agreement about allocations? Who knows? Each side will control the narrative.

But what is also true here is that now customers wonder if they should buy JJP games direct or through a distributor in the future? If JJP wants to leverage a disty channel in the future, they will have to restore faith to distributors and to customers that they're committed to it. Otherwise distributors will stop selling JJP entirely and customers will go direct. Which is fine too if the distributors aren't adding value to either party. JJP may just become the Dell of Pinballs. Which may not be a bad thing either...not sure. Hope my LE arrives soon...!

That means the true price of an G&R LE is $9800 all other JJP games localy have sold with free shipping so that $9500 ment $9500

You are way too emotional about this. It's a toy for crying out loud.

Elvira run of 50 bat66sle run of 80 JJP CE run of 500

JJP GNR CE $3000-$7000 cheaper.

Not sure if this was already posted, but I chatted with JJP briefly on the phone. They said that someone is going to call to collect the deposit.