These prices are a cash grab by Stern...who if you ask me Gary is about to check out of his role and retire 9k for a LE is a cash grab, SLE at 15k cash grab, Premium is also a cash grab. If you ask me Gary is grabbing all he can for his retirement exit which I bet will happen sooner then later. These prices are absolutely not good for pinball to be operated or collected...for the manufacture sure in the short term but they are running out of runway on the longevity of this cash grab and their short term gains might just lead to long term losses. As far as non pinball games costing 15k, those games ROI is much shorter then pinballs currently...apples to oranges.

Want to know how we already know it's bad for pinball? There were three major games unveiled (Dialed In, Batman '66, Aliens) at Expo this year and the biggest talking point is the price of the games. We're not focused on cost over content. Good job, guys. Way to go.

I think everyone will agree that, you don't know.

$5000 will always be my limit on a game. I know that means I'll never own certain sought after titles or anymore NIB games. I'm ok with that.

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I have bought every new stern for the past several years except wwe. I will not spend this much on nib however. Gble was most likely my last new stern.

Same here. It was my 8th Stern and my 3rd Stern NIB. It was also the last.

Pinball is already on the low end of the earnings in the coin-op world. Pushers, pool tables, and others all out earn pinball. Raising the price means fewer on location, fewer new players who will someday be collectors.

It's bad for the hobby.

Great point.

Probably the next step is financing or leasing.

Ya, it sure is good for pinball that practically nobody outside of the USA can afford a new game. Should do wonders for the hobby!

I've had a lot of games come and go. My last new games were: STLE, AMH and Full Throttle. With current prices, I have adjusted my buying. My next new game, if I buy new, will likely be Spooky or an Heighway Alien kit. Those appear to be my best bang for the buck options.

I love the Stern and JJP products. This is not a criticism of them. For example, I would love to have BM66 or Dialed In. I'm just not willing, at least today, to pay the asking price.

The problem is people are paying it batman les/sles are sold out.

The problem I see coming is it increases the second hand market, wich will reduce the amount of new people coming into the hobby due to high prices (which usually start on lower end titles) which will make your used games harder to sell for higher prices, which makes buying the new games and keeping all the manufacurers building less sustainible.

It will be interesting to see how many eg bm66 prems sell at that price. It may be the rarest version of all..

One of the overseas fellas said that's not the case over there. I can see that with the increase they enjoy.

How do you expect Rodgers to resign Bautista without doing this?

That is so true. Just the price of B66 has already conditioned a lot of people to think that $7k is a good price for a game. I kind of want Stern to sell Aerosmith Pro at the price and see the reaction.

I wonder if Stern is trying to price out low end home owners to make them go play location pinball. That would be an interesting strategy. I'm not sure how well it works with pinballs on route so few and far between.

There is no way that double the "normal" prices can be good for pinball period. It's a race to the bottom and it will effect not only the smaller manufacturers but also the suppliers. Think about how many hundreds of companies will be hurt and close when games are not able to be purchased by the people who actually buy the machines. Not to mention the route people. Less games in the wild will mean less non owners exposed to pinball and less new faces. Personally I think Gary is setting himself up for a buy out and is trying to put as much money on the books to leverage a bigger sale and to hell with anyone after he cashes out and hauls ass.

Sad but true.

What it needs is more competition and for someone to come in and undercut JJP and Stern by a significant margin.

They're definitely leaving room for it. I think Stern is thinking they have that covered with their Spider-Man the Pin.

Don't get mad at Stern and JJP!

Get mad at the, "Gotta have it, this is my dream pin, this might be the next MM" idiots who have caused these price increases!

Why do people feel this combination of entitlement and betrayal when they are priced out of a luxury good? Is it just basic human envy?

All the pin owners should get together in their local areas and rent shared spaces, and then invite everyone over so us poor folk what cain't afford none of these here "spendy pins" can get a play or two in.

Pinball welfare? I don't think that's going to catch on.

I think the official term is "arcade".

Because as a pinball hobbyist I feel like I am part of a community- and if you've been a part of that community, you feel like you've supported the manufacturers through their hard times and have helped keep the hobby alive and grow it, and now that things are good, they are slapping you in the face with obvious cash grabbing, money grubbing and moves that are likely to hurt pinball by isolating a large group of people that used to be able to buy machines but now can't/won't.

And let's be straight up here- we are not being "priced out" like you suggest, that means we can't afford them. I would say we are more aware that this product is overpriced and that we are being taken advantage of. If anyone is showing entitlement and/or betrayal, it's the pinball companies shafting the pinball community IMO.

There's also the irony that pinball started out as something that literally anyone with a couple quarters could play, and now, unless you're lucky and live in a good place, you either have to be on good terms with a collector or be a collector.

I have no problem with someone spending more money than I am willing to spend. That not really any of my business or anyone else's. I do agree that the companies are out pricing themselves. Time will tell.

Perhaps it makes more financial sense for them to sell far fewer games but at significantly higher pricing, targeting a more wealthy clientele. Maybe they are experimenting with price points to find the sweet spot that makes most sense long term.

To what the market will bear. And the market (me) is not accepting this. I've spent over $150,000 on new in box pinball machines, both stern & JJP in the last two years. No more.

I'm out.

what it comes down to, is that JJP and Stern are going to fawk themselves royally and soon.

I know lots that buy NIB games, and the shit they are pulling is leaving a bad taste in everyones mouth. People will eventually say, fawk you, and not buy. Lots of slow learners on here, so takes longer than it should have. The NIB buyers around here have said they are not buying either of these games because of this price hike. You would think they would sell for more reasonable prices, so more people buy, you get your name out there more and your products. Nope...greed..greed ...greed. THey will learn soon enough they have pushed the envelope to far.

9k for dialed in. 9k for batman. Why?

Alien is $6500. The drop in kit for full throttle is around 4k. For 10.5 you can get 2 games just as good NIB. There are other choices out there and people will start moving towards them when you piss them off.

it's not rocket science to figure out what cost to manufacture is. If you have worked in the manufacturing realm anytime in your life or have worked purchasing, it's fairly easy to figure out costs for things. If you do not have the ability to have this hindsight, quit accusing the people that do. I'm sorry you do not have the insight to figure out things. But I can guarantee you, that any machine at 9k, is working at about 300% profit give or take 5%.

Tron, LOTR, WOZ, you get the idea.

So the market needs to tick off their entire customer base and price most of their customers out of the market to move forward? Here is the problem. At some point people are going to sell these games on the secondary market. And the number of people that can buy them will also be smaller due to costs, so all if a sudden losses will increase. The thousands extra Stern took away from flippers by increasing prices will come right out of game resale value.

Manufacture prices don't dictate sale price, but the customer does. When were paying $3400 shipped to your door for NIB games in less than 8 years ago. It's hard not to feel gouged and taken advantage of, when they keep trying to increase the price by 10% every year. Inflation is only 4%, so eventually they will out inflate themselves and piss off the customer base in the process. Once you do that, people stop buying and if you piss them off enough, they quit for good. Then your company is in trouble, because you pushed the envelope to far.

Pissing off the majority of you customer base by making an unwarranted large price increase is not a good thing IMO. They had a good thing going making sensible, small increases in price that people were willing to accept.

Uh, no.

I don't think I would have owned the number of machines in my collector history if increasing machines prices was good for pinball.

If games always matched inflation with no devaluation of a title based on age alone not considering actual physical condition, there would be no secondary market, nor increasing number of collectors.

The pinball hobby continues to be built on the backs of used game sales in the full scope (whether HUO, reconditioned, fully restored, HEP, or projects), not new games for the time being. In the future this may change (if reproduction parts become unavailable again), but this has not occurred at this time, and at the current pricing will not change immediately.

IF the new prices are what Stern and JJP need to sell the games at to cover costs then they have miscalculated their budgets and as companies will die.

The price hike hasn't been a slow increase. It has been brutal and that does not indicate a larger BOM cost and manufacturing costs. It indicates a price gouge that will ultimately backfire.